Events
July 2022 Workshop
The Japanese Counter-Enlightenment
Time: Monday, July 11, 2022, from 5:00PM to 6:30PM (JST)
Place: Osaka University Toyonaka Campus, Nakaniwa Kaigishitsu (Onsite & Online Hybrid)
Languages: The talk and comments will be in Japanese, followed by discussion held in both Japanese and English.
The registration period for this event has ended.
We speak of an early Meiji enlightenment, of a Japanese enlightenment. We wonder at its sweeping, revolutionary force. And we know that no historical force, let alone a force of such world-historical consequence, can fail to generate countervailing energies. Why, then, do we demur at the notion of a Japanese counter-enlightenment, one contemporaneous to, not chronologically following from, the revolutionary enlightenment of the 1870s? This presentation thinks theoretically about this problem. Was there a Japanese counter-enlightenment? What do we imply by invoking the term? What do we elucidate? What do we obfuscate? Who cares?
