Events

Time: Monday, January 13, 2025, from 2:00PM to 5:30PM (JST)
Venue: DAICEL Studio, 1st floor of Science Commons Bld. (Center for Education in Liberal Arts and Sciences), Osaka University Toyonaka Campus (and online via Zoom)
Languages: Presentation will be in English. Comments and Discussion will be in both English and Japanese.

Registration: Please register from the URL or QR code on the flyer.

【Presentation】
David L. HOWELL (Robert K. and Dale J. Weary Professor of Japanese History, Havard University)

【Comments】
John Patrick PORTER (Associate Professor, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies)

【Pannels】
Sean O’Reilly（Akita International University)
TSUDA Taro（Meiji University）
IKEDA Maho（Tokyo Metropolitan University）
SUZUKI Keishun（Osaka University）
John D’Amico（Tohoku University）

【Abstract】
With his editorship of volume two of the New Cambridge History of Japan, Professor David L. Howell wrests the concept of “early modernity” away from the squeeze of historians of Europe. “[W]e East Asianists can tell our colleagues in Renaissance-Reformation history to keep their paws off our historical era, ” he writes. “Early modernity is ours!” He turns—he overturns—the historiographical tables: It is not just that our Japanese kinsei is akin to their European early modernity. It is that we came up with the notion first. It is our model built from our own history. Everyone else is welcome to borrow it, maybe.

Does Professor Howell’s and his colleagues’ refashioning of global history through Japanese early modernity work? If it does, should we admire the new outfit? If it doesn’t, should we exhale in relief? Professor Howell joins an intellectually and methodologically diverse group of young scholars for robust discussion on these and more themes. We are delighted to welcome him to Handai.