Rethinking Japanese Studies: Eurocentrism and the Asia-Pacific Region

by Kaori Okano (Editor), Yoshio Sugimoto (Editor)

Overview

Japanese Studies has provided a fertile space for non-Eurocentric analysis for a number of reasons. It has been embroiled in the long-running internal debate over the so-called Nihonjinron, revolving around the extent to which the effective interpretation of Japanese society and culture requires non-Western, Japan-specific emic concepts and theories. This book takes this question further and explores how we can understand Japanese society and culture by combining Euro-American concepts and theories with those that originate in Japan. Because Japan is the only liberal democracy to have achieved a high level of capitalism outside the Western cultural framework, Japanese Studies has long provided a forum for deliberations about the extent to which the Western conception of modernity is universally applicable. Furthermore, because of Japan’s military, economic and cultural dominance in Asia at different points in the last century, Japanese Studies has had to deal with the issues of Japanocentrism as well as Eurocentrism, a duality requiring complex and nuanced analysis.

This book identifies variations amongst Japanese Studies academic communities in the Asia-Pacific and examines the extent to which relatively autonomous scholarship, intellectual approach or theories exist in the region. It also evaluates how studies on Japan in the region contribute to global Japanese Studies and explores their potential for formulating concrete strategies to unsettle Eurocentric dominance of the discipline.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781351654951
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	08/04/2017
Series:	Routledge Contemporary Japan Series
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	246
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Kaori Okano is Professor in Asian Studies/Japanese at La Trobe University, and the President of the Japanese Studies Association of Australia (2015–7).

Yoshio Sugimoto is Emeritus Professor at La Trobe University.

Table of Contents

List of figures and tables
List of contributors
Acknowledgements

Chapter 1 Rethinking ‘Eurocentrism’ and Area Studies: Japanese Studies in the Asia-Pacific

Chapter 2 Studying Japan as the ‘Other’: A Short History of Japanese Studies and Its Future

Chapter 3 Japanese Language Research: Kokugo as an Ideology, Nihongo as an Autonomous Global Scholarship?

Chapter 4 From ‘National’ Literature to Multicultural Literature in ‘Japanese’ Language?

Chapter 5 Development of Japanese Studies with a Southeast-Asian Perspective

Chapter 6 Japanese Studies in South Korea

Chapter 7 Australia’s View of Japan, as Seen from Japanese Studies

Chapter 8 Transnational Dialogues on Historical Issues Concerning East Asia: Collaborative Project to Write History Textbooks [China, Japan and South Korea]

Chapter 9 Whispering, Writing and Working across Borders: Practising Transnational History in East Asia

Chapter 10 Turning toward a Cosmopolitan Japanese Studies

Bibliography
Index

Editorial Reviews

'These chapters contain a key to understand not simply how to make Japanese Studies relevant to a world in which Japan may seem passé, but also how area studies might enable a transcendence of the constraints of Eurocentrism and provincial Anglo-American standards of academic judgment.'

Gordon Mathews, Professor of Anthropology, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong. Review in Social Science Japan, DOI: 10.1093/ssjj/jyy011

'Nonetheless,the book makes noteworthy contributions and contains some intriguing findings. It explores the origins, impact, and emerging alternatives to Eurocentrism in Japanese studies, largely within the Asia-Pacific region. Contributors also touch on issues of global knowledge production, the international stratification of academia, and Asia-Pacific scholarship, thus reaching beyond a narrow focus of Japanese studies within the Asia Pacific.'

W. Lawrence Neuman, Professor of Sociology, University of Wisconsin, USA. Review in Pacific Affairs: https://pacificaffairs.ubc.ca/book-reviews/rethinking-japanese-studies-eurocentrism-and-the-asia-pacific-region-edited-by-kaori-okano-and-yoshio-sugimoto/

‘Altogether, this volume offers a compelling, insightful, and often provocative array of perspectives on Japanese Studies in the contemporary Asia-Pacific region. The questions presented by each chapter in particular, and the entire volume in general, are pertinent to the Japanese Studies field as a whole, and to the field of Area Studies at large.’

Rotem Kowner, Professor of Asian Studies, University of Haifa, Israel. Review in Japanese Studies, DOI: 10.1080/10371397.2018.1546117

'This valuable anthology invites us to refl ect on the continuing reality that Japan studies globally has been dominated by Anglophone scholarship, with key publications in English—and with the West often serving as the primary point of comparison. It offers a window into the field of Japan studies in South Korea, Southeast Asia, Australia, and Japan itself and showcases collaborative research projects that study ransnational interplay among East Asian nations. [...] The critical framework embraced in the introductory and concluding essays by Kaori Okano and Yoshio Sugimoto draws from post–cold war and postcolonial reflections on U.S. global hegemony and the postcolonial critique of Eurocentric narratives of modernity'

Amy Borovoy, Professor of East Asian Studies, Princeton University, USA. Review in The Journal of Japanese Studies, DOI: 10.1353/jjs.2019.0039

'These chapters contain a key to understand not simply how to make Japanese Studies relevant to a world in which Japan may seem passé, but also how area studies might enable a transcendence of the constraints of Eurocentrism and provincial Anglo-American standards of academic judgment.' - Gordon Mathews,Professor of Anthropology, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong

'Nonetheless,the book makes noteworthy contributions and contains some intriguing findings. It explores the origins, impact, and emerging alternatives to Eurocentrism in Japanese studies, largely within the Asia-Pacific region. Contributors also touch on issues of global knowledge production, the international stratification of academia, and Asia-Pacific scholarship, thus reaching beyond a narrow focus of Japanese studies within the Asia Pacific.' - W. Lawrence Neuman, Professor of Sociology, University of Wisconsin, USA

'This valuable anthology invites us to refl ect on the continuing reality that Japan studies globally has been dominated by Anglophone scholarship, with key publications in English—and with the West often serving as the primary point of comparison. It offers a window into the field of Japan studies in South Korea, Southeast Asia, Australia, and Japan itself and showcases collaborative research projects that study ransnational interplay among East Asian nations.' - Amy Borovoy, Professor of East Asian Studies, Princeton University, USA

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