Policy Studies Forum II / Cultural Interaction in East-Asia: Problematics and Possibilities in the Twenty-First Century

Chuo University Korakuen Campus, Tokyo, 28 Sept. 2004 ~ 11 Jan. 2005, building 3, 11th floor, room 31112, Tuesdays 6:10~

Speakers:

***

Among the consequences of globalisation has been ‘the reaffirmation of regional identity’, Kofi Annan wrote in his 1999 Report of the Secretary-General on the Work of the United Nations. Referring specifically to the financial crisis in East Asia, and echoing a body of scholarship that has emerged across disciplines in the social and human sciences, Annan suggested that ‘the challenges of globalization are too great for governments and international organizations to deal with on their own’, and called for strategies to ‘engage with [the problems of] globalization’ that include ‘enhanced cooperation’ among regional institutions and civil societies.*

This Forum will take such observations as a starting point, and explore the difficulties and possibilities of the emergence of an East-Asian identity and civil society in the twenty-first century. The focus will be the field of culture, and the particular role of Japan in the formation of an East-Asian regionalism. Among the questions we shall address are

1. What is East-Asian civilization / culture / identity?

2. How is a regional identity formed? What is the role of culture in such a formation?

3. What might be the fate of an East-Asian identity in a ‘globalized’ twenty-first century?

4. Is a regional identity predominantly grounded in history and culture or in the construction of boundaries designed to exclude an other or others?

5. Who or what is the other of Japanese or East-Asian identity?

6. To what degree do perceptions of art or literary or media images help to construct or to deconstruct a regional identity? To what degree is such an identity symbolic rather than material and territorial?

7. What are the current and potential cultural dynamics in East Asia, and what forces encourage or inhibit them?

In working toward answers to these questions the Forum will be organized around seven central themes:

1. Narratives of community and the construction of identity

2. The geography of culture

3. Nationalism and regionalism in East Asia

4. Japan and China

5. Japan and Korea

6. The culture of ASEAN Plus Three

7. Becoming East Asian and East-Asian Becoming

Background reading:

Birch, David, Tony Schirato, and Sanjay Srivastava. 2001. Asia: Cultural Politics in the Global Age. New York: Palgrave.

Camroux, David, and Jean-Luc Domenach, eds. 1997. Imagining Asia: The Construction of an Asian Regional Identity. London: Routledge.

Chen, Kuan-Hsing, ed. 1998. Trajectories: Inter-Asia Cultural Studies. London: Routledge.

Clammer, John. 1997. Contemporary Urban Japan: A Sociology of Consumption. Oxford: Blackwell.

----------. 1995. Difference and Modernity: Social Theory and Contemporary Japanese Society. London: Kegan Paul.

Dikötter, Frank, ed. 1997. The Construction of Racial Identities in China and Japan. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.

Entrikin, J. Nicholas. 1991. The Betweenness of Place: Towards a Geography of Modernity. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Inoguchi, Takashi, ed. 2002. Japan’s Asian Policy: Revival and Response. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Iriye, Akira. 2002. The Global Community. Berkeley and Los Angeles. University of California Press.

----------. 1997. Japan and the Wider World: From the Mid-Nineteenth Century to the Present. London: Longman.

Kelly, Dominic. 2001. Japan and the Reconstruction of East Asia. Basingstoke: Palgrave.

Kwon, Youngmin. 2002. Regional Community-Building in East Asia. Seoul: Yonsei University Press.

Maidment, Richard, and Colin Mackerras, eds. 1998. Culture and Society in the Asia-Pacific. New York: Routledge.

Maswood, S. Javed, ed. 2001. Japan and East Asian Regionalism. Nissan Institute / Routledge Japanese Studies Series. London: Routledge.

Miyashita, Akitoshi, and Yoichiro Sato, eds. 2001. Japanese Foreign Policy in Asia and the Pacific. New York: Palgrave.

Olds, Kris, Peter Dicken, Philip F. Kelly, Lily Kong, and Henry Wai-chung Yeung, eds. 1999. Globalization and the Asia Pacific: Contested Territories. London: Routledge.

Soja, Edward W. 1989. Postmodern Geographies: The Reassertion of Space in Critical Social Theory. London: Verso.

Walker, David. 1999. Anxious Nation: Australia and the Rise of Asia 1850-1939. St. Lucia, Qld.: University of Queensland Press.

Weiner, Michael, ed. 1997. Japan’s Minorities: The Illusion of Homogeneity. London: Routledge.

Wilson, Rob, and Arif Dirlik. 1995. Asia Pacific as a Space for Cultural Production. Durham: Duke University Press.

Yoshimatsu, Hidetaka. 2003. Japan and East Asia in Transition: Trade Policy, Crisis and Evolution, and Regionalism. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

*Kofi Annan. 1999. Engaging with Globalization. Report of the Secretary-General on the Work of the Organization. United Nations General Assembly Records, fifty-fourth session, supplement No.1.