JPLIT 6618

Modern Japanese Philosophy II

Course Description

Course information provided by the Courses of Study 2017-2018.

In this course we will investigate the concepts of race, ethnicity, nationality, and culture in modern Japanese philosophy and social and human sciences. In recent years, an increasing number of the students of Asian studies have engaged in new developments in the humanities that consider the close relationships between the production of desires in popular cultures and political aspects of social formations. Yet, what has been overlooked is the elementary need to investigate the emotive and fantastic elements in identity politics for the critical comprehension of the national community. We will investigate how the concept of culture serves in ethnic nationalism and racism, minority positions in the politics of multiethnic nationalism, and how racism is coterminous with nationalism? In order to meet this demand, this course is designed to offer students the opportunity to read, analyze, and evaluate the philosophical and social and human scientific discourse of modern East Asia in conjunction with European and American texts. This seminar will be organized neither as a search for the national (or oriental) character of Japanese philosophy nor as a project of explaining philosophical arguments in terms of the traits of national culture, but rather as an attempt to comprehend how philosophy participates in the construction and transformation of given social formations.

When Offered Fall.

Prerequisites/Corequisites Prerequisite: reading knowledge of Japanese.

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