Description

Is it possible to talk of theory that is particularly Asian? Then, what is Asian theory like? Is the question a blatant oxymoron, or an intellectual anomaly? What is at stake in this inquiry is not the character of Asia at all. Rather, what makes the pairing of Asia and theory somewhat strange or unexpected is our presumption that theory is something we normally expect out of Europe or the West.

Just like any civilization, Europe produces knowledge, but it was distinguished from other civilizations by its unique mode of operation in knowledge production. Until recently, particularly in the fields of human sciences or the Humanities, Europe was proud of itself for its commitment to theory – or philosophy at large: it constantly reflected upon, and criticized and transformed its own manner of knowledge production. The Europeans regarded themselves as an exceptional kind of humanity capable of theory, and they called themselves humanitas in contrast to other types of humanity, anthropos, who were incapable of reflecting upon and criticizing their modus operandi in knowledge production. However, it is increasingly difficult to sustain this exceptionalist notion of the West or European humanity. Through an examination of the crisis in European humanity, I will discuss what the status of theory can potentially mean for us in relation to Asian humanity today.

Naoki Sakai is Goldwin Smith Professor of Asian Studies at Cornell University. He teaches in the departments of Comparative Literature and Asian Studies and is a member of the graduate field of History. He has published in a number of languages in the fields of comparative literature, intellectual history, translation studies, the studies of racism and nationalism, and the histories of semiotic and literary multitude – speech, writing, corporeal expressions, calligraphic regimes, and phonographic traditions. His publications include Translation and Subjectivity (in English, Japanese, Korean, German forthcoming); Voices of the Past (in English, Japanese & Korean); Japan/Image/the United States: The Community of Sympathy and Imperial Nationalisms (in Japanese and Korean); The Stillbirth of the Japanese as a Language and as an Ethnos (Japanese and Korean); Hope and the Constitution ( in Japanese; Korean forthcoming). Naoki Sakai serves as an associate editor for the project of TRACES, a multilingual series in four languages – Korean, Chinese, English, Spanish and Japanese (German will be added in 2013) – whose editorial office is located at Cornell, and served as its founding senior editor (1996 – 2004). In addition to TRACES, Naoki Sakai serves as a member of the following editorial boards including positions east asia cultural critique (in the United States), Post-colonial Studies (in Britain), Tamkang Review (in Taiwan), International Dictionary of Intellectual History (Britain and Germany), Modern Japanese Cultural History (Japan), ASPECTS (South Korea) and Transeuropéennes and Multitudes (in France).

The lecture will be followed by reception.

Description

As the twentieth century came to an end, Eric Hobsbawm defines the “short twentieth century” as a period from 1914 to 1992, beginning with the eruption of the First World War and ending with the collapse of the Soviet Union. Hobsbawm terms this period as “the age of extremes”. In his earlier work, Depoliticized Politics, Wang Hui defines the twentieth century of China as from 1911 to 1976, as part of the “long revolution”. Piecing together these two overlapping versions of “short twentieth century” that were made from different angles, Wang Hui raises two questions for his inquiry on China’s short twentieth century: How should the “continuity” between the empire compound and the sovereign state in the age of revolution at the beginning of this short century be explained? How should the “continuity” of revolution and post-revolution in the great transformation at the end of this short century be interpreted? The Chinese revolution of 1911, as the beginning of this “long revolution”, is not only the beginning of China’s “short twentieth century”, but also the most significant among the chain of events that marked the “awakening of Asia.” This lecture is a revisit to this beginning.

Wang Hui is Professor of Literature and History at Tsinghua University, and Director of Tsinghua Institute for Advanced Studies in Humanities and Social Sciences. His research focuses on Chinese intellectual history and literature. He is the author of a large number of books and articles. Among his books in English are China’s New Order: Society, Politics and Economy in Transition (Harvard University Press, 2003), The End of the Revolution: China and the limits of Modernity (Verso Books, 2009 and 2011) and The Politics of Imagining Asia (Harvard University Press, 2011). His four-volume work, The Rise of Modern Chinese Thought, is widely regarded as one of the most significant achievements across a number of fields within the last few decades.

The lecture will be followed by reception.

Description

Terry Watada is well-known in the Japanese Canadian community for his monthly column in the Nikkei Voice, a national Japanese Canadian community paper. He has written in all genres (fiction, poetry, drama, prose), edited two anthologies, and is also known as a musician and composer. His sound recordings include The Art of Protest, Birds on a Wing, Living in Paradise, and, Runaway Horses. Watada was born in 1951 and lives in Toronto where he teaches at Seneca College. Watada’s play, Tale of a Mask, was first produced in 1993 by the Workman Theatre Group. Recently, he has been working on a revised script that will be staged in 2008/2009 by fu-GEN, an Asian-Canadian Theatre Organization. Another play, “Vincent” toured Ontario and Manitoba in 1997.