You are cordially invited to join us for the next session of the DIJ History and Humanities Study Group

on Thursday, 7 June 2018, 18.30 h



*Curtis Anderson Gayle* (Waseda University) will give a talk on

*History-Writing and the Public Sphere in Japan: 1945-1955*



History-writing in Japan after World War II was more than just documenting the past;
it was also about how to reconstruct the present and future. Japan was occupied by
the United States and Allied powers and this occupation quickly turned to a new form
of repression for many intellectuals, students, women, and others, even after it formally
ended in 1952. In this climate, history-writing became part of social activism and the
desire to change Japan in fundamental ways. Radical forms of history-writing became
prominent and these sought to incorporate ordinary people in everyday life. They also
sought engagement with the public sphere on a number of different levels and in ways
that continued to have an impact on the writing of history after 1955.
This presentation will argue that history-writing during the first decade after World War
II brought a kind of "plebian public sphere" into focus in ways that had not been seen
in Japan during the prewar period. On one level, those engaged in radical history
writing were part of a mass action against the Japanese government and the American
presence in Japan. On another level, the very idea of writing history as a kind of social
movement was designed to specifically include those being left out of the mainstream
public sphere: those who were on the margins of Japanese society. Within this
scenario lay the crucial idea that everyday life was a virtual space in which private
voices and personal issues could become part of the public domain, in effect making
the private something public.


*Curtis Anderson Gayle* holds a Ph.D. from the Australian National University and has taught
at the University of Leiden, Japan Women's University, and is presently a professor at Waseda
University. He has published Marxist History and Postwar Japanese Nationalism (Routledge
2002) and Women's History and Local Community in Postwar Japan (Routledge 2011).



The DIJ History and Humanities Study Group is a forum open to scholars working on Japan in any field
of the humanities. It is organized by Torsten Weber. All are welcome to attend, but prior registration via
our new online registration or email (weber@dijtokyo.org) is greatly appreciated.



German Institute for Japanese Studies (DIJ)
Jﾅ皇hi Kioizaka Bldg. 2F, 7-1 Kioichﾅ贀, Chiyoda-ku, Tﾅ耕yﾅ贀 102-0094, Phone: 03-3222-5077.
For directions to the institute please see www.dijtokyo.org/access