University of Zurich (Switzerland), June 2-3, 2025

　

Organization: Claire-Akiko Brisset (U. Geneva), David Chiavacci (U. Zurich), Ewa Machotka (U. Zurich), Simone Müller (U. Zurich), Raji Steineck (U. Zurich)

　

Today, Japan is a highly centralized nation state, and it has projected this character onto its past. Its official history is fundamentally determined by its political centers; their names became the terms for historical periods, providing the chronological grid that organizes our knowledge of the country's history. During the process of modernization and nation building, this retrospective vision allowed the implicit construction of a so-called "homogenous" terri­tory that was structured according to the hierarchy between a center and peripheries. After 1945, with the loss of the colonies--characteristically referred to as the "outer territories" (gaichi) of the Japanese empire--this cultural homogenization and political hierarchization into center and periphery was further reinforced.

In principle, this simplistic view has long been challenged and is no longer considered valid in academic research. However, its legacy continues, not least because of the body of narratives, literature and canonical sources that was created in accordance with it. There is therefore still much work to be done to create a more multicentered view of Japan. We can start from reflec­ting on the mere definition of what is or was a center, and what is or was a periphery, whether in Japan today or in any previous period in history. Further questions involve the re-thinking of canons and corpora in all areas of research. Reflecting on the boundaries and dimensions that shaped the mono-centric, homogeneous view, multi-scalar and transdisciplinary analysis can help to foreground the fluidity of the concepts in question as well as the conflicts, tensions and negotiations between Japan's multiple centers and their peripheries. Additionally, explo­ring how political, social, or literary groups aim/ed to maintain their central position while peripheral groups endeavor/ed to gain access to the center, perhaps through subversive methods as described by Bourdieu, can contribute to our understanding of the power dyna­mics within Japan's different spheres of influence.

The aim of this conference is to create a dialogue between different approaches to this topic from numerous fields (linguistics, literature, history, geography, political sciences, sociology, ethnology, etc.), and multifarious angles (normativity, censure, constraint, freedom, symbolic hierarchy, identity-related negotiation, etc.). Papers presented are eligible (upon peer-review) for publication in a theme issue of the open access journal Asiatische Studien / Études asia­tiques, published by the Swiss Asia Society with De Gruyter.

　

Deadline for the submission of proposals: January 31, 2025

Please send your proposal (title and abstract of 200 words) by e-mail to: david.chiavacci@uzh.ch