Special Lecture: Chen Kuan-Hsing “Japan as a Third World Military Colony”

Graduate School of Global Arts (GA) invites Taiwanese cultural researcher Chen Kuan-Hsing to give a lecture in the special class “Introduction to Art and Culture in the Global Age”.

Registration is only open to members of the university. (Please note that the general public is not allowed to attend.)
If you are interested, please apply from the form below and join us.
https://forms.gle/6BK9mgfAouFhvS5i9

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Date: 26 May (Fri), 16:20-17:50
Place: Ueno Campus, Taki Plaza building 4F Lecture room

Guest Speaker: Chen Kuan-Hsing
Editor-in-Chief of Inter-Asia Cultural Studies and author of Asia as Method (https://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/B00EHNTE5I/), one of the most prominent humanities scholars in Asia.

Moderator: Yoshitaka Mori (Professor, Graduate School of Global Arts, Tokyo University of the Arts)
*lecture in English/no interpreter (Q&A session with interpreter).

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Abstract:

Contrary to the common understanding, which usually sees Japan as an independent country with full sovereignty, this lecture tries to track the post World War II history to argue that ever since 1945, Japan has become a US military colony and hence a Third World country. This argument will try to tease all the implications of relocating “Japan” in a global context. Only by admitting this historical reality, can Japan stand with other Asian countries in dealing with various global issues such as de-militarization and decolonization, and the historical unfinished problems with its imperial history and the Okinawa question.

Kuan-Hsing Chen (陳光興, 1957-present) is a critical theorist based in Taiwan. He has recently retired as professor in the Graduate Institute for Social Research and Cultural Studies (the only academic faculty of cultural studies in Taiwan) at National Chiao Tung University 国立交通大学, Taiwan. He was born and grew up in Taiwan and received his PhD in Journalism and Mass Communication from the University of Iowa, USA. After his academic training and teaching in North America, he moved back to Taiwan to develop his postcolonialist exploration into the future of Asia. He began utilizing resources from Asia rather than continuing to import Western knowledge into the East Asian context.

He is a founder of Inter-Asia Cultural Studies Project and has worked as a co-editor of Inter-Asia Cultural Studies published by Routledge. His publications include Chen (2010) Asia as Method: Toward Deimperialization. Durham: Duke University Press（『脱帝国：方法としてのアジア』2011年以文社）,  Morley, David and Kuan‐Hsing Chen (1996), eds. Stuart Hall: Critical Dialogues in Cultural Studies. London, UK: Routledge. He is now the co-initiator of Inter-Asia School, Neuro-Net, and Bandung Schools.