CFP: Shinto Studies and Nationalism (20 Dec; 11-14 Sept; Vienna)

The conference is organized by the Institute for the Cultural and Intellectual History of Asia, Austrian Academy of Sciences, and will be held in Vienna, Sept. 11-14, 2007. Please send applications to give a paper (including the proposition of a paper title) before Dec. 20, 2006 to bernhard.scheid@oeaw.ac.at. Information on this event is also available at:
http://ikga.oeaw.ac.at/Events/shinto_nationalism07/index.htm"

Topic:

The aim of this conference is to analyse the influence of Japanese nationalism on scholarly discourse in the early 20th century, especially on the discourse about Shinto. The discussion may also touch upon the historical roots of State Shinto and its possible impact on the present image of Shinto in general.

In a recent paper concerning Shinto Studies in German-speaking countries, I pointed out the fact that Shinto Studies prospered under the Nazi rule in Germany to the extent that German scholars took an internationally leading role in this field. After WW2, however, most of these scholars abandoned their dealing with Shinto completely. While these observations mainly concern Shinto Studies in German-speaking countries, it is my impression that there was a similar retreat in other Western countries, as well as in Japan itself. Obviously, the involvement of Shinto in the Japanese nationalist agenda gave the study of Shinto a negative image after the war. Prone to carrying the stigma of nationalism, the general attitude towards Shinto became one of tabooed evasion in the academic field-- Shinto, the locus classicus of defilement (kegare), turned into a defiled object itself.

More than sixty years after the defeat of German and Japanese nationalism, it seems appropriate to change this attitude, even if this should mean raising the delicate issue of our predecessors' participation in nationalist propaganda. Thus this meeting should bring together scholars from different national backgrounds who do research on Shinto and/or nationalism. It may also be necessary to widen the scope a bit and include the issue of Buddhism and nationalism in the discussion. However, the focus should remain primarily on the various depictions of Shinto and their complex relationship to nationalist ideologies.

Among the more specific topics that may be of relevance in this respect, the following occur to my mind:

* Discursive patterns: the general outline of the State Shinto ideology has already been analysed in earlier academic studies. It may be useful, however, to take a particular look at if and how this ideology was reflected at the level of scientific discourse on Shinto. Moreover it seems worthwhile to question how the inherent contradictions between an idealized Shinto state utopia and the modern Japanese nation state were solved in pre-war ideology. Especially in the German case, but also on the international level, it would, in addition, be interesting to look at potential points of conflict between German and Japanese nationalism or between Western "Orientalism" and Japanese superiority thinking.

* Pressure on individual scholars: to what extent did Japanese and international scholars personally identify with the State Shinto ideology, to what extent were they forced to do so, or to what extent were they free to express other opinions?

* Repression against and/or self-censorship of Shinto scholars after the war.

* A possible digression in our discussion may be a discussion about Buddhism: previous studies have already shown that a clear-cut separation between "nationalist Shinto" on one hand and "universalist Buddhism" on the other does not correspond to historical facts.

This is of course only a tentative list of topics. Everyone is encouraged to propose additional points of view. The period being covered should range roughly from the mid 19th to mid 20th century, with a focus on the 1920s to 1940s.

Vienna, 24 Nov 2006 Bernhard Scheid