Other: Takahashi Tetsuya lecture @ Chicago (6 Mar, 4:30 pm)

The Japan Committee of the Center for East Asian
Studies at the University of Chicago presents

the inaugural lecture of
The Tetsuo Najita Distinguished Lecture Series in Japanese Studies


"Postwar Japan on the Brink: Militarism, Colonialism, Yasukuni Shrine"

Professor Takahashi Tetsuya, Tokyo University

Tuesday, March 6 from 4:30 p.m.
Reception immediately following the lecture.

Social Sciences Bldg., Room 122
University of Chicago
1126 East 59th Street
Chicago, Illinois 60637


For information about the event, or for assistance for persons with disabilities, please contact the Center for East Asian Studies at 773-702-2715 or japan@uchicago.edu.


As is widely known, former Prime Minister Koizumi's repeated visits to Yasukuni Shrine aroused vigorous criticism both domestically and internationally. The Shrine commemorates the souls of Japan's war dead, including soldiers from the former colonies. A number of their families, as well as Christian families of Japanese soldiers, have protested the Shrine's role in commemorating the deaths of their family members. Visits by the prime minister and other cabinet members also raise the issue of separation of religion and the state as provided for in the Constitution.

Professor Takahashi 's writings, including his 2005 bestseller, The Yasukuni Issue, make unmistakably clear that the role of the Shrine is antithetical to democratic values in Japan and to reconciliation with Asia, which requires acknowledgment of the harms inflicted through colonialism and war. The subject of his lecture is Japan at a crossroads today, its hard-won postwar democratic values at stake as never before.

Professor Takahashi teaches philosophy in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at the University of Tokyo. He specializes in contemporary European philosophy and has been particularly interested in the ethical aspects of the work of Jacques Derrida.

The distinguished lecture series is named in honor of Tetsuo Najita, the Robert S. Ingersoll Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus of the Departments of History and East Asian Languages & Civilizations. Professor Najita is a leading intellectual historian of early modern Japan and of modern Japanese politics. Among his influential publications is Visions of Virtue in Tokugawa Japan: The Kaitokudo Merchant Academy of Osaka (1987, 1997).