scholarly journals From Marginality to Possibility: Doing Transgender Studies in Japanese Studies

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Shu Min Yuen ◽  
Keyword(s):  
21St Century ◽  
Social Conditions ◽  
Transgender Studies ◽  
Area Studies ◽  
Context Sensitive ◽  
Contemporary World ◽  
Trans Studies ◽  
Japanese Studies ◽  
Universal Applicability ◽  
Sensitive Knowledge

Area studies has been described as having lost its significance and legitimacy in the 21st century globalised world. However, research has shown that the strengths of area studies—empirical research and context-sensitive knowledge—remain relevant not only in helping us to understand our contemporary world, but also in challenging the hegemony of theories and concepts developed in Euro-American contexts that have come to dominate both academic and general writing. In this paper, I draw on my research on the transgender community in Japan—an area of study that is relegated to the margins of both Japanese studies and trans studies—to show how the tools of area studies play an important role in expanding the conceptual boundaries of trans studies, and how the lens of transgender can expand or complicate existing knowledge on the culture and society of Japan. I highlight how Japanese transgender identities and cultures are shaped not only by global processes, but also legal, medical, cultural and social conditions specific to Japan. I argue against the assumed universal applicability of Eurocentric conceptualisations of gender/sexual non-conformity, and in doing so I call attention to the ways in which the fields of transgender studies and Japanese studies can enrich each other. More than ever in these precarious times, we need to emphasise the strengths and overcome the weaknesses of our field(s), so that we may be better equipped to turn marginality into possibility.

scholarly journals CONSCIOUS EDUCATION: THE CHALLENGES AND PERSPECTIVES OF TEACHING EASTERN LANGUAGES AND CULTURES

2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 156-167
Author(s):  
Gergana PETKOVA
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Language Education ◽  
Developed Countries ◽  
Language And Culture ◽  
Contemporary World ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Japanese Studies ◽  
Culture Education

e 21st century debate on the role of humanities in the contemporary world and the necessity to teach a wide range of disciplines (among which literature, culture, aesthetics, philosophy and others) has caused serious tension among humanity scholars. In many developed countries the presence of humanities in the educational priorites has shrinked substantially. In the present paper I will discuss the interconnection and interdependence of language and culture education with concrete examples from the Bulgarian school of Eastern Studies in order to rethink Aristotle’s legacy – “Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all”. The current paper introduces the concept of “conscious education” as a key factor for the development of 21st century foreign language and culture education. Conscious education is based on an analysis of the needs and aims and strives to build mutual awareness within all parties involved in the education process to make learners adaptive and adequate to the surrounding environment. The theories of A. Maslow, Ch. Darwin, M. Gladwell, K. Ishikawa are brought together and through analysis of the current state of the Japanese Studies in Bulgaria, I try to raise important questions about the role of foreign language education in 21st century. I contribute to the dispute by reporting results from current projects conducted by the Japanese Studies at Sofia University, which I believe relate to a much wider audience, involved in the education of young people nowadays.

The politics of welfare

2021 ◽  
pp. 147488512110080
Author(s):  
Lois McNay
Keyword(s):  
Social Policy ◽  
Social Conditions ◽  
Radical Politics ◽  
Contemporary World ◽  
Welfare Institutions ◽  
The Social ◽  
Original Argument ◽  
Collective Activism ◽  
Historical Model ◽  
Valuable Role

Steven Klein’s excellent new book The Work of Politics is an innovative, insightful and original argument about the valuable role that welfare institutions may play in democratic movements for change. In place of a one-sided Weberian view of welfare institutions as bureaucratic instruments of social control, Klein recasts them in Arendtian terms as ‘worldly mediators’ or participatory mechanisms that act as channels for a radical politics of democratic world making. Although Klein is careful to modulate this utopian vision through a developed account of power and domination, I question the relevance of this largely historical model of world-building activism for the contemporary world of welfare. I point to the way that decades of neoliberal social policy have arguably eroded many of the social conditions and relations of solidarity that are vital prerequisites for collective activism around welfare.

scholarly journals Verification of Context-Sensitive Knowledge and Action Bases

2014 ◽  
pp. 514-528 ◽  
Author(s):  
Diego Calvanese ◽  
İsmail İlkan Ceylan ◽  
Marco Montali ◽  
Ario Santoso
Keyword(s):  
Context Sensitive ◽  
Sensitive Knowledge

scholarly journals Laozi’s precepts for daily life in the contemporary world: two popular Western (American) interpretations

2013 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 52-69
Author(s):  
Loreta Poškaitė
Keyword(s):  
21St Century ◽  
Consumer Culture ◽  
Daily Life ◽  
Careful Study ◽  
Contemporary World ◽  
Reflective Mirror ◽  
Popular Image

Abstract The paper aims to discuss two popular interpretations of Daoism and its application to contemporary world: The Dao of Pooh by Benjamin Hoff and The Truth of Tao by Alex Anatole. In the first part, it will concentrate on the interpretation of Daoist concept of simplicity (pu ) in B.Hoff’s book, pointing out to the problem of its simplification and elucidating the cluster of the meanings (or aspects) of pu in this book and in comparison with its understanding in Classical Daoism. In the second part, it will discuss the main points of interpretation of Daoism as a “reflective mirror” for illuminating the problems of Western (in this case, American) contemporary consumer culture, presented in Alex Anatole’s book, with the particular attention on his ideal of “contentment” and “ideal day”. It is claimed, that such popular versions of Daoism, although seemingly contradictory and superficial, and because of this rather mostly ignored by sinologists and investigators of Daoist practices, deserve more careful study by professional scholars, since they are the manifestations of the process of globalization of Daoism, which is inevitable in 21st century. Moreover, they are especially influential in forming a popular image of Daoist teaching, since the messages of such books spread to a far wider public, than the monographs by academic specialists in Chinese (Daoist) studies.

Institutionalizing Trans* Studies at the University of Arizona

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 354-366
Author(s):  
Susan Stryker
Keyword(s):  
Future Prospects ◽  
Transgender Studies ◽  
University Of Arizona ◽  
Trans Studies ◽  
In Trans ◽  
The University ◽  
Successes And Challenges

Abstract This article reports on the successes and challenges of institutionalizing trans* studies at the University of Arizona. It describes the Transgender Studies Faculty Cluster Hire Initiative of 2013–18, efforts to establish a curricular program of some sort in trans studies, barriers to achieving some of the the initiative's early goals, and future prospects for the field's institutionalization at the University of Arizona and elsewhere.

scholarly journals Japanology as ‘Encompassing philology’ and its prospects for the 21st Century

2021 ◽  
pp. 91-108
Author(s):  
Jiri Matela
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Studies ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Basic Needs ◽  
Japanese Language ◽  
Academic Field ◽  
Structuralist Approach ◽  
Genre Classification ◽  
Japanese Studies

The recent development of the academic field of Japanese studies towards interdisciplinary cultural studies paradigm has been causing certain downfalls of traditional philological orientations within this area of scholarship. The aim of the present paper is to reflect on the tradition of Prague school’s functional-structuralist approach to language and text and present its application on contemporary Japanese studies programs. The functional-structuralist approach presented in the paper is based on the unified dichotomy of system (of signs) and texts (as sign formations), the latter being defined by the features of genre classification, situational binding and discourse tradition. The framework of ‘Encompassing philology’ applied to the field of Japanese studies aspires to fulfill the basic needs of a modern interdisciplinary orientation and at the same time strengthen the role of the Japanese language beyond the “tool for communication”.

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