Paper short abstract:

One of the most famous works by Katō Shūichi, a postwar enlightenment intellectual was on his experience of the Prague Spring. I will analyze Katō's "Words and Tanks" as a text in which Japanese liberal intellectual elite of the time was trying to come to terms with new and emerging global reality.

Paper long abstract:

Katō Shūichi was an influential intellectual of postwar enlightenment (sengo keimō) in Japan. He was a prolific writer and critic who published a number of works during his seven-decade-long writing career. Through his work, it is possible to learn about postwar transformation of Japan, and the world. One of his most famous works is essay Kotoba to sensha (Words and tanks), published in 1969, upon his experience of living in Europe and travelling to Czechoslovakia in 1968, during the Prague Spring. This presentation will discuss the way Katō described the events in Prague in 1968. I will also argue that this essay, although written almost fifty years ago, can today be read as a contribution and source for an emerging subfield of global history. It can be read as a way in which Japanese liberal intellectual elite of the time was trying to come to terms with new and emerging global reality. I will also juxtapose his views of the Prague Spring and that of the 1968 protests in Japan. My main question is how did a democratic enlightenment thinker make sense of a wider world in the era of 1968, and what were possible implications of his views for understanding the world and Japan? In line with Sebastian Conrad's argument in What is Global History?, I will emphasize the importance of going beyond the study of connections, and thinking in terms of integration within a dynamics that connects many pieces of what we call the past.

Paper short abstract:

Recently, 19 people with disability got stabbed in Kanagawa. The incident is connected to the recent nuclear accident, and to the debate on women's reproductive rights. Roots of both debates can be traced back to '70s, and it's evident that eugenics in the society has not been discussed adequately.

Paper long abstract:

In July 2016, a young man stabbed 19 people with disability who lived in a facility in Kanagawa. The perpetrator, a former worker in the facility, maintained for a longer time that "euthanizing" the disabled is the best option for the country and for themselves, since they are unhappy and pose an economic burden. His eugenics is shocking because of its resemblance to the Nazi's policies, but also because his attitude seems to be shared with a broader community. The fact that the victims dwelled together in a specialized and isolated facility might be a proof of that.

At the beginning of 1970s, social movement for the rights of the people with disability to self-determination had a turning point, which was related to the issue of prenatal diagnosis and selective abortion. At the same period, women fought for the rights of self-determination for their bodies, more specifically for sexuality and reproduction. Thus, there was a kind of 'conflict of interest' between these two trends. Ironically, the debate on this complex issue has been compartmentalized, instead of being argued in a wider social context, within the two minority groups, women and the disabled. Hence, the eugenics problem had been largely overlooked.

We saw the issue's return after the Fukushima incident. Fear of giving birth to children with disability, seeking solution in the newest technology of prenatal diagnosis, or ignoring the issue are various reactions, all inherent to a fear. Concerns resemble the 1970s debate. Why did we forget them? Why can't we come to terms with them? What can we learn from the past? I argue that reason lies in a highly gendered representation of fear situated within a complex web of historical circumstances.

Paper short abstract:

Through rereading the 1960s best-selling diaries or posthumous notebooks of young activists, I will examine a reference relationship of their peculiar sentiment and political imagination of the time, not only as a political rise and fall, but also as a contemporary problem of "emotional memories."

Paper long abstract:

This presentation will focus on diaries and posthumous manuscripts by unsettled young leftist students in the 1960s. Generally speaking, diaries function as a device of modern introspection, and the words of young dead may have a tendency to strongly impact young generation of that time. In modern Japan, there is a historical continuity of similar cases and we can trace its genealogy back to a notable suicide of young philosophy student Misao Fujimura at Kegon Falls in 1903 (Meiji 36), where he carved on the trunk of a tree his farewell poem "Gantou no kan". But particularly among the youth in the 1960s, death of numerous activist students had a strong impact and constructed a unique space of their peculiar sentiment and imagination. Diaries and notes of the dead activists became bestsellers and played a role in mobilizing young people for demonstrations and assembly much more than Marxist theoretical texts and agitation handbills. I will reflect on several typical examples, such as Michiko Kamba's "I Would Smile in Secret", Kōhei Oku's "The Tomb of the Spring", and Etsuko Takano's "The Origin of Being Twenty". In other words, there can be identified a certain canon created by life principles of the disconcerted young people. Such a relationship has continued throughout the epoch of the rapid economic growth and sharply disappeared by mid- '70s. After this "season of political rise", a lengthy period of disillusionment and de-politicization has come where this generation's internal struggles have been explained through use of psychological vocabulary and became largely incomprehensible to later generations. This is an attempt to re-read the era of 1960s not only as a political rise and defeat of a generation, but also as a contemporary problem of "emotional memory" (Sunge).