Preliminary Programme

A symbolic geography of place is often sustained through a manifold and elaborate mapping of the 'invisible' connections between the dead and the living. Real and perceptual signs of communal distinctiveness, religious uniqueness, social differences and/or ethnic otherness are inscribed within the commemorative and spiritual topography of place. In general, modernity attempts to separate the physical and eschatological universes, and thus, provokes a geographical and temporal breach between the dead and the living. However, certain modern practices and ceremonies, such as national commemorations, public (secular and/or religious) holidays, museums, media, organised tourism and extensive individual travelling, often encourage and advance the memory of the dead. In combination, these modern conventions broaden the spatial and temporal spectrum of 'dead-living' interaction. Vilnius, a city that embodies several national identities (Jewish, Polish, Lithuanian, Russian and Byelorussian) serves as an insightful example of spatio-temporal ambiguities provoked by the modernisation and politicisation of the topography of the dead. In the last hundred years, because of tremendous demographic, geopolitical, linguistic and cultural changes, the linkages between the city's dead and living have been repeatedly modified and/or transgressed. Overall, the communiqués between the dead and living are not just temporally abbreviated and punctuated, but also spatially diffused and disjointed. Very often, the dead and living speak different tongues, and orient themselves to different, sometimes even antagonistic, cosmological and geopolitical arrangements. Under such conditions, the metamorphosing local visibility of various relics of the dead -- individual bodies, tombs, cemeteries and mass graveyards -- become mutating spatial markers of European disunity and unity. So, by following the shifting eschatological signs and perimeters of Vilnius, it is possible to unravel changing images and conceptions of Europe. (Show less)

This study is concerned with the process of mapping the ‘other’ geographies –especially, the West- in the case of Turkey where the terms of such mapping have rendered different, sometimes contradictory, ways in accordance with the changing circumstances underlying the process. Thus, different renderings of others as well as Turkishness are under consideration here with a due attempt in understanding how such different renderings/mappings have become possible. It can be argued that this process denotes the special play of both the “global” and the “local” in the construction of the boundaries according to which the identities are imagined. It is evident that such play is by no means specific to Turkey but how it takes place in this particular case is important for Turkey is constructed (or, rather, constructs itself) as a “boundary” or, a “bridge”, between West and East not only geographically but also socially, culturally, economically, and politically. To this extent, the concept of “boundary” is of special importance here since boundaries of various kinds are regarded as imaginary constructs that can only be understood in accordance with the changes in the very terms of the imagination. Thus, how (a) certain identity/identities and its/their others is/are built in terms of these boundaries is explored on the basis of the examination of the examples of imagining the ‘Turkishness’. However, it is important to add here that the concept, ‘identity’ is also questioned in the present study for it tends to stabilize the cultures on the grounds of essentialized experiences rather than to point them as processes. The role of religion is particularly underlined to the extent that such operations of essentialization and, hence, homogenization rely on a specific appropriation of religious experiences. (Show less)

In late Meiji Japan, for most of the Japanese intellectuals, Asia was not one. Walls of cultural disparity stretched across Asia that separated the West from the East, the European from the Oriental, the universal from the particular. How could these demarcations of Asia binary be transgressed? How do the legacies of these demarcations and their transgressions relate to contemporary debates or negotiations of how Asia is constructed or understood today?
Based on a brief survey of the two traditionally juxtaposed binary positions of universalist and particularistic thinking in Meiji Japan, the proposed paper will address these questions by discussing a group of intellectuals who, in the latter half of the Meiji era, sought to overcome this dualism of Asia Binary, and, thus, come up with a viable definition of what “Asia” else could meant to Japan, and vice versa.
Initially, the new leaders of the Meiji era saw no other means to counter Western domination but wholesale adoption of Western discourses and practices. To this aim, the government backed a strong movement among the intellectual elite in the 1870s that espoused a pragmatic blend of ideas of European enlightenment and liberalism (the “bunmei kaika” movement). During the 80s, however, voices became audible sounding discontent with this worship of the West in the vestige of universalism. Instead, this “New Generation” of Japanese intellectuals called for the “preservation of the national essence” (kokusui hozon). Refusing the basic presumption of enlightenment that man and society could be governed according to universal principles, they maintained an irrationalist concept of a historically grown identity, instead.
The antinomies of the West and Japan (or, sometimes, Asia/the Orient), the universal and the particular, the rational and the irrational, etc., then, stood at the center of cultural self-identification in Japan. Yet, a minor group of intellectuals in the latter half of the Meiji era sought to overcome these antinomies and postulated the existence of universal principles governing man and society without committing themselves to some sort of Eurocentrism or Orientalism. Among those “liberal internationalists” we find intellectuals of such diverse beliefs as the Christian Uchimura Kanzo (1861-1930), the Socialists Kotoku Shusui (1871-1911) and Sakai Toshihiko (1871-1933), or the cultural pessimist Taoka Reiun (1870-1912). All of these intellectuals were prolific participants of the public (published) debate on how Japan should conceive her role in “Asia”. Uchimura Kanzo, for example, wrote in 1896 a scathing satire on Japan’s boastful pride as imperial arriviste; Sakai Toshihiko and Taoka both went as special correspondents to cover the Boxer Rebellion in 1900; all of them vociferously opposed the confrontational course the Japanese government took against Russia over issues concerning Manchuria and Korea.
The proposed paper will present an analysis of the stance this group of intellectuals took in the debate on “Asia”, and how this contrasts to the more central unversalist and particularistic positions of their time. Finally, leaving the historical context behind, the paper will try to show that the presented positions bear a more enduring value beyond their time and, thus, relate these positions to contemporary debates or negotiations of how Asia is constructed or understood today. (Show less)