Tokyo College Event: “Cross-Cultural Exchange and the Future of Asian Studies”

Abstract

The 20th and 21st centuries, especially since WWII, have been marked by geo-political tensions and misunderstandings between the West and Asia and between different countries within Asia. Those tensions, coupled with the significant challenges presented by epidemics, like COVID etc., have inhibited the movement of scholars and students. Operating from the premise that people are not equivalent to their governments, institutions of higher education around the world have played an important role in facilitating understanding through cross-cultural understanding and exchanges. Higher education plays an important role in training future leaders of countries, but as suspicions and lack of trust in those institutions has diminished in recent years and many countries have developed more isolationist policies, higher education has come to the forefront in playing a significant role in opening up networks of connections and collaboration. In this talk, I will discuss the history of engagement between institutions of higher education in the West and Asia, asking: What role have these institutions served in the development of Asian Studies and what role might they play in the future of Asian Studies? I will focus on a selection of institutions in the US and Europe that were key in the development of Asian Studies during the 19th century, such as the Institute of Oriental Studies in St. Petersburg (founded in 1818), the Royal Asiatic Society (founded 1823), École française d’Extrême-Orient (EFEO)—or French School of Asian Studies—(founded in 1898), and the Harvard-Yenching Institute (founded in 1928), as well as a representative universities such as Yale, Harvard, and Princeton. While the mid-20th century Cold War no doubt left an indelible mark on the structure of Asian Studies in the West—creating artificial divisions and leaving particularly significant blind spots—the history of that legacy is nonetheless still important today. Recently many of the funding agencies that have traditionally supported cross-cultural exchanges have had their budgets cut, threatening future investment in precisely the types of interconnectivity that have helped to foster the connections that have historically played an important role in cross-cultural exchanges and mutual understanding. How, Prof. Robson will ask in this talk, might the future of Asian Studies be re-envisioned in the future?  

Program

Lecturer
James ROBSON (James C. Kralik and Yunli Lou Professor of East Asian Languages and Civilizations; Harvard College Professor; Director, Harvard-Yenching Institute)

Commentator
SHIROYAMA Tomoko (Professor, Graduate School of Economics, The University of Tokyo)

Moderator
Takeo HOSHI (Director, Tokyo College)