16K02561, Humanities as Anti-Humanism --- What Shoud We Talk About Humanities Literacy in This Time of Demoralization, In modern times, the framework of humanities no longer functions as it once did. When we ask, what now the "humanities" should or could do in this period of demoralization, this question itself already contains an unreasonable discord. If there remains something that can be called Humanities Literacy, it would be perhaps alive only embedded deep in other frameworks, and rather in such a buried form it could be still effective. The mission of modern humanities study would be precise excavation of this buried validity in and of itself. Reconsidering the position of the study of humanities within the network of academia, a research association was founded, on the other hands, in order to reconsider the roles and placement of humanities literacy outside of academia, a website design for visualizing the general network of learning within Kunitachi-city, Tokyo has been developed, and a trial website has been created.
15K01988, A Study of Aorno's Ethics - in its relation to the aesthetics, In the first place, Fujino organized a study group: Adorno’s Aesthetics with Mr. Makoto Nishimura and read Adorno’s main works: Negative Dialectic, Aesthetic Theory and Aesthetic Lectures 1958/59 in original Text together with the members. Secondly, Fujino visited the Walter Benjamin Archiv in Berlin and read und wrote down the manuscript of the Aesthetic Lectures 1961/62 of Adorno.Thirdly, we invited Dr. Eberhard Ortland (Bielefeld) and Prof. Georg Bertram (Berlin) to our study group and held lectures and colloquiums with them.
25370344, Aspects of Choices of the Future in the European Literature and Thought, “Choices of the future” has always been an inevitable course in the process of carrying forward the traditional heritage. Our project analyzes the causes and process that affected the choice decisions, focusing our investigation on the European culture. Through examining the features and their underlying world views and historical perspectives, this project has thrown light on the various aspects of future outlook on literature, linguistics, philosophy and arts in the past. Furthermore, applying the findings will make it possible when trying to analyze the features of the “choices of the future” at present. As an effort to release our diverse research results, several talks and discussion sessions concerning those important ethics issues have taken place, and articles published in our department bulletin GENGOSHAKAI (2014).
24617004, A study on society and history of the multicultural city Czernowitz, Once there was a city named Czernowitz. Until the end of the First World War and the collapse of Austria-Hungary in 1918, Czernowitz had been a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, thereby dominated by the German language and culture. In spite of this, the German population was outnumbered by the Ukrainian and Romanian population, and furthermore, there were a larger number of Jewish people living in the city too. Therefore, if German-Jewish Symbiosis ever did exist, we could perhaps say that it had taken place in Czernowitz. However, since 1918, Czernowitz was ruled successively by Romania, the Soviet, and Ukraine from 1991 onwards, the city commonly known as Chernivtsi nowadays has already lost its characteristic as a multicultural society. It is therefore one of the objectives of this study to pay homage to the past culture of Czernowitz.
21520316, Twists and Turns in Succession of European Literature and Thought, This project analyzes both the process of, and reasons for, twists and distortions in how Greek and Roman classical tradition was received in Western literature and society. Covering a wide range of fields like poetics, aesthetics, psychology and linguistics, a process of succession became distinct in accordance with the objective to illustrate the Western self-image. We also focus and reflect upon characteristics of twists and distortions in the reception of the classics during the modern period. Finally, we draw conclusions with regard to pending questions about specific phenomena in the field of Japanese and European comparative literature and linguistics.
17520070, Two Starts after the end of the Second World War the Frankfurter School and "Shiso no kagaku, This study aimed to investigate the meaning of the activities of the magazine "Shiso no Kagaku" in its early years. I wanted to interview the foundation members in order to clarify some difficulties in interpretation. In the meantime however two foundation members, Shigeto Tsuru and Kazuko Tsurumi, died, so that only Shunsuke Tsurumi and Kiyoko Takeda are still living. Mr. Tsurumi gave an affirmative reply to my ask to interview him. An Interview with him was realized under the cooperation of the lwanami publishing company.;If the theme "Tsurumi Shunsuke and the American Philosophy" is treated, we usually think about the Pragmatism. However, his papers at the time seem to have been determined by the method which has much to do with the logical positivism. Especially the intention to reform the Japanese language, the idea of the basic Japanese and the program to introduce the Romaji are the conceptions which this magazine strived to realize at that time, which however seem to have been abandoned in the following years. Why and how did this change happen?;Another question is, what kind of stance Tsurumi took to the USA. I suppose that it is principally supported by the sympathy. This position could however make him difficulties. Did he maintain this position to the USA, or did he abandon it, or correct it?;The interview with Mr. Tsurumi was held under the passionate participation of him. The result of it will be published in the august number of the magazine "Shiso". To this number I will also contribute my paper: An Inquiry into the power of the language. The Subtitle of this paper: presentation and criticism of the language after the Second World War in Germany and Japan, can be interpreted as my next theme.
17510203, Language Problems and Language Culture in the EU, Although in principle the EU adopts an unbiased attitude regarding the use of languages of each member nation, in practice difficulties arise on the occasion of translation of documents and interpretation at conferences. Our findings which based on Internet and fieldwork surveys of language usage with emphasis on German and French speaking nations revealed that apart from human and economic factors, a major cause of the problem is attributable to the language awareness of each country or region. In this project, we attempted to examine and analyze the counterbalance of cultural identities - a feature of language awareness - between English as the mainstream language and other non-mainstream languages. In particular, we focused on the following issues: the common ideas that shaped multilingualism, the relationship between language awareness and cultural identity in the use of language, and the perception of mother languages, foreign languages and common tradition and culture in the EU nations.;Our team examined thoroughly the similarities and differences of various regional cultures and the interactions and mutual interference of German and French speaking nations, and based our discussions on linguistics, philosophical, historical, social and cultural arguments. As a consequence, significant findings are obtained in particular about the connection between "nationalism" and German and French languages in late 18th Century, the implications of Greek and Roman common cultural heritages on modern literature, the prevailing art and culture throughout Europe, the influences of German philosophy and American culture from early 20th century until postwar period, as well as encyclopedia as a transnational language data medium. This year, we have the participation of a German scholar from the Hitotsubashi University who specializes in Japanese studies and whose research has given us better insights into how Japanese bibliographies are being introduced into German speaking nations, and the European viewpoint of Western language awareness and education in Japan. These important findings opened up new horizons for us of a possible elaboration into a comparative examination of Japan and Europe in future.;Here in above is a brief summary of our project "Language Problems and Language Culture in the EU". At present, we are organizing all the findings to have them ready for presentations and contribution to journals next year.
14510048, Adorno's theory of culture and the contemporary discussion on culture, In this project I tried, in the first place, to understand Adorno's thought about the culture systematically and, secondly, with his theory of culture in my hand, to make inquiries into the actual discussions about the culture. I grappled with the first problem intensively in the first year of this project. I wrote two essays : 'The dialectic relation of culture to barbarism' and 'The progress of music and the dialectic of enlightenment'. I could present the fruits of the efforts in my book "Is it only barbarous to write a lyric after Auschwitz? " at the end of the first year. As far as the Adorno-studies concerned, I could take part in the international Adorno conference in Frankfurt, which was held by occasion of the hundredth anniversary of his death, and gained precious suggestions which I will make use of in my further study about the moral philosophy of Adorno. Furthermore I could read many new literatures about Adorno which were published in this memorial year. As the result I wrote a paper 'The divided life -Horkheimer in the postwar years', which will be a first part of my next large investigation project about the theme 'The Frankfurter school and the Shisou-no-kagaku-Groupe'. To my second subject, I wrote a survey paper 'Culture as Fiction Recent discussion on the theory of culture' in the first year. On that ground I now continue my investigations into the specific themes. First, I have written a paper about the 'Publicness and culture', in which Adorno's thought on the nonidentity plays an important role. Secondly, I started a new study about 'The freedom of expression and the desire of the masses' which will be surely supported by Adorno's sociological theories about the mass media and the mass culture.
19K00041
JP19K00041, Adorno's Philosophy of History, First, the Principal Investigator organized a Study Group on Aesthetic Theory which were held almost monthly for five years, with 5 to 10 participants. Second, the Principal Investigator visited the Benjamin Archive in Berlin five times to read and write out Adorno's "Lectures on Aesthetics 1961/62" and "Lectures on the Philosophy of History 1957". Since 2006, the "Study Groups on Aesthetic Theory" has been reading and discussing Adorno's philosophical masterpieces "Negative Dialectic" and "Aesthetic Theory" in the original texts. In parallel, we have been reading "Lectures on Aesthetics 1958/59," and a project to translate and publish these lectures, which are important for understanding Adorno's aesthetics, was born, and we have been working on the translation with the cooperation of the Study Group members. The translation has been completed and the manuscript is now in the editing stage.