Papers by Kenn Nakata Steffensen
The Political Thought of the Kyoto School: Beyond "Questionable Footnotes" and "Japanese-Style Fascism
The political philosophy of Miki Kiyoshi: A close reading of the philosophical foundations of cooperative communitarianism
Mutual Images Journal, 2019
The last sentence in Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale There is no doubt about it reads: ‘It g... more The last sentence in Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale There is no doubt about it reads: ‘It got into the papers, it was printed; and there is no doubt about it, one little feather may easily grow into five hens.’ In September 2015 a process very similar to the rumour-mill in Andersen’s satire swept across the internet. An inaccurate–and on inspection highly implausible–report was picked up and amplified by several British and US news organisations. Thus, an improbable claim about the Japanese government’s decision to effectively abolish the social sciences and humanities quickly became established as a morally reprehensible truth. Once the ‘facts’ of the matter were reported by authoritative English-language media organisations, the outrage spread to other languages, and an online petition was launched to make the government ‘reconsider’ a decision it had not taken. In light of the ‘misunderstandings’ that had circulated in the foreign press, the Japanese Ministry of Education, ...
Asianisms: Regionalist Interactions and Asian Integration. Edited by Marc Frey and Nicola Spakowski . Singapore: National University of Singapore Press, 2016. Pp. 282. ISBN 10: 9971698595; ISBN 13: 978-9971698591 (pbk)
International Journal of Asian Studies, 2018
crisis and continued to lead the region in adapting to the demands of late modernity. But its gro... more crisis and continued to lead the region in adapting to the demands of late modernity. But its growing aging population and imbalances in gender employment require Japan to readjust its policies if it is to continue along the path of a developed and sustainable society. Other East Asian societies (i.e. China, South Korea, Taiwan) share the problem of declining population/low fertility, labour shortages and gender imbalances. To address these problems some societies have introduced forms of the welfare state (e.g. South Korea) while others (e.g. Singapore) preferred neo-liberal policies reinforcing familial structures. Yet others such as Hong Kong embarked on importing foreign care workers to look after the aged or assist in housework and childcare. Emiko Ochiai provides us with an excellent introduction to the volume. Chapters dealing with demographic crises, changes in individual life courses, non-regular employment – particularly of women – and social policies of various governments are extensively covered. The volume ends with a discussion of the particularities of a growing public sphere in Asia. A major component of this new public sphere is found in the growth of NGOs throughout the region. While these organizations often arise in response to local issues, they inevitably involve broader social forces requiring governmental responses. The interrelationship of the private/public domains in Asia differ from the West, given Asia’s long concern with communal and collective relationships. Earlier debates on so-called Asian Values mirrored these concerns, which unfortunately became embedded in partisan political interests. This volume’s emphasis on new modernities avoids many of these earlier fruitless quests to discover Asian essences. This collection is highly recommended for both Asian specialists as well as scholars of the West seeking new approaches to a better understanding of the uneven modernities experienced in the contemporary world. Kyoto University Press should be commended for allowing the translation of this collection. I look forward to future publications.
Book Review: Erik Ringmar, The Mechanics of Modernity in Europe and East Asia: Institutional Origins of Social Change and Stagnation (London: Routledge, 2005, 256 pp., £75.00 hbk.)
Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 2007
Translation of Tosaka Jun's “The Philosophy of the Kyoto School”
Comparative and Continental Philosophy, 2016
This translation of Tosaka Jun's “The Philosophy of the Kyoto School” is as unembellished as ... more This translation of Tosaka Jun's “The Philosophy of the Kyoto School” is as unembellished as possible. As far as is known, this is the original statement of the philosophical nature and scope of the Kyoto School. Making it available in English serves the purpose of documenting how the Kyoto School was conceived, not only in terms of philosophical themes and approaches, but also in terms of who was included. Returning to the first written source reveals that Tosaka's views on both what characterized the philosophy of the Kyoto School and who its leading thinkers were differ somewhat from the dominant post-war conceptions filtered through Tanabe and Nishitani, and disseminated by, among others, Takeuchi, Heisig, Ōhashi, and Davis. Thus this source can stimulate a rethinking of what the term “Kyoto School” meant historically and whether this has any implications for how Kyoto School studies are constituted today.
Broadcasting with Intent, 2012
Foreign accents acted by Anglophone actors are a ubiquitous but politically and theoretically pro... more Foreign accents acted by Anglophone actors are a ubiquitous but politically and theoretically problematic feature of many audiovisual productions in the English-speaking world. This paper investigates the use of Tswana and Japanese accents in two BBC productions as acts of audiovisual translation (AVT) which are illustrative of a more general problematic of Western representations of non-Western languages and cultures. It argues that the phonological features of speech, which are classified as accents, divide the community of native speakers into different social groups and that they create and maintain boundaries between native and non-native speakers. Language discrimination is recognised by the BBC as a problem in relation to its domestic audience and the Corporation actively attempts to become more inclusive and representative of British society by broadcasting non-standard accents. On the other hand, when representing foreign, and especially post-colonial and non-Western langua...
The influential and prolific philosopher and translator of philosophy James Heisig has argued for... more The influential and prolific philosopher and translator of philosophy James Heisig has argued for “desacralizing” translation into Japanese, and against “perfect translation” and for “thick translation” in Japanese to English translation. Heisig prioritizes broad appeal and readability over accuracy, bringing the translated philosopher into the reader’s space and facilitating an encounter on the latter’s terms rather than treating the author as a “sacred cow”. This article discusses Heisig’s programmatic statements on translation strategy in the context of the global dominance of English, the effects of declining language capabilities and unequal distribution of translation capabilities among Anglograph philosophers, the tendentially conservative and “domesticating” Anglospheric regime of translation, and the “foreignizing” alternatives found in Japanese translation history and in Schleiermacher, Nietzsche, Benjamin, and contemporary translation theorists. It suggests that learning ...
The Kyoto School, American empire and the post-white world
Kyoto School as political philosophy The book is organised into five parts in 12 chapters and an ... more Kyoto School as political philosophy The book is organised into five parts in 12 chapters and an appendix with the author's translation of two texts by Tanabe Hajime, whom he considers the dominant figure of the Kyoto School's middle phase from 1928 to 1946.1 The term ...
The last sentence in Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale There is no doubt about it reads: 'It g... more The last sentence in Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale There is no doubt about it reads: 'It got into the papers, it was printed; and there is no doubt about it, one little feather may easily grow into five hens.' In September 2015 a process very similar to the rumour-mill in Andersen's satire swept across the internet. An inaccurate–and on inspection highly implausible–report was picked up and amplified by several British and US news organisations. Thus, an improbable claim about the Japanese government's decision to effectively abolish the social sciences and humanities quickly became established as a morally reprehensible truth. Once the 'facts' of the matter were reported by authoritative English-language media organisations, the outrage spread to other languages, and an online petition was launched to make the government 'reconsider' a decision it had not taken. In light of the 'misunderstandings' that had circulated in the foreign press, the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology eventually felt compelled to issue a statement, in English, to clarify that it had no intention of closing social science and humanities faculties. What transpired in these transactions between Times Higher Education, Bloomberg, the Wall Street Journal, Time, the Guardian, and other news outlets is of more than passing anecdotal interest. Consideration of the case offers insights into the dominant role of the English-using media in constituting Japan and Asia as an object of Western knowledge and of the part played in this by what Harry Frankfurt theorised as the sociolinguistic phenomenon of " bullshit ". The Times Higher Education article and the ones that followed were all examples of the " bullshit " that arguably increasingly proliferates in both journalistic and academic discourse, especially when " circumstances require someone to talk without knowing what he is talking about " (Frankfurt 2005: 63). It would appear that the kind of " bullshit journalism " represented by the global media storm in question is more likely to be produced when the West reports about 'the rest'. The paper uses the case of the purported existential threat to the social science and humanities in Japan to discuss wider arguments about the role of 'bullshit' in journalistic and academic knowledge production and dissemination about the non-Western world.
Tetsugaku: International Journal of the Philosophical Association of Japan, 2018
The influential and prolific philosopher and translator of philosophy James Heisig has argued for... more The influential and prolific philosopher and translator of philosophy James Heisig has argued for "desacralizing" translation into Japanese, against "perfect translation" and for "thick translation" in Japanese to English translation. Heisig prioritizes broad appeal and readability over accuracy, bringing the translated philosopher into the reader's space and facilitating an encounter on the latter's terms rather than treating the author as a "sacred cow". This article discusses Heisig's programmatic statements on translation strategy in the context of the global dominance of English, the effects of declining language capabilities and unequal distribution of translation capabilities among Anglograph philosophers, the tendentially conservative and "domesticating" Anglospheric regime of translation, and the "foreignizing" alternatives found in Japanese translation history and in Schleiermacher, Nietzsche, Benjamin, and contemporary translation theorists. It suggests that learning from professional practices in the translation industry could help translating philosophers strike a suitable balance between domestication and foreignization.
![Research paper thumbnail of The Political Thought of the Kyoto School: Beyond "Questionable Footnotes" and "Japanese-Style Fascism". Chapter 3 in Yusa, Michiko (ed.) The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Contemporary Japanese Philosophy. [pre-publication proof]](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/55348719/thumbnails/1.jpg)
The following can be thought of as an exercise in the rectification of names. That is to say that... more The following can be thought of as an exercise in the rectification of names. That is to say that what the Kyoto School is understood to be today is divorced from what it actually was when it flourished as a philosophical beacon in the ‘dark valley’ of wartime Japan. Rectification of the name is needed to restore what the Kyoto School was in its original context, and to show how it has subsequently acquired other meanings. This reorientation of perspective can contribute to the on-going process of recovering and broadening the conception of the Kyoto School, and its contribution to political thought. Revitalization of its original reality can in turn contribute to fulfilling its intellectual potential.
The chapter outlines the post-war creation of the image of the political thought of the Kyoto School before moving on to a consideration of the ambiguity strategy of ‘anti-systemic collaboration’ pursued by most of the Kyoto philosophers, and the interpretive problems that arise from it. The final section highlights a selection of political theoretical themes developed by the Kyoto School thinkers and discusses their relevance for contemporary theorising in light of recent trends in the history of political thought, political theory and international relations. The fulfilment of the intellectual potential of the Kyoto School political thought requires breaking out of its relative isolation by inserting it into new, and arguably more relevant and hospitable, disciplinary fields than the established traditions of comparative philosophy of religion and Japanese history.
http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/yccp20?open=7&repitition=0#vol_7
This translation of Tosaka Jun's... more http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/yccp20?open=7&repitition=0#vol_7
This translation of Tosaka Jun's " The Philosophy of the Kyoto School " is as unembellished as possible. As far as is known, this is the original statement of the philosophical nature and scope of the Kyoto School. Making it available in English serves the purpose of documenting how the Kyoto School was conceived, not only in terms of philosophical themes and approaches, but also in terms of who was included. Returning to the first written source reveals that Tosaka's views on both what characterized the philosophy of the Kyoto School and who its leading thinkers were differ somewhat from the dominant postwar conceptions filtered through Tanabe and Nishitani, and disseminated by, among others, Takeuchi, Heisig, Ōhashi, and Davis. Thus this source can stimulate a rethinking of what the term " Kyoto School " meant historically and whether this has any implications for how Kyoto School studies are constituted today.
This is a translation of the speaker handouts provided to participants at the symposium to mark t... more This is a translation of the speaker handouts provided to participants at the symposium to mark the 70th anniversary of Nishida's death, held at Sophia University on the 20th July 2015. The speakers were FUJITA Masakatsu, KOSAKA Kunitsugu, Klaus RIESENHUBER, and TANAKA Yutaka.
This article examines how the word ‘bilingual’ has acquired vastly divergent politicised meanings... more This article examines how the word ‘bilingual’ has acquired vastly divergent politicised meanings in contemporary Spanish and Danish discourses on childhood education. In the former, it tends to denote competence in a foreign language, which is almost universally assumed to be English, while in the latter it refers to relative lack of competence in Danish. The two conceptions of ‘bilingualism’ as an opportunity or constraint are thus positive and negative, both in an evaluative and descriptive sense. In Spain, ‘bilingualism’ is a desirable marker of success and upward social mobility, in Denmark it is an obstacle to the same. In both national discourses, language comes to stand for something else, namely class and ethnicity, as well as integration into (in the Spanish case) a transnational elite and (in the Danish case) the national community. In Spain, ‘bilingualism’ is constituted as a personal and public good to be developed through the education of children and adolescents, hence the growth of ‘bilingual’ schools in recent years. In Denmark, childhood ‘bilingualism’ is seen as an ill to be eradicated through the education system. The language that Spanish parents and politicians want their children to become ‘bilingual’ in is, above all, English. It represents global power, progress, modernity and recovery from imperial decline. Following the maxim ‘If you can’t beat them, join them’, Spain was historically defeated by English-speaking imperial powers and now seeks to join an ‘Anglobalising’, post-imperial, world order on its terms. In Denmark, fluency in English is also – but to a much lesser degree - a marker of elite status which is widely distributed among the population and not associated with ‘bilingualism’. The mostly Middle Eastern, South Asian and African languages that pose the ‘bilingualism’ problem in Denmark are associated with backwardness, poverty and ignorance. With the strong historical link between ethnic nationalism and the Danish/Scandinavian welfare state model, failing to address the problem posed by ‘bilingualism’ threatens the survival of the state as a community of shared values embodied in a strongly monolingual conception of the nation. In both cases, the supposed objectives are unlikely to be met and are not ultimately grounded on language and bilingualism as such. The different meanings ‘bilingualism’ has acquired in the two countries have their historical origins in the nature of their particular early-modern composite monarchical states, the rise and demise of their colonial empires, and their respective 20th century experiences of modernising authoritarianism and welfare capitalism.
Meta: Journal of Translators, Vol. 57, No. 2, 2012, 2012
Foreign accents acted by Anglophone actors are a ubiquitous but politically and theoretically pro... more Foreign accents acted by Anglophone actors are a ubiquitous but politically and theoretically problematic feature of many audiovisual productions in the English-speaking world. This paper investigates the use of Tswana and Japanese accents in two BBC productions as acts of audiovisual translation (AVT) which are illustrative of a more general problematic of Western representations of non-Western languages and cultures. It argues that the phonological features of speech, which are classified as accents, divide the community of native speakers into different social groups and that they create and maintain boundaries between native and non-native speakers. Language discrimination is recognised by the BBC as a problem in relation to its domestic audience and the Corporation actively attempts to become more inclusive and representative of British society by broadcasting non-standard accents. On the other hand, when representing foreign, and especially post-colonial and non-Western languages and cultures, accent is used to define the boundary between the native English-speaking community and its outside. Accents are used to represent and translate the outside in stereotyping ways that tend towards racialisation and towards actors using generic “Southern African” and “East Asian” accents that bear little resemblance to the actual phonological profile of native speakers of Tswana and Japanese.
pp. 289-310 in Epstein, Brett J. (ed.) Northern Lights: Translation in the Nordic Countries. Oxford: Peter Lang, 2009, 2009
Ninety-seven percent of Danish territory lies outside metropolitan Denmark, making Denmark the We... more Ninety-seven percent of Danish territory lies outside metropolitan Denmark, making Denmark the Western European state with the largest territory. Yet Danish political discourse and its translations into English systematically render the strategically important North Atlantic territories invisible. The chapter analyses five contemporary translations of the official Danish name for Denmark, Greenland and the Faroe Islands (Danmarks Rige) and the derived term used since 1975 for the relationship between the territorial units of the state (Rigsfællesskabet). In spite of strong uncertainty as to what to call the collective in English, all governmental and most non-governmental translations tend to avoid language that reminds the reader of the colonial history out of which today's constitutional arrangements and terminology arose. It is suggested that this is due, on the one hand, to a pervasive myth of Denmark as a small state with no significant colonial history and, on the other hand, a perceived need to conform to a global "standard of civilization" set by the United States and postcolonial states since 1945. The hegemonic discourse of Danish national identity, however, is strongly influenced by its colonial past and incompletely decolonized present. This colonial intellectual legacy marginalizes the bulk of Danish territory and its population to a positions "outside universal history".
IIAS Newsletter No. 40, 2006, Jan 1, 2006
Chapter 6 in Söderberg, Marie & Ian Reader (eds.) Japanese influences and presences in Asia. Routledge: London, 1999, Nov 2013
1898, España y el …, Jan 1, 1999
Información del artículo Peripheral concepts of world in the age of high imperialism: japanese, a... more Información del artículo Peripheral concepts of world in the age of high imperialism: japanese, american and spanish discourses of international politics and identity.
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Papers by Kenn Nakata Steffensen
The chapter outlines the post-war creation of the image of the political thought of the Kyoto School before moving on to a consideration of the ambiguity strategy of ‘anti-systemic collaboration’ pursued by most of the Kyoto philosophers, and the interpretive problems that arise from it. The final section highlights a selection of political theoretical themes developed by the Kyoto School thinkers and discusses their relevance for contemporary theorising in light of recent trends in the history of political thought, political theory and international relations. The fulfilment of the intellectual potential of the Kyoto School political thought requires breaking out of its relative isolation by inserting it into new, and arguably more relevant and hospitable, disciplinary fields than the established traditions of comparative philosophy of religion and Japanese history.
This translation of Tosaka Jun's " The Philosophy of the Kyoto School " is as unembellished as possible. As far as is known, this is the original statement of the philosophical nature and scope of the Kyoto School. Making it available in English serves the purpose of documenting how the Kyoto School was conceived, not only in terms of philosophical themes and approaches, but also in terms of who was included. Returning to the first written source reveals that Tosaka's views on both what characterized the philosophy of the Kyoto School and who its leading thinkers were differ somewhat from the dominant postwar conceptions filtered through Tanabe and Nishitani, and disseminated by, among others, Takeuchi, Heisig, Ōhashi, and Davis. Thus this source can stimulate a rethinking of what the term " Kyoto School " meant historically and whether this has any implications for how Kyoto School studies are constituted today.