Kyoto Lectures 2017-04-24
24 APRIL 17
KYOTO LECTURES 2017
Monday, April 24th, 18:00h
This lecture will be held at the Institute for Research in Humanities (IRH), Kyoto University (seminar room 1, 1st floor)
Japan and the United States: Observations from Immigration Studies
Speaker: Gary Y. Okihiro
The nation-state figures as a fundamental principle in immigration studies in that the movement of people across sovereign territories comprises a denition of immigration. As a result, nation-states consider immigration to be a matter of national constitution and security. Examples from Japanese American history illustrate those observations. Sovereignty, a convention derived from Westphalia (1648), advances the nation-state, of relatively recent construction, as comprised of territory (land) and people (subjects and citizens). Those we understand to be social constructions located in place and time; nation-states have histories. Moreover, we know that nation-states are constituted discursively (as in a narrative of nation) and materially. Several myths emanate from that discourse, including the nation’s people as forming a single, unitary race (from “nation” meaning birth or blood). In the United States citizenship is a matter of birth (jus sanguinis), and Japanese migrants, like other people of color, tested that myth of nation. Another aspect of the sovereign nation-state challenged by Japanese migrants to and in the United States includes the central historical fiction of the U.S. as a nation of immigrants. Of course, that historical interpretation arises from a basic falsehood; the U.S. narrative of nation refuses its true origins—an invasive presence of mainly British imperialism in North America. Land was gained through the conquest and expulsion of American Indians. In its place arises the narrative of immigration as the main force in the constitution of the nation’s people. Japanese migration, like other labor migrations of Africans and Latinxs, belies that myth of the sovereign nation-state.
Gary Y. Okihiro is professor of international and public affairs and the founding director of the Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race at Columbia University. He is author of twelve books, including his latest, Third World Studies: Theorizing Liberation (2016). He received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Studies Association and the Association for Asian American Studies, and received an honorary doctorate from the University of the Ryukyus, Okinawa.
For detailed directions: http://www.zinbun.kyoto-u.ac.jp/e/institute/access-institute/access_e.htm
École Francaise d’Extrême-Orient (EFEO)
Italian School of East Asian Studies (ISEAS)
co-hosted by Institute for Research in Humanities, Kyoto University
EFEO Phone: 075-701-0882 Fax: 075-701-0883 e-mail: efeo.kyoto@gmail.com
ISEAS Phone: 075-751-8132 Fax: 075-751-8221 e-mail: iseas@iseas-kyoto.org
kyoto lectures
Monday, April 24th, 18:00h
This lecture will be held at the Institute for Research in Humanities (IRH), Kyoto University (seminar room 1, 1st floor)
Japan and the United States: Observations from Immigration Studies
Speaker: Gary Y. Okihiro
The nation-state figures as a fundamental principle in immigration studies in that the movement of people across sovereign territories comprises a denition of immigration. As a result, nation-states consider immigration to be a matter of national constitution and security. Examples from Japanese American history illustrate those observations. Sovereignty, a convention derived from Westphalia (1648), advances the nation-state, of relatively recent construction, as comprised of territory (land) and people (subjects and citizens). Those we understand to be social constructions located in place and time; nation-states have histories. Moreover, we know that nation-states are constituted discursively (as in a narrative of nation) and materially. Several myths emanate from that discourse, including the nation’s people as forming a single, unitary race (from “nation” meaning birth or blood). In the United States citizenship is a matter of birth (jus sanguinis), and Japanese migrants, like other people of color, tested that myth of nation. Another aspect of the sovereign nation-state challenged by Japanese migrants to and in the United States includes the central historical fiction of the U.S. as a nation of immigrants. Of course, that historical interpretation arises from a basic falsehood; the U.S. narrative of nation refuses its true origins—an invasive presence of mainly British imperialism in North America. Land was gained through the conquest and expulsion of American Indians. In its place arises the narrative of immigration as the main force in the constitution of the nation’s people. Japanese migration, like other labor migrations of Africans and Latinxs, belies that myth of the sovereign nation-state.
Gary Y. Okihiro is professor of international and public affairs and the founding director of the Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race at Columbia University. He is author of twelve books, including his latest, Third World Studies: Theorizing Liberation (2016). He received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Studies Association and the Association for Asian American Studies, and received an honorary doctorate from the University of the Ryukyus, Okinawa.
For detailed directions: http://www.zinbun.kyoto-u.ac.jp/e/institute/access-institute/access_e.htm
École Francaise d’Extrême-Orient (EFEO)
Italian School of East Asian Studies (ISEAS)
co-hosted by Institute for Research in Humanities, Kyoto University
EFEO Phone: 075-701-0882 Fax: 075-701-0883 e-mail: efeo.kyoto@gmail.com
ISEAS Phone: 075-751-8132 Fax: 075-751-8221 e-mail: iseas@iseas-kyoto.org
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DECEMBER NOVEMBER OCTOBER SEPTEMBER AUGUST JULY JUNE MAY APRIL MARCH FEBRUARY 2016
2015
2014
2013
2012
2011
2010
2009
2008
anna seidel memorial lectures
architecture
cahiers d'extrême-asie
competition
conference
conferences
conferences
conferences
conservation and renovation of architecture in japan
construction
inauguration
jotoshiki
kyoto lectures
kyoto lectures
kyoto lectures
lecture series
library
news
nouvelles
parutions
prices and distinctions
publications
researchers
visiting scholars
workshop