Murakami Haruki and the historical memory of East Asia

Abstract

In this article, I would like to focus on an analysis of internal logic of the ‘Haruki phenomenon’ as a symptom in current East Asian public culture. In particular, I will discuss how Haruki searches for the healing method for the ‘60s complex’ among Japan’s ‘Sixties’ Kids,’ including Haruki himself, through an analysis of his novels Norwegian Wood (2000[1987]) and Kafka on the Shore (2005[2002]). In the process of analysis, we can witness that Haruki abandoned his task of ‘reconciliation with the 1960s’ through faith, rather than facing it directly, and fiznally stripped the 1960s of historicity and reality. He regarded the ‘reconciliation with the 1960s’ as something beyond an individual’s ability. Transforming the 1960s from a history of postwar Japan into an object of abstract and universal nostalgia, which is closed to the present, Haruki effectively met the latent desire of the East Asian people, who were experiencing the dissolution of their ideologies, at the right time. This is the essence of the Haruki phenomenon that emerged in East Asia over the last decade. I use the phrase ‘nostalgia that lost its nationality’ to describe the uncanny cultural phenomenon of East Asian readers longing for the 1960s pictured in Haruki’s novels as if this were their own past, despite their very different national memories. Nostalgia, a cultural symptom of the postmodern society, where remembering the nation’s past totally is impossible, is a blank imitation deprived of its original source. In short, the substance of the Haruki phenomenon is nostalgia that developed from a desire to forget the traumatic memories of the national histories in individual East Asian countries.     

Ethnic diversity and the nation state: from centralization in the age of nationalism to decentralization amidst globalization

The cause of conflict in multiethnic and multi-religious societies is not diversity in and of itself. Rather, it is one’s attitude towards diversity. Do we share political power and economic development with the regions and minority communities? Do we recognize the cultural identities of the minorities? This requires that the nation-state building process be imagined in more inclusive civic territorial lines rather than exclusive ethnic-genealogical lines. With the above as a backdrop, the article explores nation-state building and the related pursuit of economic growth in Malaysia and some parts of Southeast Asia. The article ends with a call for decentralizing power and resources, and for more research on local level governance and democracy.     

Media and criticism in China: The case of the “cultural revolution”

This paper analyzes the role of the media in China during the cultural revolution 1966–1976. In particular, the authors examine the two elements that contributed to the ease with which the “Gang of Four” subverted the media to their own political ends. They contend that the media's history and culture were the two principal elements which allowed the “Gang of Four” to usurp both media and state power. Criticism represented a special cultural genre that established the legitimacy of one group to remove another from power. The authors demonstrate the inherent possibility of usurpation of the media when truth is dominated by personality.     

The effect of a planned intercultural experience on the attitudes and behavior of the participants

This study examines changes in a group of Australian student teachers and staff members who participated in a relatively short but planned educational visit to Israel. The touring group and a control group completed questionnaires before and after the tour, including semantic differential scales on concepts relevant to Israel and Australia. As a result of the tour, the participants adopted some changes in behavior and became aware of their own culture; they became more tolerant towards other peoples and cultures and developed a stronger opinion that travel is a broadening experience.