Symposium
Cultural Interaction Studies is a new discipline. A fundamental premise of Cultural Interaction that transcends analysis based on nation and race is that East Asia is a constant and cohesive cultural complex. It attempts to provide a synthesis of diverse views of the present state of cultural interaction by focusing on the production, transmission, contact, and transformation of culture within this larger framework. While Kansai University possesses a large collection of research on the history of Sino-Japanese relations, Cultural Interaction Studies hopes to broaden the field of Cultural Exchange and construct a new discipline.
The earlier field of Cultural Exchange was formed primarily from the accumulation of case studies on cultural products or cultural systems, each of these studies falling into clearly delineated areas of expertise. Knowledge in linguistics, ideology, anthropology, literature and history continues to grow; however, the development of a methodology for a holistic understanding of cultural interaction remains an undeveloped field. The lack of an interdisciplinary approach between the different fields in research on the same phenomenon precludes a comprehensive understanding, this loss of the whole reflecting the present state of research in the humanities.
Based on the concept of the nation-state, the premise of research in the earlier discipline of Cultural Exchange is fundamentally nationalist. For example, research in the history of Sino-Japanese relations remains limited to the cultural exchange between the two countries. Even between the two countries, individual research is formed within and restricted by the national frameworks of Japan or China. A border-crossing comprehensive research organization or research field has yet to be established. In East Asia, transnational concepts of an East Asian Civilization and an East Asian Cultural Sphere exist; however, research that uncritically accepts theories of civilization and cultural spheres posits at its core the simplistic idea of an advanced civilization. This acceptance renders it impossible to leave the dichotomies of “developed - undeveloped” and “central - marginal”. Because of this, it is then impossible to grasp the nature of an original reciprocal cultural interaction, and it is equally impossible to break free of the reductionist interpretation of all East Asian culture originating in China and spreading to the periphery, just as “water flows from high to low”. The various aspects of cultural contact are reduced to a simplistic interpretation.
In contrast to East Asian Cultural Studies, Cultural Interaction Studies builds on the research achievements of Cultural Exchange, and is a discipline prepared for the rapid transformation of East Asian Cultural Studies into a meta-discipline. In order to accomplish this, it is necessary to overcome nationalist research frameworks as well as the confines of distinct disciplines. Naturally, the themes included in Cultural Interaction Studies will be extremely broad, but the envisioned research fields are “cultural interaction seen through different media”, “cultural contact and regional influence”, and “cultural image and identity seen from the outside”.
The current East Asia research project does not presume a static cultural core; it also avoids any methodology that seeks to equate one country with one regional culture or to isolate one country from other countries. In order to break free of research limited to one country's culture, or research that juxtaposes the culture of one country against another, we have assumed that East Asia is a cultural complex constructed from the result of an unbroken chain of cultural contacts. We seek to reconsider East Asia from multidisciplinary stance based in the humanities. For the first time, it is possible to fully understand the complex body of cultural interaction in East Asia, the consequences of this being a reappraisal of East Asia's cultural image. Innovative approaches of this sort are what is most needed in contemporary East Asia cultural studies.
