On April 25th, 2023, (Tuesday) the first lecture of a series aimed to create “A New Collaborative Research Organization for a New Enlightenment” titled “Afterword of The Question Concerning Technology in China” was held. Speaker Prof. Yuk Hui (City University of Hong Kong/Visiting Professor at Tokyo College) based his lecture on his book The Question Concerning Technology in China (Published in 2016, Translated into Japanese in 2022), and followed his lecture with a conversation with Prof. Takahiro Nakajima and Q&A with the audience.
From the left, Prof. Yuk Hui (City University of Hong Kong/Visiting Professor at Tokyo College), Prof. Takahiro Nakajima (University of Tokyo, Director of the Institute for Advanced Studies on Asia.)
In his lecture, Prof. Hui redefined “technology” which was only perceived and standardized in Western tradition by giving examples from China and suggested cosmotechnics, something which emphasizes locality, as an alternative to solve a new generation of problems in the world. Prof. Hui also pointed out in his lecture that perhaps one of the reasons why non-Euro-American societies are buried by the wave of modernity was that there was a missed opportunity for countries to understand “technology.” To understand that “technology” is a critical observation point for reconstruction, there is a definite need to work on more concrete research and the practice of challenges. In response to Prof. Hui’s suggestion, Prof. Nakajima suggested that it is important to not only respond to questions differently regarding the technology in China and Heideggerian questions regarding technology but to reform “questioning” itself.
From the left, Prof. Noburu Notomi (University of Tokyo Graduate School of Humanities and Sociology), Assistant Prof. Yuki Tanaka (Institue for Advanced Studies on Asia), Prof. Masaki Fujihata (Tokyo University of the Arts)
In this lecture, various key concepts and perspectives that were thought given the state of modern society such as “technological planerization” or “epistemological diplomacy” were continuously suggested. How the creation of this knowledge contributes to the founding of “a new collaborative research organization for a new enlightenment” would be a task from now on.
The next lecture is planned to be hosted on May 8th with Prof. Markus Gabriel as a lecturer, and after June, there are plans to continuously host symposiums centered around the University of Tokyo members. In the future, with trial, error, startup, and adjustment, we would like to continue carefully thinking about how a university should be.
Reporter: Muyun Wang (EAA Project Research Fellow)
Translated by Atsuko Ishida