On May 3rd 2024, Constitution Memorial Day, Prof. Kiyonobu Date (Graduate School of Arts and Sciences) who specializes in religious studies and French area studies, delivered a lecture titled: “French-Japanese Exchange and Peace Thought 100 Years Ago: Religious Studies as ‘Weather Station.’”
“Religious Studies as ‘Weather Station’” is a phrase used by Masaharu Anesaki, the first professor of religious studies at the University of Tokyo. Anesaki distinguishes two types of studies: one is studies as a “General Staff Office” that strictly controls the range of academic disciplines, and the other is studies as a “Weather Station” which observes changes in the surroundings and flexibly addresses them. He likens his religious studies to the latter and pursues the question of how to avoid conflicts when the situation takes a dark turn.
After WWI, a new world order and peace thought were being established to prevent another conflict. It was around this time that French-Japanese cultural and academic exchange were promoted, and Anesaki, who had connections with France, confronted the “complexification of logos” of the time through the works of Louis Pasteur, Paul Claudel, and Marcel Mauss.
The lecture leads from Anesaki’s academic questions, through cultural and academic exchange between Japan and France, to the issues of the League of Nations and the United Nations, and to the Constitution of Japan. Achieving peace may seem extremely difficult in today’s context. Referring to Kant’s Perpetual Peace and Kojin Karatani’s theory of the Japanese Constitution, Prof. Date indicated the potential of “vulnerable people as new actors” (rather than the strong who rely on power) that Anesaki emphasizes for constructing peace.
What can we do in the face of the horrors of the war unfolding today? Surely, we could not expect a lecture more suitable for Constitution Memorial Day, one that encourages both academic and practical thoughts about peace in the world today and beyond through the ideas of peace 100 years ago.
Report by SHIRAO Asami (EAA Research Assistant)