Learning places : the afterlives of area studies
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
Learning places : the afterlives of area studies
(Asia-Pacific : culture, politics, and society)
Duke University Press, 2002
- : cloth
- : pbk
Available at 34 libraries
  Aomori
  Iwate
  Miyagi
  Akita
  Yamagata
  Fukushima
  Ibaraki
  Tochigi
  Gunma
  Saitama
  Chiba
  Tokyo
  Kanagawa
  Niigata
  Toyama
  Ishikawa
  Fukui
  Yamanashi
  Nagano
  Gifu
  Shizuoka
  Aichi
  Mie
  Shiga
  Kyoto
  Osaka
  Hyogo
  Nara
  Wakayama
  Tottori
  Shimane
  Okayama
  Hiroshima
  Yamaguchi
  Tokushima
  Kagawa
  Ehime
  Kochi
  Fukuoka
  Saga
  Nagasaki
  Kumamoto
  Oita
  Miyazaki
  Kagoshima
  Okinawa
  Korea
  China
  Thailand
  United Kingdom
  Germany
  Switzerland
  France
  Belgium
  Netherlands
  Sweden
  Norway
  United States of America
Note
Includes bibliographical references and index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
Under globalization, the project of area studies and its relationship to the fields of cultural, ethnic, and gender studies has grown more complex and more in need of the rigorous reexamination that this volume and its distinguished contributors undertake. In the aftermath of World War II, area studies were created in large part to supply information on potential enemies of the United States. The essays in Learning Places argue, however, that the post-Cold War era has seen these programs largely degenerate into little more than public relations firms for the areas they research.
A tremendous amount of money flows-particularly within the sphere of East Asian studies, the contributors claim-from foreign agencies and governments to U.S. universities to underwrite courses on their histories and societies. In the process, this volume argues, such funds have gone beyond support to the wholesale subsidization of students in graduate programs, threatening the very integrity of research agendas. Native authority has been elevated to a position of primacy; Asian-born academics are presumed to be definitive commentators in Asian studies, for example. Area studies, the contributors believe, has outlived the original reason for its construction. The essays in this volume examine particular topics such as the development of cultural studies and hyphenated studies (such as African-American, Asian-American, Mexican-American) in the context of the failure of area studies, the corporatization of the contemporary university, the prehistory of postcolonial discourse, and the problematic impact of unformulated political goals on international activism.
Learning Places points to the necessity, the difficulty, and the possibility in higher education of breaking free from an entrenched Cold War narrative and making the study of a specific area part of the agenda of education generally. The book will appeal to all whose research has a local component, as well as to those interested in the future course of higher education generally. Contributors. Paul A. Bove, Rey Chow, Bruce Cummings, James A. Fujii, Harry Harootunian, Masao Miyoshi, Tetsuo Najita, Richard H. Okada, Benita Parry, Moss Roberts, Bernard S. Silberman, Stefan Tanaka, Rob Wilson, Sylvia Yanagisako, Mitsuhiro Yoshimoto
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction: The "Afterlife" of Area Studies
Ivory Tower in Escrow / Masao Miyoshi
Ando Shoeki - "The Forgotten Thinker" in Japanese History / Tetsuo Najita
Objectivism and the Eradication of Critique in Japanese History / Stefan Tanaka
Theory, Area Studies, Cultural Studies: Issues of Pedagogy in Multiculturalism / Rey Chow
Signs of Our Times: A Discussion of Homi Bhabha's The Location of Culture / Benita Parry
Postcoloniality's Unconscious / Area Studies' Desire / H. D. Harootunian
Asian Exclusion Acts / Sylvia Yanagisako
Areas, Disciplines, and Ethnicity / Richard H. Okada
Can American Studies Be Area Studies? / Paul A. Bove
Imagining "Asia-Pacific" Today: Forgetting Colonialism in the Magical Free Markets of the American Pacific / Rob Wilson
Boundary Displacement: The State, the Foundations, and Area Studies during and after the Cold War / Bruce Cumings
The Disappearance of Modern Japan: Japan and Social Science / Bernard S. Silberman
Bad Karma in Asia / Moss Roberts
From Politics to Culture: Modern Japanese Literary Studies in the Age of Cultural Studies / James A. Fujii
Questions of Japanese Cinema: Disciplinary Boundaries and the Invention of the Scholarly Object / Mitsuhiro Yoshimoto
Contributors
Index
by "Nielsen BookData"