Programme Summary

The project puts together Kyushu University’s human and intellectual resources and aims to lay the foundation of a new disciplinary framework for understanding Asia, that can be called the “New Asian studies”. In order to accomplish the objective, the project investigates the long-term process through which the regions of Asia, Japanese archipelago amongst the others, interacted and co-transformed. The project is also designed to produce a new generation of the scholars who make contributions to the understanding of the world from the perspectives grown and rooted in Asia.
　The project investigates interaction and the formation of the identities of various types and scales in East Asia by examining the process through which regional units in East Asia, Japanese archipelago amongst others, interacted and mutually transformed. The task will be undertaken as an interdisciplinary enterprise by a team of specialists in Japanese History, Asian History, Korean History, Archaeology, Japanese Language and Literature. A significant objective of the project is to contribute to the re-identification of the positionality of Japan as an East Asian country in the globalizing world.

The project aims at opening up new horizons in the study of history and humanity through the interdisciplinary investigation of the process of the co-transformation of the regions of East Asia. The scope of the investigation incorporates a range of factors such as the individual as well as collective consciousness of a given regional unit and the formation and transformation of “practical knowledge” in unique historical contexts. In order to implement the plans, the following works will be undertaken. 1) Forming a network connecting the project members and students with scholars in East Asian countries and beyond. 2) Holding regular project sub-theme-based meetings. 3) Holding a project-wide mid-term meeting and a final summing-up meeting. 4) Compiling the mid-term and final reports. 5) Inviting scholars abroad to meetings and other research/teaching occasions.