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Home / Events / J-talks @ Sydney Uni | The Samurai as Impostor and the Birth of Modernity in Tokugawa Japan (1603-1868) 
J-talks @ Sydney Uni | The Samurai as Impostor and the Birth of Modernity in Tokugawa Japan (1603-1868)  – School of Languages and Cultures J-talks @ Sydney Uni | The Samurai as Impostor and the Birth of Modernity in Tokugawa Japan (1603-1868)  – School of Languages and Cultures

J-talks @ Sydney Uni | The Samurai as Impostor and the Birth of Modernity in Tokugawa Japan (1603-1868) 

The Department of Japanese Studies presents

J-talks @ Sydney Uni

The Samurai as Impostor and the Birth of Modernity in Tokugawa Japan (1603-1868) 
Dr Olivier Ansart

Abstract
In the early 18th century some Japanese thinkers argued that the institutions, the norms and the laws that should constitute the good society (the “Way”) were all human inventions without any direct or indirect grounding in the natural, or supernatural, order of things. When, some time later, and still without contact with western political thinking, to this approach was added an enthusiastic recognition of the contractual and self-interested nature of human relationships, and a newfound faith in the power of rational critique, other thinkers formulated what can only be described as an indigenous modernity. The question that this intellectual revolution forces us to ask is “what made it possible?”
Part of the answer, Dr Ansart will argue, lies in a most unlikely place: in the arch-conservative, feudal world of the warrior (“samurai”) class. He will show that the theater of appearances—of lies and impostures, which was the very tissue of life in the warrior society—facilitated the emergence of strikingly new ways of thinking about political and social arrangements.
About the speaker

Dr Olivier Ansart carries out research on Japanese and East Asian intellectual history, focusing particularly on the political theories of Japanese Confucian thinkers of 18th century. He lectures on early modern Japanese history, the Tokugawa period, as well as social and political issues of contemporary Japan.

Dr Ansart carries out research on Japanese and East Asian intellectual history, focusing particularly on the political theories of Japanese Confucian thinkers of 18th century. He lectures on early modern Japanese history, the Tokugawa period, as well as social and political issues of contemporary Japan.

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For more information, contact: Dr Matthew Shores – matthew.shores@sydney.edu.au

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Date

Jun 03 2021
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Time

4:00 PM

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Organizer

Japanese Studies
Website
http://sydney.edu.au/arts/japanese
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