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Hiroki Azuma
(born May 9, 1971) is a Japanese cultural critic, novelist, and philosopher. He is the co-founder and former director of Genron, an independent institute in Tokyo, Japan. Biography Azuma was born in Mitaka, Tokyo. Azuma received his PhD in Culture and Representation from the University of Tokyo in 1999 and became a professor at the International University of Japan in 2003. He was an Executive Research Fellow and Professor at the Center for Global Communications (GLOCOM) and a Research Fellow at Stanford University's Japan Center. Since 2006, he has been working at the Center for Study of World Civilizations at the Tokyo Institute of Technology. Azuma is married to the writer and poet Hoshio Sanae, and they have one child together. His father-in-law is the translator, novelist, and occasional critic Kotaka Nobumitsu. Work Hiroki Azuma is one of the most influential young literary critics in Japan, focusing on literature and on the idea of individual liberty. He began wri ...
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Japanese Philosophy
Japanese philosophy has historically been a fusion of both indigenous Shinto and continental religions, such as Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism. Formerly heavily influenced by both Chinese philosophy and Indian philosophy, as with Mitogaku and Zen, much modern Japanese philosophy is now also influenced by Western philosophy. Ancient and medieval thought Before feudalism was firmly established in Japan, Buddhism occupied the mainstream of Japanese thought. The Buddhist culture introduced politically by Prince Shōtoku was completed as the "making a country safe" thought in the Nara period. When the Heian period (794–1185) began, in substitution for the "making a country safe thought", a form of esoteric Buddhism collectively known as ''mikkyō'' became widespread. However, in the late noble era when pessimism was popular due to the "belief that Buddhism will decline during the latter days of this world", the Pure Land movements spread out encouraging anticipation of a "fut ...
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Otaku
is a Japanese word that describes people with consuming interests, particularly in anime, manga, video games, or computers. Its contemporary use originated with a 1983 essay by Akio Nakamori in '' Manga Burikko''. may be used as a pejorative with its negativity stemming from a stereotypical view of as social outcasts and the media's reporting on Tsutomu Miyazaki, "The Otaku Murderer", in 1989. According to studies published in 2013, the term has become less negative, and an increasing number of people now identify themselves as , both in Japan and elsewhere. Out of 137,734 teens surveyed in Japan in 2013, 42.2% self-identified as a type of . subculture is a central theme of various anime and manga works, documentaries and academic research. The subculture began in the 1980s as changing social mentalities and the nurturing of traits by Japanese schools combined with the resignation of such individuals to what was then seen as inevitably becoming social outcasts. The su ...
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Kojin Karatani
is a Japanese philosopher and literary critic. Biography Karatani entered the University of Tokyo in 1960, where he joined the radical Marxist Communist League, better known as "The Bund," and participated in the massive 1960 Anpo protests against the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty, which he would later come to view as a formative political experience. Karatani graduated with a B.A. in economics in 1965, and added an M.A. in English literature in 1967. The Gunzō Literary Prize, which he received at the age of 27 for an essay on Natsume Sōseki, was his first critical acclaim as a literary critic. While teaching at Hosei University, Tokyo, he wrote extensively about modernity and postmodernity with a particular focus on language, number, and money, concepts that form the subtitle of one of his central books: ''Architecture as Metaphor''. In 1975, he was invited to Yale University to teach Japanese literature as a visiting professor, where he met Paul de Man and Fredric Jameso ...
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Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky (, ; rus, Фёдор Михайлович Достоевский, Fyódor Mikháylovich Dostoyévskiy, p=ˈfʲɵdər mʲɪˈxajləvʲɪdʑ dəstɐˈjefskʲɪj, a=ru-Dostoevsky.ogg, links=yes; 11 November 18219 February 1881), sometimes transliterated as Dostoyevsky, was a Russian novelist, short story writer, essayist and journalist. Dostoevsky's literary works explore the human condition in the troubled political, social, and spiritual atmospheres of 19th-century Russia, and engage with a variety of philosophical and religious themes. His most acclaimed novels include '' Crime and Punishment'' (1866), '' The Idiot'' (1869), ''Demons'' (1872), and '' The Brothers Karamazov'' (1880). His 1864 novella, ''Notes from Underground'', is considered to be one of the first works of existentialist literature. Numerous literary critics regard him as one of the greatest novelists in all of world literature, as many of his works are considered highly i ...
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Jacques Derrida
Jacques Derrida (; ; born Jackie Élie Derrida; See also . 15 July 1930 – 9 October 2004) was an Algerian-born French philosopher. He developed the philosophy of deconstruction, which he utilized in numerous texts, and which was developed through close readings of the linguistics of Ferdinand de Saussure and Husserlian and Heideggerian phenomenology.Jacques Derrida
. ''Encyclopædia Britannica''. Britannica.com. Retrieved 19 May 2017.
He is one of the major figures associated with post-structuralism and postmodern philosophyVincen ...
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Jean Baudrillard
Jean Baudrillard ( , , ; 27 July 1929 – 6 March 2007) was a French sociologist, philosopher and poet with interest in cultural studies. He is best known for his analyses of media, contemporary culture, and technological communication, as well as his formulation of concepts such as simulation and hyperreality. Baudrillard wrote about diverse subjects, including consumerism, gender relations, critique of economy, economics, social history, art, Western foreign policy, and popular culture. Among his best known works are ''Seduction'' (1978), '' Simulacra and Simulation'' (1981), ''America'' (1986), and ''The Gulf War Did Not Take Place'' (1991). His work is frequently associated with postmodernism and specifically post-structuralism. Baudrillard: "I have nothing to do with postmodernism."MLA Brennan, Eugene. Review of Pourquoi la guerre aujourd’hui?, by Jean Baudrillard, Jacques Derrida. French Studies: A Quarterly Review, vol. 71 no. 3, 2017, p. 449-449. Project MUSE ...
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Akira Asada
is a Japanese postmodern critic and curator, whose interests include contemporary arts, the history of social thought, and economic philosophy. He is currently the Dean of the Graduate School at the Kyoto University of Art and Design. Until March 2008, he served as an associate professor of economics at the Institute of Economic Research at Kyoto University (KIER). Asada is widely recognized as the author of the bestselling book, "構造と力─記号論を超えて (''Structure and Power: Beyond Semiotics'')", which was published in 1983. He holds a position as a member of the supervisory committee at NTT InterCommunication Center, and was a co-editor of a Japanese quarterly journal Hihyōkūkan (''Critical Space'') with Kojin Karatani is a Japanese philosopher and literary critic. Biography Karatani entered the University of Tokyo in 1960, where he joined the radical Marxist Communist League, better known as "The Bund," and participated in the massive 1960 Anpo protest ...
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Post-structuralism
Post-structuralism is a term for philosophical and literary forms of theory that both build upon and reject ideas established by structuralism, the intellectual project that preceded it. Though post-structuralists all present different critiques of structuralism, common themes among them include the rejection of the self-sufficiency of structuralism, as well as an interrogation of the binary oppositions that constitute its structures. Accordingly, post-structuralism discards the idea of interpreting media (or the world) within pre-established, socially constructed structures.Bensmaïa, Réda. 2005. "Poststructuralism." Pp. 92–93 in The Columbia History of Twentieth-Century French Thought', edited by L. Kritzman. Columbia University Press. Poster, Mark. 1988. "Introduction: Theory and the problem of Context." pp. 5–6 i''Critical theory and poststructuralism: in search of a context'' Merquior, José G. 1987. ''Foucault'', (Fontana Modern Masters series). University of Californi ...
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20th-century French Philosophy
20th-century French philosophy is a strand of contemporary philosophy generally associated with post-World War II French thinkers, although it is directly influenced by previous philosophical movements. Bergson The work of Henri Bergson (1859–1941) is often considered the division point between nineteenth- and twentieth-century French philosophy. Essentially, despite his respect for mathematics and science, he pioneered the French movement of scepticism towards the use of scientific methods to understand human nature and metaphysical reality. Positivism, which, for instance, the French sociologist Durkheim was interested in at the time, was not appropriate, he argued. Unlike later philosophers, Bergson was highly influenced by biology, particularly Darwin's ''Origin of Species'', which was published in the year Bergson was born. This led Bergson to discuss the 'Body' and 'Self' in detail, arguably prompting the fundamental ontological and epistemological questions to be ...
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Moe (slang)
, sometimes romanized as ''moé'', is a Japanese word that refers to feelings of strong affection mainly towards characters in anime, manga, video games, and other media directed at the '' otaku'' market. ''Moe'', however, has also gained usage to refer to feelings of affection towards any subject. ''Moe'' is related to neoteny and the feeling of "cuteness" a character can evoke. The word ''moe'' originated in the late 1980s and early 1990s in Japan and is of uncertain origin, although there are several theories on how it came into use. ''Moe'' characters have expanded through Japanese media, and the concept has been commercialised. Contests, both online and in the real world, exist for ''moe''-styled things, including one run by one of the Japanese game rating boards. Various notable commentators such as Tamaki Saitō, Hiroki Azuma, and Kazuya Tsurumaki have also given their take on ''moe'' and its meaning. Meaning ''Moe'' used in slang refers to feelings of affection, ador ...
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Information Society
An information society is a society where the usage, creation, distribution, manipulation and integration of information is a significant activity. Its main drivers are information and communication technologies, which have resulted in rapid information growth in variety and is somehow changing all aspects of social organization, including education, economy, health, government, warfare, and levels of democracy. The people who are able to partake in this form of society are sometimes called either computer users or even digital citizens, defined by K. Mossberger as “Those who use the Internet regularly and effectively”. This is one of many dozen internet terms that have been identified to suggest that humans are entering a new and different phase of society. Some of the markers of this steady change may be technological, economic, occupational, spatial, cultural, or a combination of all of these. Information society is seen as a successor to industrial society. Closely relat ...
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Social Thought
Social theories are analytical frameworks, or paradigms, that are used to study and interpret social phenomena.Seidman, S., 2016. Contested knowledge: Social theory today. John Wiley & Sons. A tool used by social scientists, social theories relate to historical debates over the validity and reliability of different methodologies (e.g. positivism and antipositivism), the primacy of either structure or agency, as well as the relationship between contingency and necessity. Social theory in an informal nature, or authorship based outside of academic social and political science, may be referred to as "social criticism" or "social commentary", or "cultural criticism" and may be associated both with formal cultural and literary scholarship, as well as other non-academic or journalistic forms of writing. Definitions Social theory by definition is used to make distinctions and generalizations among different types of societies, and to analyze modernity as it has emerged in the past ...
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