Learning Places

The Afterlives of Area Studies

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Edited by Masao Miyoshi and Harry Harootunian

Duke University Press

Due/Published November 2002, 408 pages, paper

ISBN 0822328402

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 gathered here 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

Series: Asia-Pacific

Contents

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 / Are 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. Silverman
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

Review

Area studies came into being during the Cold War when knowledge about America’s enemies, potential and actual, was seen as crucial in the fight against the Soviet Union. Money came pouring in from wealthy individuals and then from foreign governments interested in improving their image in the United States. Now that the Cold War has ended and a new age of globalization seems afoot, how has the practice of area studies changed? According to the distinguished group of contributors to this superb new collection, area studies is still hopelessly stuck in the familiar narratives of the cold war. Area studies has failed to come to terms with the epistemological challenges put forth by postcolonial and cultural studies. Its conservatism also spreads to its methodology, where area studies’ promise of breaking down disciplinary boundaries still goes unfulfilled. Contributions from corporations and foreign governments, East Asian nations in particular, puts pressure on scholars to rein in critical approaches lest they lose funding. The contributors to Learning Places explore the current state of area studies and its unwillingness to break away from Cold War narratives and a Euro-centric understanding of the world. Focusing on scholarly work on Japan, the collection also explores how area studies, if dramatically reconfigured, can help further an understanding of a rapidly changing world characterized by fluid interchange between cultures.

In a review of the book, David Harvey writes, “Area studies is in crisis, seemingly rendered marginal and anachronistic in a globalizing world. Yet, paradoxically, knowledge of histories, geographies, cultures, ecologies, and geopolitical tensions has become crucial if the public is to understand the dangers as well as the promises of globalization. Miyoshi and Harootunian here assemble a talented group of scholars to probe deeply into this contradiction. They convincingly argue that area studies needs to be completely revamped if not dissolved into new knowledge structures within the academy if it is to fulfill its mission. This challenges all of us to rethink disciplinary allegiances and past ways of knowing in critical as well as constructive ways.”

Contributors include Masao Miyoshi, Tetsuo Najita, Stefan Tanaka, Rey Chow, Benita Parry, H. D. Harootunian, Sylvia Yanagisako, Richard H. Okada, Paul Bové, Rob Wilson, Bruce Cumings, Bernard S. Silberman, Moss Roberts, James A. Fujii, Mitsuhiro Yoshimoto.