Special Report on National Taiwan University's "Japanese Studies Series"

This report introduces the Japanese Studies series published in Japanese by the National Taiwan University Press, covering six areas: (1) Japanese studies and East Asian research, (2) Taiwan during the Japanese colonial era, (3) literature and culture, (4) linguistics and education, (5) thought and history, and (6) law and economics. Its aims are as follows:

1. 1. Enhancing the communication between the liberal arts and social sciences to enrich Japanese studies;

2. 2. Exploiting new learning environments for Japanese studies in Taiwan to cultivate young scholars and broaden their horizons inter-disciplinarily, inter-industrially, and internationally;

3. 3. Facilitating the cooperation of related organizations in Taiwan and Japan and all kinds of academic institutes in East Asia to establish interdisciplinary research on international Japanese studies; and

4. 4. Promoting Taiwan-based and Taiwan-specific international Japanese studies to communicate and exchange ideas with Japanese studies scholars in the Euro-American world.

The unique historical background of Taiwan and National University of Taiwan is greatly influential in instituting the series. As is well known, NTU inherited a large number of documents related to Japanese studies from its predecessor, Taipei Imperial University, after World War II. As a result of this cultural legacy, there is a rich and unique tradition of Japanese studies at NTU, and in Taiwan as a whole. This series, therefore, is intended to dig out these elements and build them up for the emergence of a new phase of Japanese studies in Taiwan and beyond.

From the perspective of East Asia, Japanese studies in Japan, mainland China, Korea, and other Asian countries has developed differently and possesses distinguishing features in each country. Japanese studies in Taiwan also has a long and successful history, although some people criticize it for overly focusing on Japanese language and literature and lacking sufficient communication with the related social science research.

The Japanese Studies series is organized and edited by the Center for Japanese Studies, National Taiwan University, and published by the National Taiwan University Press. The series, which is Taiwan's first collection of scholarly monographs written in Japanese, has issued twenty-four volumes up to August 2017. Following the editorial and publishing guidelines of selecting Taiwan-based and Taiwan-specific content, the series collects research with explicit themes related to Japanese studies, including newly published research achievements and modified dissertations of young scholars. It aims to facilitate mutual understanding between Taiwan and Japan and other East Asian countries, as well as to improve Taiwan's academic capacity in Japanese studies in the twenty-first century, an age of globalization.

In this brief introduction, the focus will be on the area of thought and history, which is in one way or another related to philosophy or Japanese philosophy. After that, it will provide an overview of the other five areas of the book series. The area of thought and history introduces the formation of the impression of Taiwan during the Meiji period and analyzes the spatial and temporal factors of the Mudan incident. Facing various problems emerging in the modern world and Asia, studies with the aim of preventing war and promoting the standpoint of East Asian peace discuss the "predicaments of modern East Asia" and reexamine the roots and clues of unsolved problems existing between East Asian countries on the basis of the broad and profound understanding of different East Asian scholars. Research on Edo Neo-Confucianism reaffirms the modern significance of Neo-Confucianism in East Asia through discussions of scientific and technological civilization as well as social and ecological crises brought on by Western modernization.

Here I would like to pick out three books, namely, volume 8, Kindai higashiajia no aporia 近代東アジアのアポリア (Aporias of Modern East Asia); volume 9, Shushigaku to kinsei kindai no higashiajia 朱子学と近世・近代の 東アジア (Zhu Xi and Early Modern East Asia); and volume 21, Shisōshi kara higashiajia o kangaeru 思想史から東アジアを考える (Contemplating East Asia through Intellectual History), which are specifically noteworthy in regard to the field of Japanese philosophy. As seen in the book titles, these three volumes attempt to study philosophy or intellectual history from the perspective of East Asia, in which there are three...