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“Ushimura-san, you graduated from the Law Department, right?” I was surprised when a colleague put this question to me about ten years after I had joined Nichibunken. As someone who had studied languages and literatures, I was actually honored by the error. The colleague and I had travelled together to Overseas Symposiums, and we spoke to one another quite frequently. Doubtless, he thought I was a law graduate because one of my fields of interest is war crimes tribunals involving Japan. However, my approach draws on postwar intellectual history and discourses on civilization, rather than legal theory. Similarly, for over thirty years I have been interested in the introduction of track and field athletics to Meiji-period Japan, which I interpret within the history of civilization, and have published on from time to time. Japanese academia remains heavily siloed, and I suspect only Nichibunken would allow me the freedom to pursue research into both war crimes tribunals and the history of athletics. Reflecting on this, I cannot but realize how fortunate I have been.

Since its establishment, Nichibunken has explored “what Japanese culture is” and “who the Japanese are”. No matter how much emphasis it places on interdisciplinary and international research, “Japanese culture” and “the Japanese” exist as the object of study. I spent three years in North America around 1990, when Japan bashing was at its peak. It was there that I was “reborn,” so to speak. No longer could I be party to “Japanese uniqueness,” as it surfaced in theories of Japanese-ness and Japanese culture. All this theorizing typically began, “We Japanese…” It is difficult to discuss “American culture” or “what is American” in a melting pot like the United States, and I could not help but be suspicious of confident claims regarding the nature of all Japanese and their culture. I still feel that such theories are assertions of cultural superiority, and ones that are rightly open to criticism from abroad.

The world of the twenty-first century respects inclusiveness and diversity. When we speak of “the Japanese people,” we—perhaps unwittingly—deny Japan’s diversity. My fervent wish is that Nichibunken, nearing the fortieth anniversary of its establishment, will lead academic research in Japan and overseas examining various Japanese, rather than “the Japanese people,” and exploring not one “Japanese culture,” but a multitude of Japanese cultures.

The author's edited volumes on war crimes' trials and the history of athletics, sandwiched by his monographs.