Takeshi Umehara

Umehara (1967)

Takeshi Umehara ( Japanese 梅 原 猛 Umehara Takeshi; born March 20, 1925 in Sendai , Miyagi Prefecture , Tôhoku Region ; † January 12, 2019 in Kyôto) was a Japanese religious researcher, philosopher , publicist and so-called "media intellectual" (Japanese 文化人bunkajin ), who also acted as an advisor to the Japanese government.

biography

Umehara was adopted by his paternal uncle, Umehara Hanbei , after his mother's death . In 1945 Umehara began to study philosophy at the University of Kyoto against the advice of his father . He graduated from there in 1948. While his studies, as was customary for the course in Japan at the time, largely included Western philosophy, from the mid-1960s he dealt with Japanese culture, the history of Japan and Buddhist thought, etc. a. under the influence of Watsuji Tetsurô . After many years of teaching as a university lecturer in Kyoto , he was appointed director of the International Center for Japanese Studies , founded under the government of Prime Minister Nakasone Yasuhiro , known as Nichibunken , in 1987. Umehara resigned from this position in 1995. His successor was the equally conservative and politically influential Kawai Hayao , who headed the institute from 1995 to 2001.

He is known for his "Umehara Nihongaku" (Japanese 梅 原 日本 学; Eng. Umehara Japanese customer), in which he attempts a historical reconstruction of Japanese identity. He refers to a Japan-specific religiosity or an indigenous "spirituality", which is why the religious scholar Shimazono Susumu counted him among the "spiritual intellectuals".

Umehara received a number of awards for his work in researching and communicating Japanese culture, including the title of "Honorary Citizen of the City of Kyôto". In 1992 he was honored as a person with special cultural merits , in 1999 he was awarded the Imperial Order of Culture .

Umehara was President of the Japanese PEN Club from 1997 to 2003 . He wrote about the Japanese poet Miyazawa Kenji as a representative of the lyricism and spirituality of the Japanese north that he imagined, founded the “Super Kabuki” with the piece Yamato Takeru in 1996 and also wrote pieces for a “Super Kyôgen” (Mutsugoro), as well as a “Super Nô”. He also took part in the medical ethical brain death debate in Japan. In a book from 2010 he dealt again with the emergence of Japan, reinterpreting the history and the founding myths of the Japanese heartland Izumo .

Umehara was the central figure of Japanese culturalism and, in a portrait of the NHK entitled "A Kernel of Wheat" (2013), presented himself as the old master who passed his legacy on to the younger generation, in this case represented by Azuma Hiroki and a group of students, passes on. In his later years he had turned to a "philosophy of humanity", in the context of which he devoted himself to the relationship between civilization and nature and the possible coexistence of both spheres. Takeshi Umehara died at his home in Kyôto at the age of 93.

Career

From 1952 to 1955 Umehara was a lecturer at the literature department of Ryukoku University , then from 1955 to 1957 at the Ritsumeikan University , Faculty of Letters. There he was assistant professor from 1957 to 1967, from 1967 to 1970 he worked as a professor at the Faculty of Literature until he resigned from the professorship in 1970 in the wake of internal university disputes. From 1972 to 1974 he was professor of art at the Kyoto University of Arts . From 1974 to 1983 he was President of the Kyoto City Arts University. He was re-elected president there for the next three years; In 1986 he was professor emeritus at Kyoto City Arts University, where he also served as preparatory director of the International Center for Japanese Studies . In 1987 he was the first director of the institute. In this function he acted as an honorary advisor until he finally left the institute in May 1995. From 1997 to 2003 he was chairman of the Japanese PEN club . In April 2001 he also became the first General President of Monozukuri University . After the triple disaster of Fukushima, he was 2011 Honorary President of the, by the Japanese government under Naoto Kan founded, Reconstruction Design Council in Response to the Great East Japan Earthquake .

theses

Umehara is considered to be a representative of the so-called Japan or Japan discourse , an identity and culture debate that has been carried out in many publications in Japan, which deals with Japan's assertion against "Western civilization", the sovereignty and homogeneity of Japanese culture. This debate is often characterized by a culturalist argument. Umehara's theses include the idealization of the Jōmon period , animism as a Japanese worldview, the appeal for a return to an "archaic spirituality" and a criticism of civilization presented with religion-related arguments. He also represents the idea of ​​an Old Shintô or Ur-Shintô.

His views shaped the Japanese cultural discourse especially from the 1980s to the AUM incident in 1995. Umehara is accused of being a “nationalist anthropologist” or a “Yamatoist” - for example the journalist Ian Buruma , who made him ao . a. Criticized in the Far Eastern Review and New York Times Magazine in early 1987.

In German-language research on Japan, Umehara's views and those of the other spiritual intellectuals were analyzed and critically examined in terms of religious studies and the history of ideas, with these analyzes being based on the preliminary work of Susumu Shimazono and Robert Sharf .

Umehara's role after “Fukushima” and contributions to the 3.11 debate

In the article "'Bunmeisai' o norikoe jihi no seishin minagiru kokka ni" (After overcoming the "civilization catastrophe " - to a state full of the spirit of grace) Umehara Takeshi emphasizes once again after the nuclear disaster in Fukushima how important it would be to to reflect on an “ancient Japanese way of thinking” and to overcome modern civilization with its dangerous use of technology; for a better future for the country after the Fukushima disaster, he suggests returning to sun worship ( taiyô sûhai ) - in two ways: spiritual and environmental.

In addition to a new, environmentally friendly use of energy, a different spiritual orientation should also point the way for the future for Japan. Instead of the values ​​of modernity with its anthropocentrism , the old Japanese belief in the sun and a traditional philosophy of conviviality with grass, trees and the earth could give better impulses. One would have to say goodbye to the current consumption and throw-away mentality as well as the primacy of the economic , to which scholars and artists nowadays partly cling. It is a mistake to want to see one's luck only in the rate of economic growth. A spirit of supportive togetherness is required and a state that is no stranger to compassion.

Fonts (selection)

The following of his works are available in English or French translation:

• Lotus and Other Tales of Medieval Japan . Tuttle Publ. 1996. ISBN 978-0-80482062-2
• La philosophie japonaise des enfers . Klincksieck 1990. ISBN 978-2-86563261-9

Works not yet translated:

• "The discovery of beauty and religion" (1967) 『美 と 宗教 の 発 見』
• "The Structure of Laughter" (1972) 『笑 い の 構造』
• "Encouragement to Study" (1979) 『学問 の す す め』
• "Beginnings of a Japanese customer" (1985) 『日本 学 事 始』
• "Gilgamesh" (1988) 『ギ ル ガ メ シ ュ』
• "Japan Adventure" (1988) 『日本 冒 険』
• “One word from a hundred thinkers” (1993) 『百 人 一 語』

literature

• Nelly Naumann: The Native Religion of Japan: Part 1: Until the End of the Heian Period. Brill, Leiden 1988.
• Inken Prohl : The "Spiritual Intellectuals" and the New Age in Japan . NOAG, Hamburg 2000.
• Lisette Gebhardt : Japan's New Spirituality. Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 2001, ISBN 978-3-447-04398-4 .
• Magret Sleeboom: Academic Nations in China and Japan: Framed by Concepts of Nature, Culture and the Universal . Routledge, New York 2003.
• Hiroshi Kubota, Klaus J. Antoni , Johann Nawrocki, Michael Wachutka (eds.): Religion and National Identity in the Japanese Context . (= Bunka Wenhua. Tübingen East Asian Research. Volume 5.) Lit Verlag, Münster 2003, ISBN 978-3-8258-6043-1 .
• Aike P. Rots: Shinto, Nature and Ideology in Contemporary Japan. Making sacred forests . Bloomsbury, London 2017, ISBN 978-1-4742-8993-1 .

Individual evidence

1. ^ Lisette Gebhardt: The media intellectual as a "medium" of cultural identity. Notes on a sociotype of contemporary Japanese culture. 2001, accessed February 5, 2019 . 
2. ↑ International Center for Japanese Studies. Accessed February 2019 . 
3. ↑ James A. Fuji: Internationalizing Japan: Rebellion in Kirikiri and the international research center for Japanese studies . In: Journal of Intercultural Studies . Vol. 19, No. 2 , 1998, p. 149-169 .
4. ↑ Takeshi Umehara: What is Japanese tradition? July 2005, accessed February 5, 2019 . 
5. ↑ Shimazono Susumu: The Rise of the New Spirituality. September 2012, pp. 459-485 , accessed February 5, 2019 . 
6. ↑ Takeshi Umehara: Yamato Takeru 1996. Retrieved May 2, 2019 . 
7. ↑ Christian Steineck: Instrumentalization of the concept of culture - a sketch of the problem based on bioethical discussions in Japan. 2002, accessed February 7, 2019 . 
8. ↑ Japan Times: Influential Japanese philosopher Takeshi Umehara dies at age January 93 , 2019, accessed February 2, 2019 . 
9. ^ NHK: 'A Kernel of Wheat' - Japan, Nature & Western Philosophy NHK World. 2013, accessed February 5, 2019 . 
10. ↑ Asahi Shinbun: Death of the philosopher Takeshi Umeharas. January 2019, accessed February 2, 2019 . 
11. ↑ Ian Buruma: A NEW JAPANESE NATIONALISM. April 1987, Retrieved February 6, 2019 . 
12. ↑ Shûkan Asahi (ed.): "Bunmeisai" o norikoe jihi no seishin minagiru kokka ni (After overcoming the "civilization catastrophe") . May 2011, p. 150-152 .
13. ↑ Text Initiative Fukushima - From civilization disaster for sun worship. Retrieved February 5, 2019 .