Description

Abstract:

Not to mention the conflicts and wars that we are witnessing today, we have not yet been able to achieve a stable peace in the international community. What are the reasons for this failure?

A fundamental one concerns our dominant cognitive framework regarding international society, which emerged in the first decades of the 20th century. This paper highlights the characteristics and shortcomings of this framework by looking at Japan in the 1920s and 30s. This paper will show that a totalitarian view of the nation-state is not unique to militarism, and that it is a cognitive framework that defined our thinking then and still does today.

It will then point out several factors that contributed to the totalitarianisation and militarisation of Japanese society in the 1920s and 30s, paying attention to the interrelationships between these factors and their influence on people’s mindsets. It will also refer to the implications of the slogan “Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere”, which includes Japan’s invasion and occupation of this region, in the context of the totalitarian militarisation of Japanese society.

Speaker: Professor Hisashi Harata, University of Tokyo

Moderator: Professor Weitseng Chen, National University of Singapore

Venue: Block B Classroom 3-7, NUS Faculty of Law (Bukit Timah Campus)

Register here: https://tinyurl.com/cals230911 (seminar will be presented in-person)

Registration Deadline: 6 September 2023

View the event flyer here.

This Seminar is proudly organised by the Centre for Asian Legal Studies (CALS), Faculty of Law, National University of Singapore.

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