I will virtually visit SOAS to deliver a lecture on 10/6 that covers the main points of Faking Liberties and introduces some of the findings of my new book Difficult Subjects. Registration here.
I’ll be visiting Duke University to speak about Faking Liberties and my work-in-progress, Difficult Subjects.
I’ll be virtually visiting UCLA to give a talk on the Buddhist material from Faking Liberties.
Image: Detail from cover art for a February 1942 story in Fortune magazine titled “The Japanese: Their God-Emperor Medievalism Must Be Destroyed.” The racist caricatures by artist Miguel Covarrubias included a “fanatical Buddhist priest.’
The Centre for Japanese Research (CJR) at the University of British Columbia presents a series of online book launches to celebrate recent publications about premodern Japan. For our September event, co-authors Fumiko Miyazaki and Kate Wildman Nakai will be discussing Christian Sorcerers on Trial: Records of the 1827 Osaka Incident in conversation with Jolyon Thomas, with a message from co-author Mark Teeuwen.
When Americans occupied Japan at the end of WWII, they claimed that Japanese religion was a political problem and declared religious freedom a solution. But in doing so, the occupiers ignored a long history of debate about religious freedom in Japan. Their narrative also masked competing interpretations among Americans themselves about was religion was and how it could be freed. This talk traces the lasting consequences of those debates, both for Japan and the world.
Examining newspaper articles, magazine spreads, martial arts films, television programs, and anime, this talk explores how Japanese and American people have collaboratively constructed images of Japanese contemplative and therapeutic practices that reinforce, challenge, and transcend the commonsense category of religion.
What does American religious freedom look like when it travels abroad? Who appears as a beneficiary of the religious freedom guarantee, and who does not? How does the civil liberty of religious freedom become a human right? This talk will answer these questions through an analysis of U.S. policies in occupied Japan at the end of WWII.
The McCullen Center welcomes Michael D. McNally, John M. and Elizabeth W. Musser Professor of Religious Studies at Carleton College, Emilia Justyna Powell, Associate Professor of Political Science and Concurrent Associate Professor of Law at the University of Notre Dame, and Jolyon Thomas, Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at The University of Pennsylvania. These scholars will discuss their new books exploring religious freedom and the intersection of law and religion in the global context.
When Americans occupied Japan at the end of WWII, they claimed that Japanese religion was a political problem and declared religious freedom a solution. But in doing so, the occupiers ignored a long history of debate about religious freedom in Japan. Their narrative also masked competing interpretations among Americans themselves about was religion was and how it could be freed. This talk traces the lasting consequences of those debates, both for Japan and the world.
I’ll be visiting Northwestern University to talk about Faking Liberties.
I’ll be speaking at Tōhoku University on religious freedom and the Allied Occupation.
A double header with Justin B. Stein (Bukkyō University) on religion in the Pacific. Japan, Hawai`i, oh my!
A widespread historical narrative suggests that Buddhists failed to defend religious freedom in prewar and wartime Japan. But religious freedom was not a universal principle that Buddhists failed to understand or protect. Rather, Japan’s 1889 constitutional guarantee of religious freedom enrolled Buddhists in the project of defining “real religion” in order to free it.
A Social Science Research Council/Japan Foundation Abe Fellow Talk at I-House
When Americans occupied Japan at the end of WWII, they claimed that Japanese religion was a political problem and declared religious freedom a solution. But in doing so, the occupiers ignored a long history of debate about religious freedom in Japan. Their narrative also masked competing interpretations among Americans themselves about was religion was and how it could be freed. This talk traces the lasting consequences of those debates, both for Japan and the world.
Lecture: April 4, 4:00–5:30, Nau 342
Primary Source Reading Workshop: April 5, 12:00–13:30, Nau 441
Book talk: 2 April 2019, 16:00 in Cupples I, Room 215
Brown bag work-in-progress lunch: 3 April 2019, 11:30–13:00 in Busch Hall 18
Guest lecture in “Animism and Animation” 3 April 2019, 14:30–16:00 in Cupples II 230
