On the two days of May 24 and 25, 2019, an international academic conference took place at Waseda University\u2019s Toyama Campus.<\/p>\n
Since the 2017 academic year, the Institute of Japanese Studies at Dankook University, South Korea has been working on the research subject of \u201cThe Transition of Knowledge Power and East Asian Humanities: Con-Divergence of Korea-China-Japan Knowledge Production and Distribution\u201d as a project that is part of the Humanities Korea Plus (HK+) program.<\/p>\n
The international academic conference was held by the Institute of Japanese Studies at Dankook University, along with Waseda University’s Faculty of Education and Integrated Arts and Sciences, the Waseda University Research Institute for Letters, Arts and Sciences, the Ryusaku Tsunoda Center of Japanese Culture, and the Waseda University Global Japanese Studies Model Unit of the Top Global University Project. The title of the conference was \u201cThe Mechanisms of Exchanging Knowledge in East Asia: The Creation and Transmission of Knowledge.\u201d<\/p>\n
On the morning of the first day of the conference, following the opening ceremony, Lee Sung-si (Faculty of Letters, Arts and Sciences, Waseda University) gave the keynote lecture. The title of the keynote was \u201cA Perspective on the Circulation of Knowledge in East Asia: With Emphases on the Dissemination and Acceptance of National Histories.\u201d<\/p>\n
As an example of the conference’s research topic of \u201cthe exchange of knowledge in East Asia,\u201d Lee discussed the issue of the dissemination and acceptance of western scholarship in early modern East Asia through the \u201cintermediary\u201d of Japan. Lee explained the degree to which the coming into being of a \u201cnational history\u201d in what is now the Republic of Korea (South Korea) and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea) is due to those who, during the period of colonization, came from Korea to Japan to study. As he did so, he made keen observations about points at issue concerning the dissemination and acceptance of this national history through the \u201cintermediaries\u201d of these students studying abroad and concerning how this national history is evaluated today. In particular, Lee described the influence of Sokichi Tsuda\u2019s national history and national thought, including various specific examples, as a framework for understanding national histories and ethnic cultures.<\/p>\n
During the latter half of the lecture, Lee discussed mokkan<\/em> (wooden strips used for writing before paper was in wide use) excavated in South Korea as an ancient example for understanding the issue of \u201cintermediaries\u201d in the dissemination and acceptance of culture from a more macroscopic perspective. The use of mokkan<\/em> in the Japanese archipelago began around the early seventh century and did not overlap with their use in China (which lasted until around the fourth century). Therefore, Lee explained, it was long thought that Japanese mokkan<\/em> had been created independently within the archipelago. However, despite there only being fewer than a thousand mokkan<\/em> excavated in South Korea, there are matches for nearly all the various kinds of mokkan<\/em> that have been excavated in Japan. Lee explained that this fact makes it possible that Japan’s cultural practice of using Chinese character gained acceptance via the \u201cintermediaries\u201d of the peninsular kingdoms of Silla and Baekje. Following on, at the end of his lecture, Lee presented a strong argument for positively evaluating the \u201ccreative acceptance of intermediaries.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\t\t