Convergence— An Editorial on Global Studies
Jonathan Richardson
The great postmodern philosopher Lyotard described that contemporary way of knowing as a purposeful rejection of metanarratives or exclusivist and self-contained systems of rationality. In order to understand what is being claimed here it is important to know how knowledge has been defined and sought from the end of the medieval period until the latter part of the last century.
Knowledge in the sense of science, and as inherited from the academies of ancient philosophy, was until the medieval period originally conceived of as philosophy. It was to be sought for its own sake and the pursual of it was understood to affect a moral good on both the seeker and other persons. Science or philosophy as such was accepted as a unified good which in many ways transcended and elevated its recipient. It was also conceived of as whole or tending toward finality as Truth to which the human being’s mental capacities were directed. Especially in Christian medieval Europe this conception of the pursuit of learning flourished. The truth pursued in philosophy was seen as ultimately one so that many approaches toward it by way of politics, metaphysics and philosophy of nature were understood as engaged in the same enterprise of cultivating truth claims of equal and complementary value.
The last three centuries or so in academia have witnessed a gradual and yet dramatic inversion of the understanding of the unicity of truth and the plurality of contributing loci of scholarly investigation. This has chiefly occurred through the abandoning of an epistemology of science as meaningful discourse about being and the building of self-enclosed and specialized rational systems of study. As the nineteenth century logician Edmund Husserl pointed out, the modern conception of science results in a paucity of meaning for the specialist trapped within his or her own system. Thus the postmodern rejection of hyper rationalized systems of scientific inquiry ought to be understood less as precluding the possibility of truth claims and more about the return of the human subject to the posture of receptivity before the meaningfulness of being accessed differently by various disciplines.
The last three centuries or so in academia have witnessed a gradual and yet dramatic inversion of the understanding of the unicity of truth and the plurality of contributing loci of scholarly investigation. This has chiefly occurred through the abandoning of an epistemology of science as meaningful discourse about being and the building of self-enclosed and specialized rational systems of study. As the nineteenth century logician Edmund Husserl pointed out, the modern conception of science results in a paucity of meaning for the specialist trapped within his or her own system. Thus the postmodern rejection of hyper rationalized systems of scientific inquiry ought to be understood less as precluding the possibility of truth claims and more about the return of the human subject to the posture of receptivity before the meaningfulness of being accessed differently by various disciplines.
The authors involved with this editorial are all alumni of an interdisciplinary graduate program built around the field of Global Studies/Globalization. Broadly construed this academic program at Sophia University in Tokyo Japan seeks to “examine world systems, transnational processes, and global-local interactions from perspectives of anthropology, history, political science, religious studies and sociology”. Keeping in mind the above mentioned discussion concerning the importance of appropriating a more magnanimous epistemology and conception of the ends of various disciplines, the following editorial will strive to engage in generative and relevant scholarly work concerning the key issues emerging in globalization discourse.
The pursuit of truth by the academy, if it is to live up to this challenge, must again become formational and cooperative (that is cross-disciplinary, non-relativist, non-ideological and non-reductionist and confident in the meaningful intelligibility of the object of rational inquiry). The medieval universities of Europe often employed an image of The Virgin Mary of Nazareth seated on a high backed Romanesque wooden sedilla (taken to mean one who receives and contemplates with receptivity the meaning of truth as it appears) with the child Jesus seated upon her lap (taken to mean the meaningfulness of the object of science which is received by the scholar yet radiates it’s value beyond the scholar) as a signifier of that which the academic ought to seek when “doing science”. This image is known as Sedes Sapientiae or Seat of Wisdom, and was also chosen as the official name of our university here in Tokyo at the beginning of the 20th century. Furthermore students and alumni of the university have for some time been given the demonym “eagle” after the Aguila de San Juan which appears prominently on the university seal. Seeking to emulate this eagle with its great capacity for the heights and piercing vision we have chosen the name “ The Eagle’s Perch” imagining our avatar perched on the very Seat of Wisdom just mentioned, surveying the world while contributing to a culture of meaningful scholarly work affecting our own good and that of the wider public.
Frank Ngo
In an online essay, one of the founding fathers of global studies, Mark Juergensmeyer, enumerates the traits and aims of what the field of global studies entails. The list includes: being “transnational,” “interdisciplinary,” “contemporary and historical,” “postcolonial and critical,” and last but not least aiming “at global citizenship,” (Juergensmeyer 2011). These may sound all nice and good, but the last trait, aiming at global citizenship, hints at a political project of subject formation. Globalization is not simply the peaceful mixing and mingling of people across national and cultural boundaries; even Juergensmeyer knows this. Globalization is a phenomenon that brings about new cultural shifts, both voluntarily and involuntarily, and Juergensmeyer’s piece would suggest that these cultural shifts have a tendency to lead to a so-called “global citizenship.”
Global culture has adopted a couple names throughout its existence, one most notably “cosmopolitanism.” The word itself heralds from Ancient Greece, starting with Diogenes and Zeno whose philosophies were highly akin to universal humanism. They stated a moral obligation and care to other people (interpretation of “people” is left open) without limits of borders, social class, government structures, or any sort of social institution that would serve to divide a person from his or her fellow man (Fine and Cohen 2002). The Greeks would later serve to be an inspiration for more explicit activists for a global, cosmopolitan spirit such as Nussbaum (1994) and there would be a number of different cosmopolitanisms as well, including versions by Immanuel Kant, Hannah Arendt, Richard Rorty, among countless others.
My own contributions to this editorial will focus on what global citizenship entails, specifically the cultural dimensions on how to properly act as a global citizen. Juergensmeyer’s list has already explained a few, but there are many dimensions he (purposefully) left for further exploration. Although there are key players who contribute to the mainstream of a globalized culture, scholars such as Keck and Sikkink (2015 [1998]) and Napolitano and Norget (2009) remind us that the hegemonies of globalization are not set in stone and that there is an abundance of actors attempting to establish their claim in global narratives. Let us undertake global studies with the precaution of studying not only what is the dominant ethos, but also competing discourses of what the globe is, and ought to be.
Tadasu Takahashi
Globalization is commonly defined as the spread of various peoples, goods, ideas, and resources across national borders. For a long time it was seen as a strictly economic process, but, as is empirically evident, globalization has a much wider reach. The rapid development of telecommunications and the Internet specifically, have sped up the process of interconnectivity, leading Marshall McLuhan to coin the term “global village” (McLuhan, 1964). This, in turn, has created what Manfred Steger calls the “global imaginary” – the thickening of a global consciousness (Steger, 2017).
What I want to focus on here, regarding the global imaginary, is the usage of particular mediums with which a global consciousness may spread and inform its subjects. What I am thinking of here are the visual and the textual, for example, art, films, and literature. These mediums all, to some extent, are concerned with the representation of a certain concept and aim to evoke some sort of resonance within the viewer, in other words, to “inform” them of something. Given the subjective nature of these forms, the line between information and infotainment may be blurred, but it is this very “blurredness” that makes for interesting analyses. As such, I will mostly draw on the conceptual tools provided in critical theory and visual culture to analyze the structural composition of a given form, and aim to uncover how it may reinforce or critique the progression of society under the influence of globalization.
This focus explores an aspect of globalization that Steger identifies as lacking in the current globalization literature, namely, the subjective aspects of globalization (Steger, 2011). While there is an abundance of studies regarding the objective nature of globalization, its subjective counterpart remains underdeveloped. Given the obscurity of both globalization and the subjective, the dearth of research concerning the two seems understandable, but it is nonetheless something I aim to address in this editorial.
Yukari Tanaka
As a Sophia University Graduate School of Global Studies alumni, I am often met with the following question: “so, what is exactly Global Studies?” Yes, the title does sound broad, but it is also what makes the subject utterly intriguing – it not only provides us an opportunity to reflect on what ‘globalization’ signifies or how it applies to each and one of us, but it also leaves us plenty of space to explore it from various angles and fields.
According to Oxford Learner’s Dictionaries, the term ‘global’ represents anything “covering or affecting the whole world,” while ‘globalization’ is defined as “the fact that different cultures and economic systems around the world are becoming connected and similar to each other because of the influence of large multinational companies and improved communication.” Over the past decade, for instance, travelling has become more convenient and affordable; interaction and communication among individuals from various backgrounds and locations have become easier due to the advancement in technology; and more people are broadening their perspectives by learning to direct their interests and attention towards countries and cultures other than their own – all of which contribute to what we recognize as ‘cosmopolitanism’ today – a concept, I believe, is fundamental for further understanding the dynamics of globalization.
Multicultural societies have now become more common across nations where people are also encouraged to cultivate a global mindset. The recent movements against racism and discrimination in addition to the global pandemic have not only proven that the world is highly interconnected, but also addressed the need for us to reassess what it means to be part of a cosmopolitan society, how to be better ‘citizens of the world,’ and what we can do to build a society where its global citizens instinctively know how to embrace diversity. My contributions will be in response to the circumstances that are calling for us to reexamine where we stand as global citizens today and to improve our knowledge on how to navigate better through our complex and transnational world.
The pursuit of truth by the academy, if it is to live up to this challenge, must again become formational and cooperative (that is cross-disciplinary, non-relativist, non-ideological and non-reductionist and confident in the meaningful intelligibility of the object of rational inquiry). The medieval universities of Europe often employed an image of The Virgin Mary of Nazareth seated on a high backed Romanesque wooden sedilla (taken to mean one who receives and contemplates with receptivity the meaning of truth as it appears) with the child Jesus seated upon her lap (taken to mean the meaningfulness of the object of science which is received by the scholar yet radiates it’s value beyond the scholar) as a signifier of that which the academic ought to seek when “doing science”. This image is known as Sedes Sapientiae or Seat of Wisdom, and was also chosen as the Official name of our University here in Tokyo at the beginning of the 20th century. Furthermore students and alumni of the university have for some time been given the demonym “eagle” after the Aguila de San Juan which appears prominently on the university seal. Seeking to emulate this eagle with its great capacity for the heights and piercing vision we have chosen the name “ The Eagle’s Perch” imagining our avatar perched on the very Seat of Wisdom just mentioned, surveying the world while contributing to a culture of meaningful scholarly work affecting our own good and that of the wider public.
Bibliography
Anderson, Benedict.1983. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso.
Fine, Robert, and Robin Cohen. 2002. “Four cosmopolitanism moments.” in Vertovec, Steven, and Robin Cohen, eds. Conceiving cosmopolitanism: theory, context and practice. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, pp. 137–62.
Keck, Margaret E., and Kathryn Sikkink. 2015 [1998]. “Traditional Advocacy Networks in International Politics,” reproduced in The Globalization and Development Reader: Perspectives on Development and Global Change ed. by J. Timmons Roberts, Amy Bellone Hite, and Nitsan Chorev. 2015. Chichester, UK: Wiley-Blackwell Press, pp.476–485
Napolitano, Valentina and Kristen Norget. 2009. “Economies of Sanctity.” Postscripts, vol 5, no.3, pp.251-264
Nussbaum, Martha. "Patriotism and cosmopolitanism." The Cosmopolitan Reader (1994): 155-162.
Steger, Manfred and Paul James.2011. “Three Dimensions of Subjective Globalization.” ProtoSociology, no. 27
2008. “Scope and Concerns.” 2008 Global Studies Conference, Common Ground, exact publication date unknown, e08.cgpublisher.com/scope.html
