Researcher Database

（Last updated : 2024-02-03 10:15:52）

HIGASHIJIMA MAKOTO

Department / Course College of Letters Japanese History Program

Title / Position Professor

Other Affiliations
1.	Graduate School of Letters

Academic background
1.	1999/06 Degree Acquisition	│ The University of Tokyo Ph.D. (Literature)
2.	1992/03 Degree Acquisition	│ The University of Tokyo M.A. (Literature)
3.	～1999/06	Doctorial Course │ Division of Japanese Studies │ Graduate school of Humanities and Sociology │ The University of Tokyo │ Completed
4.	～1992/03	Master Course │ Japanese History Major │ Graduate School of Humanities │ The University of Tokyo │ Completed
5.	～1990/03	Japanese History Major, Second Category │ Faculty of Letters │ The University of Tokyo │ Graduated

Research activities
1.		The Historical Science Society of Japan
2.		The Historical Society of Japan
3.		The Japanese Conference for the Study of Political Thought
4.		Tokyo Historical Science Association
5.		The Sibelius Society of Japan

Subject of research
1.	Historical Study on Social Exclusion and Inclusion
2.	History of Relations Between State and Society in Period of Transformation
3.	Structural Change of Media Organization in Historical Disaster/Starvation

Research summary
Frustration and renewal of reform possibility in Japanese history Historical science is a science that could be the source to shed light from the depth onto various problems that we, living in this modern society, face that still remain unsolved. What were the problems before and what are the problems now? The feature of my studies is to discuss these spanning effortlessly over the periods, while cherishing the inherent logic of the period. My work “Psychohistory of (connection)” (Kodansha Gendai Shinsho) is the current terminus of such studies. At the bottom of the interest that supports these studies lies the question “Why doesn’t Japanese society change?” To say it more politely, why is the need for reform acknowledged from time to time but fails to reach a large movement and is cooled immediately? “Origin of Japan” (co-authored with Jun Yonaha, Ohta Publishing Co.) is a work that discusses this problem. However, there were three occasions where the bud of reform possibility that tends to end as a transient, has manifested into a strong force in history. These are when the word “koko (the public)” appeared equally, in the 14th, 16th, and the 19th centuries, the Nanboku-cho period, the Sengoku period, and the end Edo-beginning Meiji period respectively. Historian, Yoshihiko Amino’s work “Muen-no genri (The principle of no relations)” also focuses on 14th and 16th centuries, but in the case of Amino, it has been portrayed as the history on the process of losing “freedom that used to exist” and of its final brightness. In contrast, the work “Historical creation of public sphere - towards the ideology of koko” (University of Tokyo Press) and “Sensho Mediaeval history of Japan 2, The century of free and outrageous people” (Kodansha Sensho Metier) continues to deal with empathy, from the point of view of minorities of Amino but with discomfort on historical description of the development of autonomy continuously held by Keiichi Miura, and the study has been made, not as grief to “freedom that used to exist” but as a logic of budding again from loss, in other words, as a history of frustration and renewal.

Books
1.	2000/11	The Historical Creation of the Public Sphere: Towards the Concept of the Heterosphere │ (Sole-authored)
2.	2006/04	Tae-Chang KIM and Naoshi YAMAWAKI (ed.), KYOTO FORUM and Public Philosophy │ ,pp.“In search of further evolution of Public Philosophy” (Co-authored)

Papers
1.	2001/03	Freedom of Communion" or the Right of Communicating Thoughts │ Bulletin of the Faculty of Japanese History at the University of Tokyo │ (5),pp.1-16 (Sole-authored)

Academic conference presentation
1.	2005/07/24	In search of further evolution of Public Philosophy