31Oct 2017 by Roman Pașca No Comments

A New Theory of the Earth

Philosophy
As I was working on my presentation on Yamagata Bantō's philosophical discourse for the ENOJP conference in Paris, I started to look more thoroughly into the various influences that informed his Yume no shiro 夢の代, the encyclopedic work he finished in 1820. And this is how I came across an extremely interesting text from 1696, William Whiston's A New Theory of the Earth - apparently, the text was translated in Japanese as 『西洋天話』 by Hashimoto Sōkichi, one of the most prominent rangaku scholars in early 19th century Osaka. Bantō read it, was fascinated with the model of the solar system that Whiston proposed (cometary catastrophism included) and then later used as a basis for his own model. But the most fascinating thing about Whiston's book is probably the full title: A New Theory…
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25Oct 2017 by Roman Pașca No Comments

Shouldn’t we talk about this?

Education
Yesterday, I read an article about how Cambridge University students got trigger warnings related to the content of some the works they were supposed to read and discuss in class. Apparently, one of the persons in charge of the English lectures flagged any session containing material that could be deemed "upsetting" with a red triangle and an exclamation mark - including Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus, among others. (The full article is here, on the BBC website.) I read Titus Andronicus a long time ago and my memory is a bit fuzzy - I do remember some sexual violence in the play, but it's about so much more than that. Power, control, politics, intrigues, plots... so much more. And even if it were about sexual violence, shouldn't we talk about this? Isn't that…
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20Oct 2017 by Roman Pașca No Comments

EJJP 2

Philosophy
The second issue of the European Journal of Japanese Philosophy (EJJP) is just out this week from Chisokudō Publications, in time for the conference in Paris. And, honestly, I can't wait to hold it in my hands and then stick my nose in between the freshly printed pages - yes, I confess, I'm addicted to the exhilarating smell of new books. And only after imbibing the smell of ink and paper will I also imbibe the knowledge... For this issue, I contributed a translation into Romanian of Andō Shōeki's parable of the birds from his Shizen shin'eidō, and a book review. The complete Table of contents and the Introduction are available here.  I know that Takeshi and Gerrit, the editors, worked really hard to put together this issue (as they…
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14Oct 2017 by Roman Pașca No Comments

Between work and a good book

academia
The other day, I came across an article from The Chronicle of Higher Education about How to Live Less Anxiously in Academe, written by two fellow academics from Britain and Sweden, Carl Cederström and Michael Marinetto. They offer four tips (or, steps as they call them) on how to deal with stress and, basically, try to have an academic career without becoming overwhelmed by it: 1) Kill your institutional aspirations, 2) Be an amateur, 3) Stop writing badly and 4) Start teaching well. For the whole discussion, I recommend the article at the link above. I must confess I enjoyed reading the article, even though I don't completely agree with some of their points. But I did nod in vigorous agreement over a couple of passages, especially on step 4, as…
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09Oct 2017 by Roman Pașca No Comments

3rd Conference of the European Network for Japanese Philosophy

Conferences
Only a couple of weeks left until the 3rd Annual Conference of the ENOJP, this time in Paris! I'm really excited about this, because the first two conferences (Barcelona 2015 and Brussels 2016) were excellent. And I am saying this for two reasons: first of all, for the quality of the presentations and keynote speeches and for the intensity of the debates; second of all, for the atmosphere of the conferences, with so much vibrant energy floating around and so many young people engaging with philosophical ideas. The ENOJP might be a nascent association, but I feel it has a lot of potential as it provides researchers in Japanese philosophy with a platform where they can share ideas, discuss projects and publications, form networks or simply become friends. I gained…
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