Provincial or Provincializing? : Mapping the Problems of English Departments in Japan

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

Although in other countries or regions, the provincializing of English seems to be more or less a fait accompli, I argue that in a Japanese context, English departments as well as scholars invested in English and English studies vacillate between being provincial and trying to provincialize. Part of the problem has to do with audience, transmission, and language: for instance, is such a decentering possible when scholars write in Japanese for a Japanese audience without necessarily engaging actively in conversations with colleagues elsewhere? In this presentation, I explicate this issue through a discussion of the problems of pedagogy and professionalization that keep us provincial and introduce some ways in which provincializing may gain momentum within the Japanese academy.