Working from two assumptions—that consciousness is both internal and external, and that how we think depends on what we think with—Inouye attempts a new definition of modernity based on an analysis of long-term shifts in Japan’s semiotic field.  He shows that the development of modern consciousness coincided with a suppression of graphemic expression (or what he calls figurality).  Why do modern minds loathe figurality?  And what are the consequences—for art, for politics, for religion, for commerce—of the explosion of figurality today?  How we understand figurality and its modern suppression greatly influences not only how we view modernity, but how we understand other cultural trends and possibilities. One pressing trend to consider today is the end of the world. Inouye will propose Plan B as a hopeful view of the approaching end and millennial state.

Charles Shiro Inouye is professor of Japanese in the Department of German, Russian, and Asian Languages and Literatures at Tufts University.  He is the director of the Japanese Program, the co-director of International Letters and Visual Studies, and the former Dean of the Colleges for Undergraduate Education.  He teaches Japanese literature and culture, visual culture, and fascism.   His publications include The Similitude of Blossoms, A Critical Biography of Izumi Kyoka (1873-1939) Japanese Novelist and Playwright (Harvard, 1998), Japanese Gothic Tales by Izumi Kyoka (Hawaii, 1996), In Light of Shadows–More Gothic Tales by Izumi Kyoka (Hawaii, 2003), and Evanescence and Form: An Introduction to Japanese Culture (Palgrave, 2008).  He is the winner of the U.S.–Japan Friendship Commission Prize for his work as a translator, and now serves as one of the judges for this prize.

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