Stefan Tanaka
Stefan Tanaka is Professor Emeritus of Communication at the University of California, San Diego. Throughout his career he has inquired into the uses of pasts and time in the writing of history, especially in Japan. This inquiry has led to three monographs, Japan's Orient: Rendering Pasts into History (1993), New Times in Modern Japan (2004), and History without Chronology (2019, Open Access). He has also written several essays on historical narrative and digital media (for example, "The Old and New of Digital History," History and Theory [2022]). His current work explores what kinds of histories and understandings are possible when history is liberated from absolute (or classical) time.
University of California, San Diego
Session
Stefan Tanaka's book History without Chronology (Open Access: https://doi.org/10.3998/mpub.11418981) emerged from his recognition that the writing of histories of non-Western places are handicapped, if not predetermined, by the linearity of history. HwC then argues that other understandings of time, history, and change are possible, indeed necessary if we are to achieve a respect for heterogeneity. This panel will explore the merits of the argument, its implications, and the possibilities for another understanding of history.
Shellen Wu, Lehigh University
Emily Mokros, University of Kentucky
Stefan Tanaka, University of California, San Diego
Carl Kubler, Carnegie Mellon University
Paul Kramer, Vanderbilt University