III. 마음수양과 소양교육
3. Internationalisation and globalisation
According to Saito et al. (2016), although “globalisation” and “internationalisation” are related terms, they should be distinguished from each other, as can be seen in the structures of the words:
“Globalisation”
globe (world) + -al → global global + -ise → globalisation globalise + -ation → globalisation
“Internationalisation”
nation + -al → national
inter- (between, among) + national →international international + -ise → internationalise
internationalise + -ation → internationalisation
(Saito et al. 2016: 3-4)
The former means the unification of the world and implies that the diversity of different countries and cultures may be sacrificed for the convenience of a unified world. The latter attaches importance to differences between nations and cultures. Thus, while “globalisation” is favourably used in the business world, many scholars in arts and humanities are sceptical about it, preferring
“internationalisation”, with its emphasis on differences and connections between nations and cultures. Citizens with an “international” mind should have profound knowledge of both their own and other histories and cultures, and liberal arts are essential to educate those working internationally.
A Japanese educator and scholar of agricultural policy, Inazo Nitobe (1862–1933) was one of the masters of English in the Meiji and Taisho periods, and was thus considered to be one of the greatest of Japanese people with an “international mind”. Nasu (2015) summarizes his achievement:
Inazo Nitobe delivered English lectures in various countries on behalf of the League of Nations as an Under Secretary-General for the organization’s Secretary-General, who hailed from the United Kingdom. […] in order to acquire an excellent command of English, Nitobe read extensively.
He entered Tokyo Gaikokugo Gakko at the age of 11, and wrote a book in English within just a few days. While at Sapporo Novak (Sapporo Agricultural College), which he entered at the age of 15, Nitobe frequented the library with the intention of reading every book. […] During his stay in the United States […] Nitobe took only a year to write Bushido: The Soul of Japan (1900). (Nasu 2015:
230)
Nitobe is said to have written Bushido as a response to a foreigner’s question about Japan, “how is it possible for the Japanese, who have no religious education, to teach morality?” Therefore, Bushido can be said to be an introductory book on Japanese culture targeted at foreigners with an interest in Japan. It is instructive to read closely his famous passage, in which he defends a prototypically Japanese behaviour often felt “awfully funny” by foreigners:
In America, when you make a gift, you sing its praises to the recipient; in Japan we depreciate or slander it. The underlying idea with you is, “This is a nice gift: if it were not nice I would not dare give it to you; for it will be an insult to give you anything but what is nice.” In contrast to this, our logic runs: “You are a nice person, and no gift is nice enough for you. You will not accept anything I can lay at your feet except as a token of my good will; so accept this, not for its intrinsic value, but as a token. It will be an insult to your worth to call the best gift good enough for you.”
Place the two ideas side by side, and we see that the ultimate idea is one and the same. Neither is
“awfully funny.” The American speaks of the material which makes the gift; the Japanese speaks
of the spirit which prompts the gift. (Nitobe 2008: 105-107)
Focusing upon the very casual act of making a gift, Nitobe logically explains the psychology of the Japanese who would depreciate the gift, rather than praise it. Nitobe’s persuasiveness is enhanced by the comparison between the westerner and the Japanese. In short, his deep knowledge of Japanese and western culture allows him to defend the Japanese spirit from criticism from abroad. While globalisation has accelerated and communication between different countries and cultures has apparently become much smoother than before, misunderstandings still do occur, and may lead to a serious conflict. One of JAILA’s important missions is to educate people to have
“international liberal arts”, like Nitobe.
４．Liberal Arts Education
As discussed in the previous section, one of the most important missions of JAILA is to foster the talents of people who can play active roles in a rapidly globalising society with the help of knowledge of and skills in “international liberal arts”. In this section, we pursue this theme by reviewing two important symposia hosted by JAILA.
4.1 Developing Global Liberal Arts Education in East Asia: The Case of the “CAMPUS Asia” Program of Okayama University (Okayama, 2015)
This symposium was organized by Mayumi Ono, Associate Professor at Okayama University at that time, to present the results of course development in the “CAMPUS Asia” program of Okayama University. Implemented with the support of the governments of Japan, China, and South Korea to promote inter-university exchange projects in East Asia, Okayama University, Jilin University, and Sungkyunkwan University established a cooperative and collaborative educational program, called the “Program for Core Human Resources Development: For the Achievement of the Common Good (Bonum Commune) and Re-evaluation of Classical Culture in East Asia”. Focusing upon the example of developing a core co-curriculum, the Multi-lingual Seminar for the Common Good in East Asia, panellists, including Chinese and Korean students studying in Okayama, discussed how to establish an educational system for Global Liberal Arts Education in East Asia.
Here we would like to pick up one of the presentations by a student panellist. Ayana Onishi, a literature major at Okayama University, went to Korea at the end of February in 2013 to study at Sungkyunkwan University as an inter-university exchange student for the 2014 academic year.
Reflecting on her successful experience during her stay in Korea, she gave a speech entitled
“Liberal arts fostered by studying abroad”, in which she described what she had learned from her experience, as well as the significance of studying abroad as a part of a liberal arts education.
She also examined the state of liberal arts education in East Asia through the inter-university exchange project.
I paid attention to the aspect of “classical culture” within “Common Good in East Asia”, a basic philosophy of the CAMPUS Asia program of Okayama University. I experienced real Korean culture by visiting museums and old palaces. Palaces in East Asia seem similar, but in fact there are unique ideas which have shaped their original designs, functions and architecture. It was very interesting for me to find differences between Japanese and Korean architecture. I traveled throughout Korea during the long holidays. Outside Seoul, I could learn about the various features and cultures of different local areas. Seoul is only a part of Korea. Other cities have sceneries completely different from that of Seoul. On Jeju Island, for instance, there are many stone statues called “Dol hareubang” which are not seen in other cities. They are located at city entrances, functioning as guardians and religious talismans. Learning local cultures in East Asia is the first step towards understanding each other. Moreover, it is very important to tell people how wonderful the classical culture I experienced in Korea was. During my stay, I learned Korean culture, and classical and modern literature as well as the Korean language. I could deal with a wide range of fields because I visited before I decided my specialty. In the last part of my stay, I took an online course on psychology taught in English. The most significant lesson was that I could learn psychology through a foreign language, without depending on Japanese.[…] I was able learn the basic liberal arts over the period of two years of liberal arts education, a year at Okayama University and another year at Sungkyunkwan University. Through studying in Korea, I realized that learning about classical cultures as a “Common Good” and understanding foreign cultures would help us come closer to each other. It is necessary to communicate with other people to deepen mutual understanding. In addition, improving language abilities will enable us to establish broad human relationships. My experience in Korea allowed me to acquire liberal arts from an unprejudiced point of view, which will enrich my future study. (Ono 2016: 90, translated into English by Yoshida)
In her conclusion to the whole session, Ono stresses the significance of “The global liberal arts education in East Asia”, as conducted in the CAMPUS Asia program of Okayama University. The attempt to define what she calls “Common Good” is one of the important missions of liberal arts education, and this will only be possible through interactions in the liberal arts between people
from different countries. We would like to close this section with a quote from Ono’s report:
Needless to say, the theme “global liberal arts education in East Asia” should be examined more precisely in terms of its content and validity in the future. In this era of educational globalization promoted by standardisation on English, however, there is much value in activating mutual interaction among students in East Asia and in reconsidering the significance of inter-university exchange projects when addressing the autonomy and diversity of scholarship from East Asia. […]
To create a dynamic space for study through students’ mobility is one role of higher education and is an essential condition for global liberal arts education in East Asia. (Ono 2016: 93-94, translated into English by Yoshida)
4.2 Reconsidering “Liberal Arts” in/for/and “Sciences” (Tokyo, 2016)
This symposium was organized by Professor Kazutake Kita at Tokyo University of Science to reconsider the relationship between “liberal arts” and “sciences,” which are “two academic and educational keywords which have been widely used with notorious sloppiness” (Hori et al. 2017: 59). All of the four speakers (Masahiro Hori, Osamu Haraguchi, Kaoru Takahashi, and Takahiro Yamamoto)
were “transborder researchers” who had crossed the border between humanities and sciences in their careers. They have developed their own views on liberal arts, whose significance they have considered in several different ways in their lives. We would like to review the talks by the two of the panellists, Masahiro Hori and Osamu Haraguchi, based upon the report of this event published in JAILA Journal.
4.2.1. 敎 (teaching) and 養 (development)
In the Japanese language, the liberal arts are represented by two Chinese characters:「敎養」.
According to Masahiro Hori, the first speaker in this symposium, the first character,「敎」, refers to knowledge and skills instilled through external stimuli, such as lectures and books, while the second character, 「養」, indicates spiritual development that enables autonomous learning. In Japanese university education, practical subjects such as communication, Information Technology
(IT), business, and English have recently been replacing traditional subjects such as philosophy and literature. Hori worries that this trend is oriented toward 「敎」, or passive instruction through external stimuli, neglecting the internal development essential for spiritual cultivation which lasts for the rest of one’s life.
Hori thinks that “teaching (from external stimuli)” and “spiritual development” should coexist, and makes a proposal to improve the teaching style for each. For “teaching”, he claims that reading is the best approach. When he was a first year student at a national college of technology
(an alternative to the first year of high school), he took a class in Japanese, in which students were evaluated based upon their book reports. The students were given a booklist which included some must-read books. Although their major was engineering, the booklist contained novels by famous Japanese authors, such as Toson Shimazaki and Soseki Natsume. Through this unique class, the students were given a valuable opportunity to read books outside their specialty, as well as to acquire the habit of reading.
For “spiritual development”, Hori recommends Zen, a Japanese form of Buddhism, because it can enrich your spirit in a unique way. Your instinct may be that spiritual development and its consequent autonomous learning derive from experiences of intellect and thinking. However, Zen denies this: transcendence is not reached through words or letters but inspiration. It is a communication from mind to mind. Hori suggests that global talents should learn from Zen so that they can enhance their minds as well as their intelligence.
Hori emphasizes that the development of the mind is much more difficult than teaching attained through external stimuli. It is almost impossible to achieve spiritual development in just four years spent at university. What students should and could learn through liberal arts is, therefore, the fact that their training for spiritual development will only end when their lives do.
4.2.2. Liberal arts as an attempt to transcend binary opposition
Osamu Haraguchi, professor of English literature, argues that by transcending binary opposition
(e.g. practical vs unpractical) you may come to understand the true nature of the liberal arts. To support his argument, he analyses E. M. Forster’s novel, Howards End (1910), in which the contrast between business and art, and their attempt and failure to collaborate, are symbolically described.
The novel is set in Edwardian England. With a German father, the Schlegel sisters represent the world of art, while the Wilcoxes are emerging English business people. Howards End, a mansion owned by the Wilcoxes, and its mistress, Mrs Ruth Wilcox, function as a symbol that reconciles those opposing worlds. In his lecture Haraguchi focused upon another significant character, Leonard Bast, a working class man employed by an insurance company. Leonard wishes to cultivate himself by reading Ruskin and listening to Beethoven. His motivation is, however, utilitarian:
he believes that he needs education for worldly success. At the climax of the novel Leonard dies a tragic death, buried by books, the symbol of education. Haraguchi interprets this scene as the consequence of Leonard failing to grasp the true nature of liberal arts.
Haraguchi concludes that just as Forster attempts to transcend the binary opposition between business and art, we should try to transcend the binary opposition between “practical” and
“unpractical”. Liberal arts education should play a significant role in devising a method to realize this.
5．Interdisciplinarity
The last theme in this paper is “interdisciplinarity”. As shown above, JAILA believes that the interdisciplinary approach not only contributes to the development of each individual research field, but also helps to create new fields. The interdisciplinary approach has been becoming more common recently, and it is most conspicuous in the field of medicine. We will review a JAILA- sponsored symposium on “Narrative Medicine”.
5.1 What is Narrative Medicine?
Narrative Medicine is a recently developed medical approach attracting attention from both doctors and patients. As the name suggests, this is an interdisciplinary field where literature (narrative) and science (medicine) are brought together. Medical services in the past regarded evidence (that is, facts and findings) as scientific and objective, neglecting the patient’s voice as subjective and groundless.
In fact, while the quality of standard medical treatments has been enhanced by the tremendous advances in science, efforts to grasp the patient’s experience of illness, which are grounded in the humanities, have tended to be neglected. Many doctors worry that this discrepancy is at the root of many problems in medicine.
In Narrative Medicine, doctors and patients try to build up healthy human relationships through dialogue, a process consisting of three movements: attention, representation, and affiliation.
Attention means “the state of heightened focus and commitment that a listener can donate to a teller” (Charon 2017: 3). A doctor needs to pay attention to a patient’s words, facial expressions, attitudes, and so on to elicit potential messages. Representation means giving a form to what is heard or perceived, usually in writing but also in visual media, so that the message can be newly visible to both the listener and the teller. A doctor may paraphrase patients’ narratives or draw pictures based upon what he/she hears from them so that the patients can understand their own narratives more clearly. Through these dialogues, affiliation is achieved, that is “bind[ing] patients and clinicians, students and teachers, self and other into relationships that support recognition and action” (Charon 2017: 3).
In a narrative medicine classroom, any type of text could be used as teaching material, but literature is the most suitable, because good literary texts contain ambiguity, which offers a good lesson in eliciting subtle nuances from a text. Medical students conduct a close reading of a literary work by not only grasping stories but also paying attention to styles of writing, so that they could come up with as many potential interpretations as possible. The skills acquired through close reading can be applied to “close listening” to patients’ narratives, and thus reading literature is indeed a “practical lesson” for medical students.
5.2 Contribution of literature to medical education (Yokohama, 2018)
In the symposium entitled “Contribution of literature to medical education”, four researchers, one medical doctor (Mikako Obika) and three literary scholars (Yasushi Okuda, Soichiro Oku, and Masayuki Teranishi), gave lectures. Obika first explained the theory and background of Narrative Medicine and then explained how she teaches Narrative Medicine to her medical students. In her classroom, the students often write poems and draw pictures after reading a variety of texts, such as literature and clinical records. She emphasizes that such creative activities help them to learn “attention”,
“representation”, and “affiliation”.
The three literary scholars presented their narratological and/or stylistic analysis of different kinds of texts: fictions by Kazuo Ishiguro, illness narrative (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (1997)
and Brain on Fire (2012)), and an autobiographical narrative by an elderly Japanese woman, and discussed how their analytical theory and practices could be applied to deeper understanding of narratives in the medical field. Through the lectures and Q & A, it became clear that Narrative Medicine will play a much larger role in the future, when much of the current human work in medicine will be replaced by cutting-edge technologies such as AI. A collaboration among the four speakers will continue to address this issue, and the report on this symposium will appear in the volume of JAILA Journal published next March.
6．Conclusion: The future role of liberal arts education
In this paper we have discussed the changing concept of liberal arts education in the Japanese university by reviewing some JAILA sponsored activities. In conclusion, we would like to look at the future role of liberal arts education and consider how JAILA could and should contribute there.
First, collaboration between different research areas, especially sciences and humanities, will be further promoted. Environmental study is another area where the sort of interdisciplinary cooperation seen in Narrative Medicine is essential. Aiming to protect the earth from a variety of threats such as pollution and global warming, the study of the environment consists of the appreciation of the environment, which is fostered through the humanities, and research on methods to protect the environment, which is based upon science. In the future more and more problems will need to be addressed interdisciplinarily, and liberal arts education will play a greater role in producing the talents needed for solutions.
Second, globalisation will never stop accelerating, and the internationalisation of liberal arts education will also be driven forward. Many environmental problems, for instance, are also global issues and cannot be solved without international cooperation. Thus, good command of foreign