Le Japon Grec: Un mariage insolite de cultures

Le Japon grec: Un mariage insolite de cultures
Michael Lucken (INALCO, Paris)

Redpath Museum (859 Sherbrooke west)
Thursday 11 May 2023: 6pm

Michael Lucken est historien et historien de l’art spécialiste du Japon. Il exerce comme professeur à l’Institut national des Langues et Civilisations orientales (INALCO) de Paris. Son livre Le Japon grec a reçu le Grand Prix des Rendez-vous de l’Histoire de Blois et le Prix littéraire Martine Aublet.

In this book, he deciphers the diffuse penetration of classical Greek culture into the arcana of contemporary Japanese literature, philosophy, architecture, art, and even manga. For, between the end of the 19th century and 1945, Japan developed a real passion for ancient Greece. That is to say, the way in which Japan, which never had direct contact with ancient Greece, integrated this heritage allows us to think about the question of the appropriation of cultures.

Accepting that Greece occupies a significant place in the cultural heritage of the Japanese implies, in effect, divesting oneself of something - fighting against a feeling of ownership, unfolding the history of the European Renaissance, relativizing ethnic and linguistic filiations, questioning the very nature of the West.