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Summary of the Plenary Session
| Content Provider | Semantic Scholar |
|---|---|
| Author | Mori, Koichi |
| Copyright Year | 2007 |
| Abstract | In the more-than-half-century history of the “American Studies Summer Seminars” in Japan, there have been only several occasions in which religion was chosen as a discussion topic. Until this year, religion has never been the main theme. Among the Japanese researchers majoring in American studies, there are only a very few whose field of specialization is religion in the United States. Although most of the Japanese Americanists understand the importance of research in religion, as a matter of fact such research has not been sufficiently conducted. I would like to express my gratitude to Nanzan University, as a Catholic university, for taking the role as the host to the NASSS and making the decision to choose “America and Religions” as the inaugural annual theme. Religion in the United States has neither been seriously considered in the academic circles nor in the mass media in Japan. Only in recent years, however, did the Japanese researchers and journalists begin to realize how important the religious elements are not only in the domestic society and politics of the United States, especially in the presidential elections, in which the strength of the Christian Right enabled the victory of the Republican Party, but also in the field of diplomacy and foreign policies as were seen in the recent facts that President George W. Bush frequently used religious rhetoric after the 9.11 attacks to justify its ‘war on terrorism’ and the war in Iraq. The United States, the only world super power, to be compared with European states, could be said to be a “religious country” and bear a resemblance to Islamic world. We could see a special intention of the Executive Committee of the NASSS in that the annual theme of this year, “America and Religions,” specifically uses the plural form, not a singular “religion.” When we think about the religious characters in the United States, one of the remarkable aspects is the historical fact that the United States is the first country that declared the separation of church and state, or the denial of an official state religion so that they would guarantee the variety of religion and at the same time they could secure the national and societal unity under a civil religion beyond the differences of religions or religious sects. This could be applied not only to religious affairs. The trial of the “national unity through maximum tolerance of diversity” per se could be said the essence of what America is. Taking into consideration the recent trend of the researches in the field of |
| Starting Page | 3 |
| Ending Page | 7 |
| Page Count | 5 |
| File Format | PDF HTM / HTML |
| Volume Number | 29 |
| Alternate Webpage(s) | http://www.ic.nanzan-u.ac.jp/AMERICA/kanko/documents/vol.29_pdf/nras29_04_mori_koichi.pdf |
| Language | English |
| Access Restriction | Open |
| Content Type | Text |
| Resource Type | Article |
