UC Santa Barbara

In 2003, anthropologist and theorist Talal Asad published Formations of the Secular: Christianity, Islam, Modernity. This influential work presents a genealogy of “the secular,” the dialectic nature of that genealogy vis a vis that of the set of knowledges, sensibilities, policies, and affects that constitute the modern, and a response to the eminent philosopher, Charles Taylor’s “Modes of Secularism” (1998). Asad focuses the project by asking, “What is the connection between the secular as an epistemic category and secularism as a political doctrine? Can they be objects of anthropological inquiry? What might an Anthropology of secularism look like?”

This thesis attempts, in a preliminary fashion, to address the questions put forth by Asad within the context of the social, political, and religious landscape of contemporary Japan. Having noted a reductive tendency among certain scholars of Japanese religion and culture to apprehend the secular through simple negation of the religious, my purpose is to begin to problematize the construction of “secular” as a valid and encompassing category through a detailed investigation of the conditions and consequences that pertain to secularism as a political doctrine in contemporary Japan. This thesis will show that Japan’s project of secularization is mediated by a complicated politics of memory relating to categories of conflict and national identity. Through a close historiographic analysis of primary and secondary source material related to court cases, legislation, and the political and social issues surrounding Yasukuni Shrine, I propose to articulate “the secular” as a dimension of modernity that acts not in opposition to, but in dialogue with, “the religious.” Put simply, the project seeks to develop a framework of central concepts and conditions from which Asad’s exploration of the potential for an “Anthropology of secularism” might be extended to Japan.