How should we understand the historical period that comes before "the modern"?

In this 26th Hasekura Seminar lecture, Professor Kiri Paramore examines the first sustained academic use of the concept of "early modernity," which emerged in Japan in the early twentieth century. Developed partly in reaction to the imperialist implications of the periodization of Ancient-Medieval-Modern, the idea of early modernity offered an alternative trajectory toward nationhood and sovereignty, rooted not in feudal militarism but in civil culture and the spread of Neo-Confucianism.

By tracing this intellectual history, Paramore sheds light on how Japanese historians opened up more culturally and historically plural ways of thinking about modernity and global history.

This English-language event is open to anyone who is interested. No registration is required.

Date: April 20, 2026
Time: 1- 2:30 p.m.
Venue: Tohoku University Kawauchi Campus, Multimedia Education and Research Complex, 6F (Map)

About the Lecturer:

Kiri Paramore is a Professor of Asian Studies at University College Cork, National University of Ireland, and Director of the Irish Institute of Chinese Studies and the Irish Institute of Japanese Studies. His research focuses on the politics and history of East Asia, especially the interaction between politics and culture. He completed his M.A. and Ph.D. at the University of Tokyo and previously taught at Leiden University.

He is the author of Japanese Confucianism: A Cultural History (Cambridge University Press, 2016) and Ideology and Christianity in Japan (Routledge, 2009), and the editor of Religion and Orientalism in Asian Studies (Bloomsbury, 2016). He has also published in journals including Modern Intellectual History, The Journal of Asian Studies, Comparative Studies in Society and History, and The Journal of Japanese Studies.

For more information about this event, please visit:
https://gpjs.tohoku.ac.jp/event/overseas/detail---id-1188.html