Sunday, November 4, 2012

Lifelong Scholar of the Japanese Becomes One of Them; New York Times, 11/2/12

Martin Fackler, New York Times; Lifelong Scholar of the Japanese Becomes One of Them: "BUT what is perhaps most remarkable about Dr. Keene is that Japan, a racially homogeneous nation that can be politely standoffish to non-Japanese, has embraced him with such warmth. When he legally became a Japanese citizen this year, major newspapers ran photographs of him holding up a handwritten poster of his name, Kinu Donarudo, in Chinese characters...Mr. Tsujii said that Dr. Keene was accepted by Japanese scholars because he has what Mr. Tsujii described as a warm, intuitive style of thinking that differs from what he called the coldly analytical approach of many Western academics. He said that this has made Dr. Keene seem even more Japanese than some of the Japanese novelists whom he has studied, like Mr. Mishima, an ultranationalist influenced by European intellectual fads."

No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.