E-Journal of Philosophy of Education:
International Yearbook of the Philosophy of Education Society of Japan, Vol. 8, 2023

Orality, Image, Memory and Bildung:
Toward the Possibility of Educational Study Based on
Kulturwissenschaft
Yoshimitsu MATSUURA
Keio University
Fukutaro WATANABE
Keio University
Purpose of the Symposium
In “Culture as an Educational Problem”, the thematic research discussion of the 51stPESJ conference held at Keio University in 2008, it was pointed out that modern
Japanese education has become like “a cast-off shell” which has lost the support ofculture. This situation appears to be accelerating under the data-driven society. While
sharing this awareness of the problem, we will approach the classic issue of “culture andeducation” from a new angle in this symposium.
At this point, various studies of “cultural science (Kulturwissenschaft) ”, whichhave flourished in the German speaking world since the 1990s, could be consulted.
According to Aleida Assmann, a prominent memory researcher (Assmann, Aleida 2017:
Einführung in die Kulturwissenschaft. Grundbegriffe, Themen, Fragestellungen, Berlin:
Erich Schmidt Verlag.), it is targeted on, like Anglo American cultural studies, not onlyhigh culture but also everyday activities. It is characterized by its cross disciplinary nature,relying on findings from semiotics, speech act theory, iconology, literary studies, life
story studies, anthropology, archaeology, neuroscience, evolutionary biology, and otherdisciplines. Its specific developments are too diverse, but they share a loose commonality
in the recognition that they see culture as the totality of practical acts based on varioussymbols (Assmann 2017, S. 24ff.). Whereas the traditional humanities (or, in Germanterms, Geisteswissenschaft) see culture as an externalization of the human “spirit (Geist)”,Correspondence:
Yoshimitsu MATSUURA, Keio University. Email: ymatsuur@keio.jp
Fukutaro WATANABE, Keio University. Email: watanabe@flet.keio.ac.jp

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Toward the Possibility of Educational Study Based on Kulturwissenschaft

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find its essence in academics and arts as high culture, and see it as opposed to material
things, nature, and technology, this cultural science sees culture not singularly but
pluralistically. Furthermore, it examines issues of identity (self) formation and culturaltransformation within the framework of the triadic relationship between symbolic act,media and technology, and the body. Symbolic act supports representations, media andtechnology serve as their material support, and the body functions as the organ of symbol
production and reception. Among these, we will focus on the themes of “orality, image,and memory”, which have been neglected since the modern era in comparison to“literacy, books and history”. These themes intersect with contemporary issues such as
publicness, gender, and pathos, and will become important in discussing humandevelopment and education in the future.
But can such cultural science become “cultural scientific education” as it is? We
will think about this together with the presenters and participants.

Points of the Discussion
1. Discussion on the possibility of applying the results of Kulturwissenschaft toeducational study.
2. Discussion on conceiving a new vision of life and culture that supports education inour time.
3. Discussion on the validity of the opposing axes of “orality, image, and memory” and“literacy, books, and history”.

E-Journal of Philosophy of Education: International Yearbook of the Philosophy of Education Society of Japan, Vol. 8, 2023