About the seminar
The morning Religion and Politics Reading Seminar, starting at 10:15, will focus on two texts that relate religion to the theme of “calamity”:
- McLaughlin, Levi. Forthcoming. “Calamity.” In Critical Terms for the Study of Religion, edited by Sarah Hammeschlag. Chicago: Chicago University Press, 13–28.
- Baffelli, Erica. 2022. “Living Aum: Austerities, Emotion, and the Feeling Community of Former Aum Shinrikyo Members.” Nova Religio 25 (3): 7–31.
To receive an electronic copy of these texts, please write to andrea.rota@ikos.uio.no.
The East Asian Lunch Seminar will feature the following program:
- The Afterlife of an Assassination: What Dissolution of the Unification Church Portends for Religion and Politics in Japan.
- Speaker: Levi McLaughlin, North Carolina State University.
- Discussant: Erica Baffelli, University of Manchester.
Abstract
On October 13th, 2023, the Japanese government ordered the legal dissolution of the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, the South Korea-based religion best known as the Unification Church (UC).
This workshop session will consider ramifications of current disputes in Japan’s courts, political arena, and the public sphere over removal of the church’s religious juridical persons status.
To appraise the impact of unprecedented applications of Japanese civil law triggered by the assassination of former Japanese Prime Minister Abe Shinzō in July 2022, I will introduce the religion/politics nexus that comprises lay Buddhist organizations, Shinto affiliates, Christian organizations, and numerous others who inform electioneering, policymaking, and other core political practices.
I will also consider ways religions and religion-adjacent activists encourage people in Japan to devote themselves to nation-making missions that exceed electoral politics and governmental administration of religions.
Dissolution of the UC portends a new era for Japan’s fraught religio-political order as it lays bare tensions that all religious organizations in the country must navigate. It is also the latest chapter in a history of religion/politics contestations that have shaped Japan as a nation-state.
By placing events unfolding now within a religio-historical context, we can consider ways investigating Japan informs understandings of religion and nationalism on a global scale.
Speaker bio
Levi McLaughlin is Professor at the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies, North Carolina State University.
He is co-author of Kōmeitō: Politics and Religion in Japan (IEAS Berkeley, 2014) and author of Soka Gakkai’s Human Revolution: The Rise of a Mimetic Nation in Modern Japan (University of Hawai`i Press, 2019; in Japanese from Kodansha, 2024), as well as numerous book chapters and articles on disaster, religion, politics, and other topics.
Discussant bio
Erica Baffelli is Professor of Japanese Studies at The University of Manchester (UK). Her research focuses on religion in contemporary Japan, particularly groups founded from the 1970s onwards.
She has worked on topics including religion and media, new and minority religions, religion, gender and violence, Buddhism and emotions, Buddhism and social engagement.
She currently the Principal Investigator on a Leverhulme Research Project on "Fear and Belonging in Minority Buddhist Communities" (2023-2027). She is also co-editor, with Michael Stausberg and Alexander Van Der Haven, of the open access publication Religious Minorities Online (De Gruyter).