Abstract

In the present essay the author looks back to an earlier moment of East Asian intellectual history so that a genealogical relation with the contemporary «Inter-Asia Cultural Studies» project can be established. More specifically, he concentrates on Takeuchi Yoshimi's 1960 «Asia as method» lecture. Reading «Asia as method» 50 years after its production, one discovers that the current crisis of our conditions of knowledge have not yet gone beyond Takeuchi's problematic. Intellectual circles in East Asia are still operating within the «catch up» mode and binary opposition between Euro-American theory and Asian empirical reality. With the economic rise of India and China, «Asia as Method» has increasingly become an inescapable demand. It has been elevated to be an issue of subjectivity in dealing with the globe. It is in the conjuncture of intellectual crisis as well as the momentum for change that the «Inter-Asia Cultural Studies: Movements» project continues the critical spirit of, and intellectual agenda set by, Takeuchi Yoshimi.