This page provides an overlook of Hiroki Azuma’s various activities.
HIroki Azuma is a Japanese philosopher / critic. He was born in 1971 and started his writing career in 1993. He has so far published seven books, including Suntory-prize awarded “Sonzaironteki, Yubinteki” and Japanese pop culture analyzing “Dobutsuka-suru Postmodern”. Azuma is widely regarded as one of the most influential critic of Japanese otaku generation.
Azuma holds a Ph.D in Culture and Representation. He is an executive research fellow / professor at Center for Global Communications (GLOCOM) and a research fellow at Stanford Japan Center. He runs a laboratory at GLOCOM and promotes transdisciplinary research projects of informational society studies.
HIroki Azuma launched his writing career in 1993 as a literary critic with a postmodern style under the influence of Japanese leading critics, Kojin Karatani and Akira Asada. In the last half of 1990s, Azuma started applying his theoretical scopes to various pop phenomena, especially otaku / net / game culture, and became widely known as a critic who advocates Japanese new generation’s thoughts.
Azuma has published seven books, including “Sonzaironteki, Yubinteki [Ontological, Postal]” (1998, Shinchosha) which focuses on the meaning of Jacques Derrida’s oscillation between literature and philosophy, and “Dobutsuka-suru Postmodern [Animalizing Postmodernity]“(2001, Kodansha) that analyzes Japanese pop culture through postmodern approaches. His present interest is divided into two directions: one is toward the transformation of literary imagination under postmodernization / otaku-ization, and on the other hand the idea of liberty / freedom of humans living under the emergence of ubiquitous information society.
GLOCOM is a research center where Hiroki Azuma works as professor and executive research fellow. GLOCOM is directed by one of Japan’s most respected authorities on information society studies, Shumpei Kumon. Azuma organizes a laboratory there and conducts transdisciplinary studies of information society in collaborating with various activists and entrepreneurs outside academia, which refers to the “Mode 2 knowledge production” as in Michael Gibbons’s terminology. Azuma lab proposes a new basis of information society / postmodern society studies through connecting theoretical sociological analysis with lively observation of online reality and pop culture practices.
Hajougenron is a small non-profit and independent organization directed by Hiroki Azuma. Hajougenron was founded in 2003 and has published two books, one dvd-rom, and one periodical magazine. Hajougenron produces critical cross points of theoretical postmodern thoughts and pop otaku practices, especially its cutting edge of 2000s’ “Bishojo game” and “light novel” movements. Hajougenron’s publications are printed and circulated only independently but can be purchased in some otaku gatherings as the Comic Market (Comike), several bookstores in Tokyo, or through mail order at www.hajou.org/sales/ (please contact to edit@hajou.org if you need overseas shipping).
Azuma’s thesis deals with the thought of a French contemporary philosopher, Jacques Derrida. His point is; to decipher Derridian postal metaphors on the theoretical basis and to survey the philosophical/psychoanalytical possibilities of his rhetorical styles in 1970s. The thesis consists of four chapters; the first three are written to define a theoretical expanse of later Derridian thoughts (called “postal deconstruction”) and distinguish it from the earlier Derridian problematics, while the last is to investigate a broader range of the intersection between Freud and Heidegger, that is psychoanalysis and “Daseinsanalyse”, through Derridian concept of communication.
The content of the thesis is eventually the same as that of the published study as Sonzaironteki, Yubinteki , which wins the Suntory Prize.