I am currently living in Hannover,
Germany. Until August 2011 I am a fellow at the Forschungsinstitut für Philosophie Hannover. I am also a lecturer at the Insitut für Philosophie
at Universität Hildesheim Otherwise,
I teach a course in Japanese language (in German) at a community college in
Hannover (Volkshochschule Hannover) and sometimes also teach a sushi
couse at a cooking school (called Geschmacksverstaerker).
Once a month I lead a philosophy seminar (in Japanese) at Kira
Japan in Second Life.
From 1996 to 2007
(1996-2001 as Assistant Professor, 2001-2007 as Associate Professor), I was a
member of the Philosophy Department and Graduate Faculty at the Center for the Pacific Rim at the University of San Francisco. I was born and raised
in Kamakura, Japan. After my AFS high school exchange student year in 1980 in Del Mar, CA, I moved to the United States in
1982. I received my B.A. and M.A. in Philosophy from San
Diego State University and Ph.D. in Philosophy from University of California at Riverside in 1996. During Fall 97 I was a CNRS
research associate at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences
Sociales in
Paris. My field of research and interest include modern Japanese
philosophy, Chinese philosophy, 19th and 20th Century European philosophy
(emphasis in phenomenology), philosophy of consciousness, ethics,
feminism, and political philosophy. Other activities I have participated in the
past are: a working group for phenomenology and the cognitive sciences
and on the Advisory Board for the Association for Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences; the U.S.-Japan Sustainability
Research Team, a collaborative project consisting of scholars, organizers of
Environmental NGO's, and environmental engineers from Japan and the U.S.
In January 2003, I have also taught at Kobe University as an adjunct professor.
List of
publications include:
- “Experiential
Ontology: The Origins of the Nishida Philosophy in the Doctrine of
Pure Experience.” International Philosophical Quarterly 30:2.
With Andrew Feenberg. June 1990. pp. 173-205. Reprinted
in Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism 83. The Gale Group.
Detroit: 1999. pp. 304-323.
- “On Heidegger’s Theory of Space: A Critique
of Dreyfus.” Inquiry 38:4. December
1995. pp. 455-467.
- “Spatiality, Temporality, and the Problem
of Foundation in Being and Time.”
Philosophy
Today
40:1. Spring 1996. pp. 36-46.
- “The Nishida Enigma: ‘The Principle of the
New World Order,’” Monumenta
Nipponica 51:1. Spring 1996. pp. 81-99.
- “Beyond East and West: Nishida’s
Universalism and Postcolonial Critique,”The
Review of Politics 59:3. Summer 1997. pp. 541-560.
Reprinted in Border Crossings: Toward a Comparative Political Theory.
Fred Dallmayr, ed. Lexington Books Lanham: 1999. pp. 236-252.
(See table of contents of this anthology on Amazon.com.)
- “System
and Existence: Nishida's Logic of Place” in Logique du lieu et
depassement de la modernite. Augustin Berque, ed. Ousia, Brussels: 1999.
pp 40-65.
- “Crashing
the Tea Party,” An interview, in A Parliament of Minds, Michael
Tobias, Patrick Fitzgerald, and David Rothenberg, eds. SUNY Press:
2000. pp. 212-219. (See description and review fon this anthology on Amazon.com)
- "Asian Women: Invisibility, Locations, and
Claims to Philosophy," in Women of Color
and Philosophy: A Critical Reader, Naomi Zack, ed.
Blackwell: 2000. pp. 219-223. (See editorial review and table of
contents on Amazon.com.)
- “Women and Water: At the
Crossroads of Critical Theory and Technology.”New Critical Theory: Essays on Liberation. Jeffrey Paris and William Wilkerson, eds. Rowman and
Littlefield. 2001. pp. 155-172.
- “The
Ontological Co-Emergence of ‘Self and Other’ in Japanese
Philosophy.” The Journal of Consciousness Studies 8: 5-7.
2001. Pp.
197-208
- “Being-in-the-World
and the Female Body: Phenomenology and Feminism” (in Japanese,
Sekai-nai-sonzai to josei no shintai wo megutte). Gensho-gaku to
21-seiki no Chi. (Phenomenology in the 21st Century) Shoji
Nagataki ed. Nakanishiya
Shuppan. 2004.
- “Exoticism
and the Phenomenology of Racial Desire.” Passions of the Color
Line. David
Kim, ed. SUNY Press. 2004
- “Positioning Nishida Philosophy” (in Japanese, Touzai
wo koete: Nishida tetsugaku no ichi-zuke wo megutte). Davis, Bret, and
Masakatsu, Fujita, ed. Sekai no Naka no Nihon no
Tetsugaku (Japanese Philosophy in Global Context). Showa-Do Publ. 2004.
- „The
Paradox of Dignity: Everyday Racism and the Failure of Multiculturalism“
(click on my name or “zum Aufsatz” to get to the article) in Ethik
und Gesellschaft 2/2010
Please note that some of the papers above are not
identical to the published versions.
Courses taught at the University of San Francisco
(some syllabi from the past):
Courses taught at the University of Hildesheim:
Diversity and Global Justice (Summer
2010)
Philosophy of Race (Winter 2010)
Feminist Philosophy (Summer 2011)