International Conference: “Invisible Empire: Spirits and Animism in Contemporary Japan”

This conference is an attempt to take seriously the metaphysical implications of the contemporary Japanese culture of spirits. Presentations will analyze various modes of representation of spirits (in contemporary art, architecture, visual culture, cinema, diffuse spirituality) and at the same time addressing their underlying intellectual and religious assumptions which, in the case of a few important authors, were made explicit as part of larger philosophical endeavors. The papers will analyze specific cases of “animistic attitudes” in which the presence of “spirits” and spiritual forces is alleged, attempt to trace cultural genealogies of those attitudes, and produce conceptual maps of current animistic ideas about spirits.