Exteriority and Transcritique: Karatani Kōjin and the Impact of the 1990s

Abstract

An indication of the cultural effects of the recession and the end of the Cold War in Japan during the 1990s is the development of the thought of Karatani Kōjin. The author traces this development, focusing on the shift from an emphasis on a ‘lack of exteriority’ in early texts to the idea of ‘transcritique’ in his recent works. The aim is to elucidate what occasions the shift in his thinking and to what degree the concern with exteriority is retained in the notion of transcritique. The author pays particular attention to Karatani's discussion of the ‘centreless’ shape of Japanese power and the possibilities of resistance it offers. He also uses the concept of trauma in order to locate Karatani's philosophy in relation to two competing ideas of ‘recovery’ in contemporary Japan, one nursed by the recession in the 1990s and another by the defeat of the protest movements of the 1960s. The notion of transcritique, the author suggests, is Karatani's response to the wave of neoliberal globalization after the end of the Cold War and the need to think through the implications of this process for the problem of how to counteract ‘centreless’ power.

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