Where scientific nationalism meets tradition

It’s no secret that Japan has a reputation for global exports of technology: Toyota has endured for nearly a century, Sony has delivered consumer electronics since it was a radio repair shop in 1946, and video games have long been synonymous with brands like Nintendo, Sony, and Sega.

But the narrative of Japanese exceptionalism in science and technology is not an accidental one. In the Penn Global Seminar, Scientific Nationalism in Japan, John Kehayias, a lecturer in critical writing in the Marks Family Writing Center, led a group of 16 first-year students this spring on a trip to Japan—from Osaka to Kyoto, Kyoto to Tokyo—to experience not just a cross-cultural exchange, but the ways in which Japan has embraced its high-tech culture while preserving and respecting its traditional history.

Using the text “Science for the Empire: Scientific Nationalism in Modern Japan” by Hiromi Mizuno as a jumping-off point, Kehayias taught students about the strategic shift toward incorporating Western-influenced conceptions of science and math during and after World War II, and the ensuing philosophical discussions about what could make these subjects feel “Japanese.”

“It was different people finding ways to say, ‘How does that fit in with our philosophies and traditions?’” Kehayias explains. “In the end, it was mostly co-opted and promoted by imperialistic and nationalistic [forces] at the time and engineers didn’t have much choice in an alternative viewpoint, but it was an interesting debate over how [their research] got used.”

Japan ultimately sought to be seen as a leading imperial power, Kehayias says, abandoning a concept of what Mizuno describes as “Eastern ethics and Western science and technology” and instead focusing on science to win modern wars. “Scientific Japan” became a slogan of the wartime era and prompted many discussions about what the “scientific” part of the expression should mean, writes Mizuno. What followed, Kehayias says, was a series of debates among technocrats, Marxist intellectuals, and popular science writers, with science elevated as justification for colonization of Asia.

“These days, we think of Japan as very advanced, scientific, with lots of great engineering and forward thinking in science technology, but that wasn’t true around the time of World War II,” says Kehayias. “People think now in terms of pop culture, and … students wrote about that in photo essays they did afterwards, contrasting modern society along with traditional elements they still have that have been blended or kept together, in a way, where one hasn’t necessarily taken over the other.”

A cross-cultural education

In high school, history and political science major Gulrukh Sodikova, a rising second-year student in the College of Arts and Sciences from Tashkent, Uzbekistan, was enamored with Japanese culture and took two years of Japanese language classes. When she encountered a Penn Global Seminar course that traveled there and explored its history through discussion of science nationalism, she was sold.

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“This course integrates so many different areas, like history and political science, physics, engineering, and even philosophy,” Sodikova says, adding that she was especially interested in visiting the Kavli Institute, Japan’s first national research institute, where Kehayias previously worked. Through that experience, she says, she was able to see how internationalized research can be, the effects science investment has on economies, and what the process might look like when she eventually starts to do her own research.

More broadly, she says she enjoyed the experience of sleeping on a traditional Japanese futon, exploring the tech-culture-heavy neighborhood of Akihabara in Tokyo, and seeing first-hand the ways in which traditions are preserved to coexist with modern society. She also felt more connected to Japanese culture by the end of the trip.

“I think a lot of the stuff that we learned about culture, like how we can respect the people and how we can make it easier for them to understand us, how we can integrate that sort of stuff, is useful for just being human,” she says.

She also notes that the opportunity to travel through a PGS course made international travel possible in a way that it would not otherwise be for her, given restraints on visas as someone from Uzbekistan. She is also a first-generation student.

She adds: “Even though I’m an international student, it doesn’t mean that I’ve seen a lot of places.”

Mekhi Sappleton, a computational biology major in the College and rising second-year from Port St. Lucie, Florida, similarly has not traveled to many countries outside of the U.S., but was insistent on going to Japan after a pandemic-era switch-up previously prevented him from traveling there.

He was also intrigued by the concept of scientific nationalism and its interdisciplinary connection to history.

“I learned a lot about the history of Japan and its connection with old cultural ideas, and also creating new ones,” Sappleton says. “And how Japan is still connected between culture and technology.”

As for the trip, Sappleton says Kehayias was “a really integral part” of why he and his classmates enjoyed the trip. Sappleton says it was meaningful to be in the same space where Kehayias did his own research, and that Kehayias was able to offer some clarity that’s aided him in his decision-making about where to eventually study abroad in Japan.

Of course, the cohort also enjoyed a series of sightseeing adventures: visits to Nishiki Market, Sensoji Temple, Tenryuji Temple and Bamboo Grove, Miraikan Museum, a matcha tea house, the Kavli Institute for Physics and Mathematics, and Arashiyama.

“We were climbing the Arashiyama Mountain and we got to see all the [Japanese macaque monkeys], and that’s just when we all really bonded,” Sappleton recalls, gleefully. “It clicked, and we realized we’re going to be like a family.”

Place-based learning

Kehayias says PGS courses provide an opportunity for students to “experience what you’ve been reading or seeing or thinking about in some way.” He says he introduced students to nuggets of information about Japanese culture and history throughout the semester, even including lessons about etiquette. Crucially, he says, the weeklong travel structure allows them to make space for travel during otherwise jam-packed schedules.

“A lot of students have a hard time fitting it in, with requirements they have, or a job they might work to provide for family, or other courses they take during the summer,” he says. “It’s a great opportunity for them to have a taste of [travel] and get an experience they might not be able to have otherwise.

“If every student could take a PGS course, I imagine most would.”