“Language (. . . as the growth and emanation of a People, and not the work of any individual Wit or Will)
is often inadequate, sometimes deficient, but never false or delusive.” S. T. Coleridge
About us
While I am wading across the sea of texts, I am often overwhelmed with a sigh by the profound richness of the words and images drifting into my view. Each floating visibly on the page is merely a tip of an iceberg: underneath spreads a huge, complex and inscrutable underlying structure. It comprises crystalised emotions, though neither tactile nor measurable, echoing resonances of culture which remain indistinctive to overseas audience, and even the illusive fragments of histories which we cannot excavate or grasp. Can I dive deep into the dark waters to gather chipped pieces and rebuild a vision of the world lost forever? The intricate, fathomless basis of language, vast, impenetrable, and sometimes muddled, continue gliding towards the haven of a strange shadowy land which it can never reach. Coleridge believed in a transcendental, eternal language of Logos and tried to remain faithful to the sermo interior, even though he admitted the inadequacy and insufficiency, if not deceitfulness, of a language shared and communicated by a people. The vast number of words he expended erratically is a huge fragmented irony of this ideal language. In the currents of the 21st century, how far can I go and swim, resisting the uncertainty and disingenuity of the fluid language and extract murmurs of the past frozen obscurely in the iceberg bottom?
NewsArchive
- 2023/02/18
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KOMCEE Lecture Hall, Komaba Campus, the University of Tokyo
Department of English Language, the University of Tokyo
Center for Global Communication Strategies
For online participation, register from below.
https://forms.gle/V91KTvzBgJRAKiWH9 - 2023/01/21
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Symposium: “English Literature and the Pacific”
At Meiji University (Surugadai Campus), 308E Academy Common
Organised by Alex Watson and Laurence Williams
- 2022/10/22
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Radio Programme: “Xanadu,” BBC Radio 4
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001d4zb
The poet Daljit Nagra revisits the visionary world of Coleridge's well-known poem “Kubla Khan,” exploring its receptions and updated readings across the globe. It contained my interview talk on the cultural context of the poem and its receptions in Japan, in particular, various types of Xanadu in virtual worlds.
UpdatesArchive
- 2023/03/28
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We have launched our website.