Dr Lionel Babicz

PhD (Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales, Paris)
Lecturer
Room 546, Brennan MacCallum Building A18

+61 2 9351 6765

Lionel Babicz teaches and carries out research in modern Japanese history, particularly the history of Japanese-Korean relations and the intellectual history of the Meiji period (1868-1912).

He was a lecturer at the Department of East Asian Studies of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and a researcher at the Maison Franco-Japonaise in Tokyo. He is also associate researcher at the Japan Research Center of L’École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris.

• Modern history
• Japanese-Korean relations
• Meiji intellectual history

• Lionel Babicz is currently working on "11 February 1889" - the day of the promulgation of the Meiji Constitution, the assassination of Mori Arinori and the publication of the first issue of the Nihon newspaper by Kuga Katsunan. He is also one of the three editors of a book on the attempts at writing a common history in Europe and East Asia, to be published in Tokyo by Akashi Shoten. Other current projects include articles on the Japanese-Korean post-war “diplomacy of apology”, on the intellectual background of the annexation of Korea, and on the concept of “nation” in 19th and 20th century Japan.

Books

Dr Babicz is the author of “Le Japon face à la Corée à l’époque Meiji” (2002), a study of the Japanese visions of Korea in the Meiji period. Among his other publications is a chapter on “The Starting Point of Modern Japanese-Korean Relations: The Letter Incident of 1869” (Turning Points in Japanese History, 2002). He has also contributed the entry on “Japanese-Korean Relations” in the “Encyclopedia of Modern Asia” (2002).

Some recent publications of Lionel Babicz include:

• “From Fukuzawa Yukichi to Yon-sama: The Nostalgic Image of Korea in Modern and Contemporary Japan.” Proceedings of the World Congress of Korean Studies 2006. The Academy of Korean Studies, 2006.
• "Une nouvelle puissance nucléaire?", La vie des idées, no. 20 (2007).
• "Japon, Chine, Corée : vers une conscience historique commune?", Ebisu, no. 37 (2007).
• “1889, la première Constitution”, L’Histoire no. 333 (2008).

Teaching

• JPNS1612 Japanese 2
• JPNS2622 Japanese 6
• Modern Asian History and Cultures

Supervision

• Modern Japanese history (including nationalism, colonialism, and militarism)
• Japanese-Korean relations
• Japanese interactions with Asia
• Modern Japanese thought

• Member of the editorial boards and current editor-in-charge of the French-language journal of Japanese studies Ebisu.
• Associate researcher at the Japan Research Center of L’École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris.