By Kôjin Karatani, well known Japanese philosopher, and literary critic

April 24, 2008 at 7:30 p.m.
Nunemaker Auditorium, Monroe Hall
Loyola University, New Orleans Main Campus
6363 St. Charles Avenue
New Orleans, Louisiana 70118

Lecture to be followed by a book signing.
This event is open to the public.

Karatani was educated at Tokyo University where he took a BA degree in Economics and a MA in English literature. The Gunzô Literary Prize, which he received at the age of 27 for an essay on Natsume Sôseki, was the first critical acclaim of the early stages of his career as a literary critic. While teaching at Hôsei University, Tokyo, he wrote extensively about modernity, and postmodernity, with a particular focus on the problems of "language, number, money", a trinity of concepts which form the subtitle of one of his central books: Architecture as Metaphor.

Philosophically, Karatani has produced a number of concepts such as "the will to architecture", but the best known of them is probably that of Transcritique, which he proposed in the eponymous book, a reading of Kant through Marx and vice-versa.

This event is sponsored by the Department of Classical and Modern Languages and Literatures, Biever Guest Lecture Series, the Office of the Provost, the Office of the Dean of Humanities and Natural Sciences and the Dean of Social Sciences For further information, contact Professor Josefa Salmon, salmon@loyno.edu; Professor Peter Tillack, tillack@tulane.edu; or Avia Alonzo at (504) 865-3844