Sartre, Beauvoir: Foreign Visitors to Keio University

2016/01/01

Sartre and Beauvoir arriving at Mita and getting out of a car. Keio students can be seen holding placards that read "Oppose the Vietnam War."

Exactly half a century ago, in September 1966, Sartre and Beauvoir visited Japan at the invitation of Keio University and Jinbun Shoin, the publisher of the Japanese edition of Sartre's complete works, and a special lecture was held at Mita Hilltop Square.

This journal is running an interesting series titled "Foreign Visitors to Keio University," and I believe they are a fitting choice for the first installment. This is because Sartre and Beauvoir's visit was an event that could be called a major incident, not just for Keio University but for all of Japan. My own memories are vague, as I was a junior high school student at the time and a late bloomer in literature, but my aunt, Tokiko Asabuki, accompanied them for the entire four-week itinerary as a friend and interpreter (even staying at the same hotels and inns), and my father, Sankichi Asabuki, as a faculty member on the welcoming committee from Keio University, was with them for nearly their entire schedule in Tokyo. So I personally felt the hustle and bustle, or rather, the atmosphere of commotion.

How much of an introduction does Jean-Paul Sartre need? He first gained prominence before World War II with his philosophical novel "Nausea" and wrote his magnum opus "Being and Nothingness" during the war. A seminal work of existentialism that incorporates Husserl's phenomenology and Heidegger's ontology to question the nature of being, its reputation grew rapidly and fervently after the war. His fame grew even more as he wrote his major philosophical work "Critique of Dialectical Reason" and, in parallel, practiced and popularized existentialist philosophy through his plays and critical activities. In the literary world, the mid-1950s saw the rise of the Nouveau Roman, and from the early 1960s, his subject-centric philosophy came under criticism from structuralist thinkers like Lévi-Strauss. Meanwhile, Sartre clarified his stance on the social and political engagement (engagement) of writers and intellectuals, increasing his political statements and actions. During the Algerian War, which lasted from the mid-1950s to 1962, he unwaveringly opposed colonialism and supported national liberation, backing Algerian independence and the Cuban Revolution. In 1964, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature but declined it, stating that he refused to be "deified while still alive." In the latter half of his life, he continued to write and engage in political activities energetically, culminating in the monumental, though unfinished, biographical critique of Gustave Flaubert, "The Family Idiot".

Simone de Beauvoir consistently took a feminist stance. The line from her book "The Second Sex," "One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman," is famous. Her autobiographical novel "The Mandarins" is credited with laying the foundation for gender theory, and in her later years, she wrote the major work "The Coming of Age," which deals with the contemporary theme of old age. Furthermore, though it has a strong gossipy aspect, Sartre and Beauvoir's relationship, which they openly declared to be a common-law partnership or "pact," also became a topic of discussion as a new way for couples to be.

Sartre showed gradual physical decline, losing sight in his right eye, which already had strabismus, in 1973, and passed away in 1980. Even after the rise of structuralism, new philosophies such as deconstruction took the world by storm, and existentialist philosophy was at times treated as outdated. However, since the turn of this century, and especially in recent years, Sartre has been undergoing a global reassessment.

Let's turn back the clock. In the mid-1960s, when Sartre and Beauvoir visited Japan, there is no doubt they were darlings of the era, having declined the Nobel Prize two years prior and strengthened their stance on political engagement by meeting with Che Guevara in Cuba and opposing the Vietnam War. In Japan, too, the decade from the 1960 Anpo protests to the 1970 Anpo protests was the peak of the student movement. The fact that Sartre and his circle, holders of innovative ideas, accepted an invitation from the private Keio University rather than from government-run universities or major newspaper companies was likely due in part to the large number of Keio University faculty, Keio University alumni, and affiliates among the researchers and translators of Sartre and Beauvoir, but it is also undeniable that they were appreciated for their independence and self-respect (independence and self-respect) from the government of the time. Nevertheless, one can only admire the depth and generosity of Keio University for inviting two individuals who, though writers and philosophers, held radical political beliefs and practiced social engagement.

At 8:00 p.m. on September 18, 1966, the pair arrived at Haneda Airport as a typhoon was approaching. A press conference was immediately held in a hall at the airport, which was packed with over 100 reporters, photographers, and related personnel. During the Q&A session of the press conference, they apparently shared some interesting stories. When asked about the purpose of their visit, they revealed that they had wished to come to Japan as teachers in their youth but were not hired, and that their youthful dream had finally come true.

Their accommodation in Tokyo was the Hotel Okura, arranged by Keio University. After the conference, they took that night and the following day as private time to rest, having dinner with just my aunt and father, and experiencing ordinary life the next day by shopping at a department store in Ginza, having lunch at a yakitori restaurant, and taking a break at a classical music café (meikyoku kissa). From the evening, a meeting was held with Keio University officials to discuss the lecture, but it ended with just a confirmation of the schedule. Although some reported that the university authorities had requested they refrain from political statements, this was completely false; Keio University made no requests whatsoever regarding the content of the lecture. While this is a matter of course for the inviting party, it is an episode that speaks to the magnanimity of Keio University, which invited them knowing full well their clear political stance, to the extent that such rumors could arise.

The next day, a welcome party hosted by Keio University was held. They were welcomed by a host of faculty, including President Kunio Nagasawa and his wife, the Vice-President, Professor Saku Sato of the French Literature Department (who would later become President) who had read "Nausea" before the war and highly esteemed Sartre's talent, and Professor Koji Shirai, the translator of "Nausea," as well as Keio University alumni such as writer Yoshie Hotta and actor Hiroshi Akutagawa, and they spent a pleasant evening together.

September 20 was the day of the lecture at Mita Hilltop Square. In the afternoon, after being greeted by the President and others at the Mita Library (the Old Library) and viewing its rare books, they were surrounded by hundreds, even thousands, of Keio students as they crossed the courtyard on their way to the lecture hall, Room 518, a tiered classroom in the West School Building. Sartre and his companions were apparently tense at first, thinking they were students with opposing views, but everyone was smiling. Some students even held placards written in French that said "Oppose the Vietnam War," and the pair was escorted by faculty through the smiling Keio students to the venue. The tiered classroom, Room 518, could accommodate about 900 people, but it was packed beyond capacity. Eight other classrooms were used for a simultaneous television broadcast, allowing a total of 6,000 people to listen. Today, simultaneous video broadcasts for events like entrance ceremonies are commonplace, but at the time, it was a pioneering effort. In terms of audience size, it became the largest event in the history of Keio University. The audience was, in principle, limited to Keio students, with French literature researchers from other universities, translators, and writers also invited. The pair, who disliked government officials and bureaucrats, did not send an invitation to the French Embassy, but embassy staff who still wished to attend participated in their personal capacity.

The lecture event began with Beauvoir's talk, titled "Women and the Problems of Today." She began by speaking about the position of women in France. Despite France being the country of the French Revolution and a nation that espouses liberty, equality, and fraternity, women's suffrage was not granted there until after World War II, the same as in Japan. Her talk touched on the similarities in the situations of women in both countries, and she stated that, regrettably, a society of true gender equality has not yet been achieved in any country, and that we must strive for it.

Sartre's lecture was titled "The Position of the Intellectual." He argued that while intellectuals are "technicians of practical knowledge" such as scholars, engineers, and lawyers, not all such technicians are intellectuals. He asserted that true intellectuals must not serve the establishment but must be independent of it, and he criticized bourgeois humanism, the Vietnam War, and the fact that two billion people were starving behind the prosperity of developed nations. This lecture is currently included in the Jinbun Shoin edition of Sartre's complete works, "Situations VIII," and is available to read.

After the lecture at Keio University, Sartre and Beauvoir's journey in Japan continued. They participated in a roundtable discussion for the magazine "Sekai" with Kenzaburo Oe, Shunsuke Tsurumi, and Shuichi Kato, and after a lecture hosted by the Asahi Shimbun, they traveled to Hakone, Kyoto, Nara, Shima, Nagasaki, Fukuoka, and Hiroshima. Upon returning to Tokyo, on October 15, the day before their departure, they participated in a symposium for the "Citizens' League for Peace in Vietnam" (commonly known as Beheiren) with Makoto Oda, Ken Kaiko, Yoshimi Takeuchi, and Rokuro Hidaka. That evening, as it was their farewell, the two were invited to my father's house (that is, my family home). As I wrote earlier, I was still a child, so I only exchanged simple greetings. Although we only exchanged a word or two, I now feel that I was fortunate just to have met these intellectual giants.

(It should be noted that Sartre and Beauvoir's visit to Keio University is documented with photographs in the October and November 1966 issues of Mita-hyoron (official monthly journal published by Keio University Press), and a detailed account of their four-week stay in Japan can be found in Tokiko Asabuki's "28 Days in Japan with Sartre and Beauvoir" (Dohosha Shuppan). I have referred to these sources in writing this article.)

*Affiliations and titles are as of the time of this journal's original publication.