Assistant Professor
Kyle Peters is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Japanese Studies at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK). He received his Ph.D. in East Asian Languages and Civilizations from the University of Chicago in August 2021 and was awarded a Reischauer Institute Postdoctoral Fellowship at Harvard University for 2022–2023. His research focuses on Japanese cultural criticism and media studies—especially modern Japanese philosophy, aesthetics, literature, and print culture as it intersects with Critical Theory.
His current book project, Kyoto School and Totality, combines the Critical Theory concept of totality with media studies to reconceptualize Kyoto School philosophy—widely considered the most important intellectual movement in modern Japan. Instead of treating these philosophers in their supposed connection to Zen Buddhism, he argues that Kyoto School members developed a “self-formative” theory of society qua totality in line with the pressing social issues of global modernity. In particular, he foregrounds the Kyoto School in its connection with modern print culture, showing the ways in which certain members theorized the autotelic organization of society in terms of intersecting social levels—groups, collectives, publics, and class—and in doing so, carved out a space for author collectives and reader publics to revise and spur social development from within.
Educational Background
Ph.D. East Asian Languages and Civilizations, University of Chicago (2021)
Contact
Email : kyleaustinpeters@cuhk.edu.hk
Research Interests
Modern Japanese Philosophy
Modern Japanese Print Culture
Modern Japanese Aesthetics
Media Studies
Critical Theory
Selected Publications
“Artistic Production and the Making of the Artist: Applying Nishida Kitarō to Discussions of Authorship,” in Philosophy East and West 68.2. April 2018.
“Goddesses and Gods in Rancière and Heidegger: Dialogically Recontextualizing ‘Origin of the Work of Art,’” in Journal of Aesthetics and Phenomenology (formerly the journal Aesthetic Pathways) 1.2. November 2014.