Introducing New Staff Vol.93 : Hideaki HAYAKAWA

My research concerns

HAYAKAWA, Hideaki
（Assistant Professor, April 2026）

I study contemporary intellectual history in the Middle East, with a particular focus on Lebanon. My research has so far centred especially on communist thought in Lebanon. I would like to explain how I came to pursue this line of research.

Since I was small, I always had an interest in the wider world. This may be related to the fact that I grew up in Japan with an Irish mother. When I entered university, I wanted to study something connected to the wider world, and as I had already begun taking Arabic classes in my first year, I chose to join a department where I could study Middle Eastern Studies. I later went on to graduate school, which eventually led me to my current research.

In my PhD thesis, I examined how the prominent Lebanese Marxist Mahdi Amel (1936–1987) theorized the sectarian issue in Lebanon. Amel defined sects in Lebanon by arguing that ‘the sect is not an entity, an essence or a thing. It is a political relationship determined by a certain historical form of the movement of class struggle.’ This was an anti-essentialist, constructive definition of the sect. His constructivism was so uncompromising that it was not fully understood even his comrades in the communist party. It was this what might be termed ‘radical anti-essentialism’ that struck me drew me to his thought.

I first encountered constructivist approaches to nationality and ethnicity during my undergraduate studies, and they felt particularly compelling to me, as someone who had experienced a degree of uneasiness in Japanese society. In Amel’s work, which I encountered for the first time during my master’s programme, the critique of essentialism was not merely an academic argument but formed as a part of a broader revolutionary political theory. This aspect of his though captured my interest.

I am not always confident that these concerns of mine are reflected in my academic work. There is a significant distance between the sectarian issue in Lebanon and my own personal experiences in Japan. Also, needless to say, I must remain careful not to project my own experiences onto Lebanese society, nor to treat the realities of Lebanon as a means of articulating my own views.

Even so, as someone who arrived at the study of Middle Eastern political thought through this particular trajectory, I hope to contribute, however modestly, to broader efforts towards coexistence around the world. I am grateful for the opportunity to join Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, and look forward to continuing my research here.