Max Palevsky Professor of History, Emeritus, University of Chicago; I have written and edited 10 books related Japan in Asia, cultural and intellectual history, contemporary Japan etc. I have written a number of articles and essays on postcoloniality, Marxism, fascism and historical theory. I have two current book projects: “Present’s Pasts: Marx, Time and History,” which is an effort to restore discussions on development of capitalism’s productive process and the role of informal subsumption, which embodies the presence of ‘multiservum’ temporalities, Marx’s conception of the historical, as against recent emphases on commodification as the structuring principle of modern society; the second book is titled “Philosophy and Answerability: Historicism, the Problem of the Present and Japan’s World Historical Mission.” This book looks at philosophic discourse on the eve of World War II and the turn to resolving the problem of the ‘historical present’ as against a contemporary Marxian effort to resolve the question of Japan’s past in the present.