War, Memory, Politics in East Asia

War, Memory, Politics in East Asia


This seminar explores the politics of war and colonial memory in twentieth-century East Asia. We will examine the ways in which nationalism, post-colonialism, and other various politics have operated in shaping as well as talking and writing about memories of the war and colonial past, such as the Nanjing Massacre, the Comfort Women, and Hiroshima. We will be reading latest scholarship on the issues as well as competing sides of these controversies.

This seminar is not a place to decide which side is right or which facts are true. Rather it is a place where we discuss the nature of the relationship between learning “facts,” history writing, and memory and how to go beyond the polemics of many of these controversies.

This is also a research seminar. The last few weeks will be reserved to work on a mini-research paper (10-15 pages) on a topic related to the course. Possible projects include an analysis of a novel/film/manga, an examination of the media discourse of a certain historical event or controversy, a historiographical essay, etc.

Books to be assigned include:
•Joshua Fogel, The Nanjing Massacre in History and Historiography (2000)
•Jager and Miyoshi, Ruptured Histories: War, Memory, and the Post-Cold War in Asia (2007)
•C. Sarah Soh, The Comfort Women: Sexual Violence and Postcolonial Memory in Korea and Japan (2008)
•Franziska Seraphim, War Memory and Social Politics in Japan, 1945-2005 (2008)
•Sabine Fruhstuck, Uneasy Warriors: Gender, Memory, and Popular Culture in the Japanese Army (2007)