A Lecture by Dr. Lisa Yoneyama
Thursday, March 1
6:00pm, Berman Hall in Fromm (University of San Francisco Main Campus)

In the wake of the Fukushima nuclear meltdown, we have witnessed a proliferation of knowledges that are deeply critical of the Cold War U.S.-Japan relations. They expose how the power elites of the two countries collaborated intimately to promote the “Atoms for Peace” programs across the Pacific. Yet throughout the post-World War II years the civic discourse critical of the nuclear has repeatedly, albeit in vain, gestured toward the evils of the Cold War love affairs between the United States and Japan. What has allowed the amnesia to persist so powerfully to the extent that we must continue to this day to relearn the history of such complicity? This paper discusses the mechanism of forgetting and then identifies within the dialectical images of history deployed in the post-3.11 anti-nuclear civic protests a possibility for fundamental shifts in the Cold War transpacific formations of which the nuclear conglomeration has been an integral part.

"Tears of the Earth" (Photographic slide show about human struggles in post-quake Japan, by photographer Satoshi Ueda) will be viewed at this event. For more information about "Tears of the Earth", please go to http://artworkage.com/tsunami/index.html.

Dr. Lisa Yoneyama received her B.A. in German Language Studies and M.A. in International Relations at Sophia University, Tokyo, and Ph.D. in Cultural Anthropology at Stanford University, California. Prior to joining the University of Toronto, she taught Cultural Studies and U.S.-Japan Studies at University of California, San Diego, where she also served as Director in Japanese Studies and Critical Gender Studies Programs. Her research interests center on the memory politics concerning war and colonialism, issues related to gender and militarism, and the cultural dimensions of transnationalism, neo-colonialism, and nuclearism, as well as the Cold War and post-Cold War U.S. relations with Asia.

This lecture is part of the Spring 2012 Davies Forum Series and is organized by Dr. Hwaji Shin. If any question, please contact her at hshin2@usfca.edu."