These lectures will investigate the way in which Japan constructed and then lost its empire. We will focus on the history of the post-imperial and post-colonial, along with historical questions of Japan’s interaction with its colonies and occupied areas. In addition, the postwar routes concerning how Japan and former imperial areas reconciled questions of justice will be examined.
Drawing on recent research in Japanese, Chinese, English and French, including insights of ideas of justice, reconciliation history, and military history, the lectures will look at the history of early postwar Japanese imperial disintegration, the pros and cons of war crimes trials, contemporary issues in Japanese historiography, and how such problems are entwined with the current political climate in East Asia.
Lecture 1 (January 7, 2019): The history that you know has been tampered with
Date & Time: Monday, January 7, 2019 (18:15-19:45)
Venue: Building 3-811, Waseda Campus, Waseda University
This lecture will reveal and explain the intricacies of new understandings of the position Japan found itself in after 1944 and how that influenced the final chapter of its imperial history. We will engage in comparing the occupation of Japan with the situation around its imperial periphery and investigate the similarities and differences. The lecture will push students to consider Japan’s surrender from multiple angles to see Japanese history from external positions.
Lecture 2 (January 8, 2019): The end of the beginning: surrender, decolonization and the Cold War
Date & Time: Tuesday, January 8, 2019 (18:15-19:45)
Venue: Building 3-808, Waseda Campus, Waseda University
In this lecture the complicated history of exactly how empires crumble and what dismantling them entails will be examined. The lecture will look at the extreme lengths of mobilization Japanese imperial forces exerted on the region and how that impacted on the repatriation of millions following the end of the war. At the same time, we will ask the more fundamental question of how Japanese became involved in the early moments of the Cold War and what that meant.
Lecture 3 (January 9, 2019): Finding Justice: Allied War Crimes Trials and the Japanese Response
Date & Time: Wednesday, January 9, 2019 (18:15-19:45).
Venue: Building 3-811, Waseda Campus, Waseda University
This lecture will summarize the extensive history of war crimes trials across East and Southeast Asia where other imperial powers attempted to bring the Japanese to justice from 1945-1964. In the process, the implications of how imperial Japan became inexorably linked to the region will be explored, with a particular focus on the postwar meaning of war crimes trials and their political symbolism.
Lecture 4: January 10, 2019: Imperial Legacies: History as a weapon of memory in Postwar East Asia
Date & Time: Thursday, January 10, 2019 (18:15-19:45)
Venue: Building 3-808, Waseda Campus, Waseda University
This lecture will review why Japan still finds itself sometimes at odds with its closest East Asian nations regarding historical opinions. Even seventy years after the end of WWII, why are we still discussing the nature of Japanese imperial expansion and the ideas of justice that were supposedly pursued at the Tokyo Trial and Nuremberg? This last lecture will detail some of the problems within East Asian historiography and offer new ways to think about the interaction of history and politics in the region.
- Lecturer: Professor Barak Kushner, University of Cambridge in UK
- Coordinator: Toyomi Asano (Professor, Faculty of Political Science and Economics)
- Language: English
- Open to: Students, faculty, staff and the general public
- Admission: Free
- Contact: [email protected]
