| Professor Takahashi's writings, including his 2005 bestseller, The Yasukuni Issue, make unmistakably clear that the role of the Shrine is antithetical to democratic values in Japan and to reconciliation with Asia, which requires acknowledgment of the harms inflicted through colonialism and war. The subject of his lecture is Japan at a crossroads today, its hard-won postwar democratic values at stake as never before. Professor Takahashi teaches philosophy in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at the University of Tokyo. He specializes in contemporary European philosophy and has been particularly interested in the ethical aspects of the work of Jacques Derrida. Sponsored by the Japan Committee of the Center for East Asian Studies and the Center for International Studies. |
A talk by Noriaki Imai, student environmental and peace activist. At 18 years of age, Noriaki Imai traveled to Iraq to study the effects of depleted uranium on Iraqi children. While in Iraq, he was taken hostage and threatened to be killed unless Japan withdrew its troops from Iraq. Fortunately, he was released alive, but when he returned home to Japan, he faced enormous public criticism. Part of the Japan at Chicago Lecture Series: Celebrating Protest; sponsored by the Japan Committee of the Center for East Asian Studies, the Human Rights Program, the Center for International Studies, the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Rockefeller Memorial Chapel, the Environmental Studies Program and Middle Eastern Studies Students Association. |
|
Q&A with Director Hitomi Kamanaka A discussion with the director of the film Rokkashomura Rhapsody: A Plutonium Plant Comes to Northern Japan. Part of the Japan at Chicago Lecture Series: Celebrating Protest. Sponsored by the Japan Committee of the Center for East Asian Studies, the Human Rights Program, the Center for International Studies, the Committee on Cinema and Media Studies, the Environmental Studies Program and Rockefeller Memorial Chapel. Co-sponsored by DePaul University. | The Fifteen-Woman Lawsuit Opposing the Self-Defense Forces in Iraq A talk by lawyer Michiko Nakajima. In the course of the Iraq War, citizens in Japan, singly or in groups, have been taking the state to court alleging violation of the "no war" clause of the Constitution in deploying Self-Defense Force troops. Feminist labor lawyer Michiko Nakajima led a group of 15 women plaintiffs in one such suit. This endeavor builds on her half-century of activism engaging with many of the great struggles of postwar Japan, from the US-Japan Security Treaty, gender equality in the workplace, and the Women's Tribunal on Military Sexual Slavery. Part of the Japan at Chicago Lecture Series: Celebrating Protest. Sponsored by apan Committee of the Center for East Asian Studies, the Human Rights Program, the Center for International Studies, the Center for Gender Studies, the Public Interest Law Society and the Japan Law Society. | Colonialism, Militarism, and the Political Economy of Transracial Adoption A talk by Emi Koyama. Part of the Japan at Chicago Lecture Series: Celebrating Protest. Sponsored by the Japan Committee of the Center for East Asian Studies, the Human Rights Program, and the Center for International Studies. | Intersex at the Intersection of Queer Theory & Disability Theory A talk by Emi Koyama, Director, Intersex Initiative. Part of the Japan at Chicago Lecture Series: Celebrating Protest. Sponsored by the Japan Committee of the Center for East Asian Studies, the Human Rights Program, the Center for International Studies, and the Center for Gender Studies. | Japanese Education and Society in Crisis A talk by Yoshifumi Tawara, Secretary General of the Children and Textbooks Japan Network 21. Part of the Japan at Chicago Lecture Series: Celebrating Protest. Sponsored by the Japan Committee of the Center for East Asian Studies, the Human Rights Program, and the Center for International Studies. |
|