This seminar examines and compares American and Japanese public memories of the atomic bombs of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and discusses how our generation can move on to internationalize one nation's memory as a common asset for the global community. As the recent controversy over the Enola Gay exhibit at the Smithsonian Institute suggests, public memory of the atomic bombs as necessary, useful, and good, is slow to change. However, a growing body of new scholarly findings on situations surrounding the use of the atomic bombs as well as on conditions of atomic bomb victims challenges such a myth. Through readings of the latest investigations, seminar participants are encouraged to conduct interdisciplinary inquiries and evaluate the events of Hiroshima and Nagasaki within not only an American and Japanese but also a larger international framework. Topics for independent research include: analysis of military and socio-economic conditions of Japan; international diplomatic intrigues in the final phase of the war; Japan's readiness to (and negotiations for) surrender; American efforts to diplomatically end the war; socio-cultural and physical traumas on Japanese, American and other Asian victims. Seminar. Evaluation will be based on class participation, two 5-page papers and a research paper of about 25 and 30 pages. Enrollment limited to 15.

Hour: KOSHIRO