Index#: 07584
Will Count Towards Japanese MAJOR
Will Count Towards Japanese MINOR
In this Honors seminar, we will be reading and discussing primary sources such as eyewitness accounts, short fiction, poetry, a novel, and feature-length films by and about survivors of the 1945 U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan. We will also study secondary sources and documentary films describing the history of the development of nuclear weapons and depicting the aftermath of the bombings. By studying multiple genres, we will be able to examine from different perspectives the ways atomic warfare has been represented in various media. Ideally, each student in the seminar will develop an understanding of the limits of representation of the dehumanizing effects of atomic warfare, and learn to connect A-Bomb literature and film in Japan to political concerns about future use of atomic weapons. All readings are in English translation.
About Professor Schalow
Professor Paul Schalow was born in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1952. His interest in East Asia began while living in Taiwan as a boy and developed further after he spent a year in Kyushu, Japan, as a Rotary International high school exchange student. His SAS Signature Course, Global East Asia, applies theories of globalization and localization to the region based on a lifetime of experience there. His current research project is taking him back to the classical period, however; it addresses male interiority and self-representation in a Heian courtier’s diary written in Sino-Japanese.