2019 - 2020

0687-2483-01
  The History of War and Memory - 19th and 20th Century Japan                                          
FACULTY OF HUMANITIES
Reut HarariGilman-humanities280Tue1000-1200 Sem  1
 
 
University credit hours:  2.0

Course description

What are the factors that mold how we think about the past? One way of framing the history of "Modern" Japan is as a series of wars and military activities, as well as the preparations for war and their subsequent consequences. Instead of focusing only on the wars themselves, this course will also examine how groups within and outside of Japan interpreted and re-interpreted the wars in different periods and why. Throughout the course we will analyze a variety of representations and - at times contradictory - interpretations of war. We will ask which events and people were ultimately forgotten while others became iconic and why. By reevaluating the historical memory of different wars - from the Sino-Japanese War (1894-95) to the Pacific War (1941-45) and the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki - we will argue that every analysis of the past is rooted in a specific present. Consequently, the course will not end in 1945, but will continue to the end of the 20th century and will even reach the early 21st century.

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