Section 7 | History, Politics and International Relations | Opening Session C, Panel
This proposed project will examine the structure of Japanese atomic bomb memory via the analysis of the status and use of a diary written by a 13-year-old girl killed in the Hiroshima attack of 6 August 1945. Moriwaki Yôko's four-month daily journal from April to 5 August was published in 1996; included in the volume is a body of work by family members, acquaintances, and outside researchers commenting directly on her death and the diary. These additional writings - essays, a letter, poetry, a stage play, a musical piece, painting, and photography - illustrate the meaning of Yôko's diary and her death in atomic bomb memory. The entire volume is published with the title The Diary of Moriwaki Yôko: Hiroshima Prefectural Girls', first year, sixth class. I will consider the journal and other material in the context of Japanese cultural framing of the bomb and its aftermath. The Diary is an important work because it directly deals with issues of representation. The subject of the publication is the atomic bomb, but since Yôko perished in the atrocity her voice in the journal is not eyewitness to it. Her journal records items only prior to the event. The other written pieces in the The Diary are all post-event, ranging from several hours to several decades later, and demonstrate the processes used to represent the bomb through the diarist's death and her journal. Central to this discussion is the conception of the diary as nokorimono, literally "thing left behind" or "thing remaining". The term nokorimono and its grammatical and linguistic variants occur often throughout the additional writings; for example, the older brother of the diarist co-editing the publication describes the diary as such. A rhetorical and semiotic analysis of the nokorimono concept will aid in illuminating the epistemological framework by which the atomic experience is remembered in Japan and the subjective stance taken in atomic bomb writing and other representative media.
Harald Meyer (University of Zurich)
The author Ôoka Shôhei (1909-1988) tried to keep memory of the Pacific War and the millions of war dead alive by writing fiction and non-fiction. His writings Nobi ("Fires on the Plain") and Reite senki ("The Battle for Leyte Island") differ in their contents as well as in their way of narration. While Nobi is usually read as a sincere account of traumatic battlefield experience, the author actually used fictional narration techniques such as psycho-narration, narrated monologue or interior monologue in order to express feelings of guilt, self-recrimination, and loss. In contrast, Ôoka made every effort in Reite senki to write non-fiction and to understand his battlefield experience rationally. The aim of this presentation is to examine various methods in reconstructing and presenting a war reminiscence.
Ian Ruxton (Kyûshû Institute of Technology)
Despite the best efforts of one or two academics, the Satow papers (PRO 30/33 1-23) in the National Archives in London remain a largely unexploited and voluminous resource for researchers of Meiji and Bakumatsu Japan, as well as China and Siam/Thailand. In 2003, Satow's handwritten diaries for 1895-1900 were published in English for the first time by Edition Synapse of Tôkyô. Now the presenter of this paper is seeking to take the process one stage further by introducing the official correspondence between Satow and the Foreign Office, consulates and legation staff contained in PRO 30/33 5 and 6. It is hoped that eventually these may be published in their entirety, but for now an overview will suffice to give an idea of what material is available. Among the material is detailed correspondence sent to Satow from consuls in Formosa, Japan's first colony.