JAPAN IN DISASTER

Poster and flyers promoting a Presidential Dream Course lecture series sponsored by the Expository Writing Program, Department of the History of Science, Department of
International and Area Studies, Center for Social Justice, and Department of Anthropology.

“Horrific footage of disaster-torn Japan circulated rapidly around the globe in the days following March 11, 2011. Even in an era rife with calamities, the magnitude 9.0 earthquake that struck Japan’s northeastern coast stunned the world, as did the chain of events that followed. Mega-tsunami wiped out towns and villages along the coastline, killing and displacing hundreds of thousands and sparking a nuclear meltdown. The triple disasters, referred to in Japan as “3.11,” have raised questions about the ability of contemporary societies to control natural hazards and to recover in their aftermath. This course takes up these questions through a close investigation of survivor and journalist accounts of the disaster, social media forums, films, regional histories, and emerging scholarship.”