** Feel free to circulate this invitation to friends or
colleagues.*
* *

*Ben Karp - Japan and African Americans from the Russo-Japanese War to Pearl Harbor*

*Date:* Friday, March 2, 2012 *Time:* 7:00p.m. (Talk will start at
7:30p.m.) *Venue:*
Temple University, Japan Campus, Azabu Hall 212/213
(access:
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)
*Speaker: *
Ben Karp
*Moderator:*
Robert Dujarric
*Admission:* Free (Open to general public) *RSVP:* icas@tuj.ac.jp **If you RSVP you are automatically registered. If possible, we ask you to RSVP but we always welcome participants even you do not RSVP.*

*Outline*
[image: W.E.B. Du Bois and Professors of Tokyo Imperial University (University of Tokyo), 1936] W.E.B. Du Bois and Professors of Tokyo Imperial University (University of Tokyo), 1936

>From the Russo-Japanese to the Pacific War, mutual
admiration
>flourished
between Japanese nationalists and globally minded black Americans. The 1905 victory of the non-white Japan over a "white" Russia was such a public and momentous reversal of general assumptions about race and ability that the great black American scholar W.E.B. Du Bois could conclude; “the magic of the word ‘white’ is already broken, and the Color Line in civilization has been crossed.” Du Bois visited Japan in 1936 lending credibility to the empire’s colonial aspirations and claims that it stood against Western supremacy.
Meanwhile, agents of Japan befriended Harlem street preachers and toured black colleges praising black resistance and promoting their own emerging Co-prosperity sphere as an achievement of pan-Asian harmony.

Ben Karp's talk will outline African-American - Japanese relations from
1905 - 1941, demonstrating how the rise of Japan impacted black thinking about race and power and, in turn, how early twentieth century black writers and activists inspired Japanese nationalists to present their drive for empire as an expression of anti-racism not aggression. Most importantly, the talk will suggest why this historical correspondence, long ignored, still matters and can yet provide meaningful insights into race, nationalism and cross cultural politics.

*Speaker *

Ben Karp is a PhD candidate in the departments of African American Studies and History at Yale University, writing on the subject of African American
- Japanese relations. After earning his MA at Yale, Ben established a luxury jewelry importing business in Tokyo and served as a consultant at Boyd and Moore Executive Search. He has written for The Asahi Shimbun, The New Haven Register and The Algemeiner, and has been quoted in the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and Time Magazine on a variety of subjects.

------------------------------
*Robert Dujarric*
Director* *
*Kyle Cleveland*
Associate Director
*Eriko Kawaguchi*
Coordinator

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