Hello Everyone,

Here is a week of events at the American School of Japan in Chofu, Tokyo, commemorating the two-year anniversary of 3.11. As at many high schools all over Japan, this represents an extended effort of many to educate and involve younger people in the causes and effects of the triple disasters with the goal of gaining some deeper understanding for all of us. This week at ASIJ includes student interviews from the affected areas, art, tanka poetry, kyogen and different forms of music, photography, film and performance.
There are also reports about students' substantial volunteer work around this issue. And, as per this list, there is also an more academic panel discussion (see roster below).

You can get more information here:
http://community.asij.ac.jp/311-in-focus and here:
http://tinyurl.com/voicesfromjapan

Please feel free to contact Kathy Krauth (kkrauth@asij.ac.jp 0422345300 ext 430) if you have questions about any of the events.

>From their homepage....

We are happy to announce 3.11-In Focus which is a two-week series of events to accompany the exhibit.
Download the program for 3.11-In Focus for the full details. Please feel welcome at any or all of the events. We want to invite you especially to our formal program on the evening of March 11. For the second anniversary of 3.11, we will host an evening of commemoration at the Ricketson Theater. We hope to not only remember those who lost so much two years ago and in the time since, but we also hope to form a new community of those attending the events and, thus, turn the commemoration into a resolve to move Japan forward-together.
As part of 3.11 in Focus we are excited to announce the opening of the Voices From Japan exhibit of poetry and photographs in the Ricketson Theater Lobby from March 4-16, 2013. ASIJ students and teachers have worked in collaboration with Isao and Kyoko Tsujimoto of the Studio for Cultural Exchange in Tokyo to produce this exhibit. These poems are tanka, a form of Japanese poetry that has a long history in Japanese culture. The Tsujimotos exhibited these tanka last summer in New York City. The tanka were written by survivors of and witnesses to the 3.11 disasters. ASIJ's version of the exhibit will also include photographs taken by students and teachers who have met and interviewed some of the poets.
All of the events we are holding March 4-16 are open to the public as well as our school community.

Panel Discussion
Post 3.11 Japan: Challenges and Opportunities March 13th, 2013, 7 pm, Ricketson Theater, ASIJ Chofu Campus

While we have mostly returned to our business as usual, others are imagining a new northern coastline. This event will help us imagine and discuss the challenges and opportunities of reconstructing the Tohoku region.

*Daniel Aldrich, Purdue University, current Fulbright Scholar in Tokyo, author of Building Resilience: Social Capital in Post-Disaster Recovery *David McNeil, Journalist, co-author of Strong in the
Rain: Surviving Japan's Earthquake, Tsunami, and Fukushima Nuclear Disaster *David H. Slater, Sophia University, co-editor of Japan Copes with Calamity: Ethnographies of the Earthquake, Tsunami and Nuclear Disasters of March 2011

--
David H. Slater, Ph.D.
Director of the Institute of Comparative Culture Associate Professor of Cultural Anthropology Faculty of Liberal Arts, Graduate Program in Japanese Studies Sophia University, Tokyo