Public lecture: Wed, Feb 7, 2024

12:20-1:10pm MT, on Zoom

Register in advance:

https://cuboulder.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJErdu-uqzoiE9Nc6EWlFx5GwFZ9rwWvINmP

 

The "History Wars" and the "Comfort Woman" Issue: Revisionism and the Right-wing in Japan and the U.S.

Dr. Tomomi Yamaguchi

Associate Professor of Anthropology and Sociology, Montana State University

 

An issue of intense controversy currently in Japan is "comfort women", with many in the right wing relentlessly attacking the accepted historical narrative and denying that there was any Japanese government involvement in, or corresponding responsibility for, a system of sexual slavery of women and girls in countries occupied by Japan during World War II. Right-wing media and intellectuals have begun to use the term "history wars" to refer to this development. In particular, as "comfort woman" monuments and statues have been built in various locations in the world, including the U.S., during the last decade, they have become the target of attacks from the Japanese government and Japanese right-wingers. Based on my fieldwork on the Japanese right-wing movement, I will highlight how the acts of remembering and commemorating the survivors' experiences of wartime violence against women became such a contentious political issue that mobilized the Japanese right-wing so intensively and emotionally both in and outside of Japan.

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Kathryn E. Goldfarb
Assistant Professor of Anthropology
University of Colorado at Boulder
1350 Pleasant St.
Boulder, CO 80309
Hale Science 350 | Campus Box 233 UCB
Office: Hale Science 466
Office phone: 303.492.1589
kathryn.goldfarb@colorado.edu