Generating tension : memorial of sexual slavery

War crimes, such as slavery and rape can lead to hatred between countries of perpetrators and victims, souring political relationships for generations. Memorials of these atrocities are the physical indication of an effort, however nascent, to continue the dialogue and keep questioning the tragic history. The memorial as a reminder of a specific incident, not only changes the relationship of surrounding spaces within the site but also between different groups that are engaged in that specific history. In South Korea, the history of sexual slavery by the Japanese Imperial Army during World War II has been a major cause of anti- Japanese sentiment, leading to international conflict. Since 2011, memorials to the victims of sexual slavery, called Statues of Peace, have been erected throughout South Korea as a call for apology and remembrance of the victims. The first of these statues, which sits in front of the former Japanese Embassy in Seoul, is where weekly demonstrations have taken place for 29 years. Such statues commemorating a sensitive memory that involve specific countries can create a site of confrontation. In fact, the presence of the statue and the weekly demonstration halted the reconstruction of the Japanese embassy in 2019. Acknowledging the state of tension, rather than avoiding it, is the first step in improving the political relationship; and these spaces of confrontation hold real potential. The tension created in the site is not negative energy, but is the fuel that will always facilitate a dialogue. Today, the statue gazes toward a construction fence built around the empty Japanese Embassy plot, provoking critical questions. How should one proceed with sensitive dialogue without being so delicate that no progress is made? As a response, the intervention begins by reconstructing the lost memory, a recreation of the past Embassy building, through re-using the construction fence, and existing political tension as a building material. The gaze of the statue, from the other side of the curb, then penetrates through the new volume of the Japanese Embassy. This creates a corridor that invites visitors into the memorial, which itself grows out of ongoing tension. The intervention that creates a monumental space that starts with the acknowledgment and utilization of the existing political tension as material to build a different relationship

Theatre Noise Conference

Three days of Performances, Installations, Residencies, Round Table Discussions, Presentations and Workshops More than an academic conference, Theatre Noise is a diverse collection of events exploring the sound of theatre from performance to the spaces inbetween. Featuring keynote presentations, artists in residence, electroacoustic, percussive and digital performances, industry workshops and installations, Theatre Noise is an immersive journey into sound

Two Australian wars, two Prime Ministers: Australia’s virtual Vietnam, and lessons for today

At the tenth anniversary of the decision to commit Australian troops to the Iraq war, this paper reconstructs the previously unknown, and remarkably casual, process by which the Menzies government committed Australian troops to Vietnam.The paper argues that the dismaying similarities between the Australian entries into these two wars strengthen the call for an Australian Iraq War inquiry, following those in the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, “in the hope that what is learnt from it will lead to improved procedures for decision-making, under which the government will have to level with the Parliament and the people.

The Official Student Newspaper of UAS

Letter from the Editor / Whalesong Staff -- Strategic Pathways / Fin. Aid. Dir. / ALI Retreat -- From the Vault: Humans versus Zombies -- Study Away -- Student Gov. Update / Strategic Pathways Cont. -- UAS Mourns Reed McWilliams -- Health Corner / My Friend Reed -- A Time to Remember / ALI Retreat Cont. -- The Green Dot Initiative / The Hunting Grounds -- Campus Safety -- Calendar and Comics

Intercultural Communication in Brazil: An Approach to Engage Multicultural North Dakota State University Students in Study Abroad

Intercultural Communication in Brazil (IC Brazil) is a course-embedded program aimed at multicultural students by building off of the curriculum in one of the general education requirement courses at North Dakota State University (NDSU). It has been designed to fit within the confines of NDSU’s existing study abroad structure and uses a targeted approach to student recruitment that can be utilized by other faculty-leaders at NDSU, universities, and members of the IE field. IC Brazil is an experiential learning course-embedded program that contains on-campus learning, fieldwork in Rio de Janeiro, and course reflections upon the students’ return. IC Brazil students study the theories of intercultural communication by Edward Hall and Geert Hofstede at NDSU and use this knowledge in various activities in Brazil. A general education requirement faculty member has been chosen as the program leader based on their network of students. The program’s alumni will later serve as student-to-student peer advisors for future recruitment for IC Brazil. Other universities can adapt NDSU’s targeted approach to multicultural student recruitment and expansion of course-embedded programs as a tool for their internationalization efforts. Keywords: North Dakota State University, intercultural communication, Brazi

Spartan Daily, January 23, 2020

Volume 154, Issue 1https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/spartan_daily_2020/1000/thumbnail.jp

The Korean Comfort Women Commemorative Campaign: Role of Intersectionality, Symbolic Space, and Transnational Circulation in Politics of Memory and Human Rights

Since the end of WWII, Korea has experienced a miraculous economic development despite its devastated economic and political conditions originating from Japanese colonialism and the Korean War. However, while Korean society has concentrated on its socioeconomic advancement, few victims having traumatic memories of Japanese colonialism have been cared for by systematic and social treatment until recently. Especially, comfort women, who were sexually abused and exploited during WWII by the Japanese army, had not been able to testify their narratives in military brothels due to structural oppressions and distorted views against women in Korean society. In this respect, Wednesday Demonstration encouraged by feminist activists since the early 1990s can be seen as a protest against both the Japanese government and Korean society that had compelled comfort women to be marginalized for more than half a century. Paying attention to commemorative campaigns of comfort women, this study wanted to explore the strategies of marginalized females using symbolically-contested nature of space to memorialize the forgotten history of sexual slavery and restore their human dignity. Analyzing data collected through fieldworks and archived narrations of comfort women, I could draw significant implications regarding the reasons for marginalization of victims of sexual slavery and the diffusion of their traumatic memories. First of all, as comfort women had been located at intersectional margins during both Japanese colonialism and the postcolonial era in Korea, they could not obtain any opportunities and rights to representing their memories. To overcome this vulnerable status, comfort women and civic activists began to use sensory information produced by symbolic meanings of a comfort women statue constructed in front of the Japanese embassy in Seoul. By doing so, marginalized experiences of comfort women could be handed over to the public, and eventually, conducted through scaled-politics in the US. By exploring commemorative campaigns of comfort women, this study could find out an example of strategies and practices that can be used by marginal subjects for human rights movements. Despite their vulnerable conditions and social status, it is notable that place-based politics provides them with a potential power to conduct scaled-politics and transnational memory work

Spartan Daily, November 21, 1979

Volume 73, Issue 56https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/spartandaily/6554/thumbnail.jp