On Monday, November 9th, the 21st Century Japan Politics and Society Initiative (21JPSI*) hosted Professor Jennifer Lind (Dartmouth College) for a public webinar and discussion about historical reconciliation in East Asia’s changing security environment.
In her opening remarks, Dr. Lind discussed the effects of war memory on international politics, drawing examples from various past cases, including France and Germany, Japan and the United States, and Japan and South Korea. In particular, she argued that historical tensions are often best understood as a symptom, not a cause, of poor contemporary relations between countries; and that a change in the strategic environment is often a precondition for nations to drop antagonist historical narratives and develop deeper, more amicable relations.
After concluding her stimulating remarks, Dr. Lind engaged in a robust discussion with 21JPSI Director Adam Liff, followed by a Q&A with the audience. Over the course of the event, 92 attendees from universities and communities in Indiana and around the world tuned into the live webinar. Thank you in particular to the 30 attendees who submitted questions for Dr. Lind!
21JPSI programming note: Owing to the COVID-19 pandemic, all events will be held exclusively online for the foreseeable future. To learn more, please check out our calendar of upcoming public webinars and sign up for our event announcement mailing list!
*The 21st Century Japan Politics and Society Initiative (21JPSI) was launched at Indiana University’s Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies in 2018. Under the leadership of Founding Director and HLS faculty member Adam Liff, 21JPSI aims to invigorate and expand research, teaching, and programming on contemporary Japanese politics, society, and international (esp. U.S.-Japan) relations, and to educate, raise awareness, and debate policy responses to the various political, social, and foreign policy challenges that Japan faces in this extremely dynamic era of 21st-century change. Supported by a generous $900,000 grant from the Japan Foundation Center for Global Partnership, in its first five years 21JPSI has enabled a new tenure-track faculty search; new courses on contemporary Japan; a speaker series on Japanese Politics and Society; biennial conferences and webinars on U.S.-Japan relations; graduate research fellowships, and faculty travel grants. For more information, please see https://jpsi.indiana.edu/ or write to jpsi@iu.edu