I’m very excited to be rounding out the Lytton Center‘s spring speakers’ series with my talk, “Protest Nation: Anti-U.S. Base Struggle in Post-War Japan.”
My talk focuses on the upwelling of local protest against American military bases in Japan during the Cold War. Discussions about military bases often tend to focus on defense strategy and larger national geopolitical machinations (i.e. the history of “great men”). Using archives and interviews conducted throughout Japan, I instead offer a cultural history of anti-base protest that focuses on the lives and experiences of local Japanese communities in so-called “base towns.” In doing so, I argue that anti-base protest has had a profound and often forgotten impact on Japan’s modern history.
You can watch it on Facebook or Zoom.
