Friday, October 28, 2011

Visual 3/11 Materials

Next week in the Globalization and Contemporary Issues course we will devote an entire class period to the earthquake/tsunami/nuclear disaster of 3/11. That is not to say we have not been discussing the topic yet. 3/11 has impacted almost every subject we have taken up. Even the topic of Japanese baseball we covered today (the season was postponed - out of necessity and respect - and eventually modified - more day games to save power).

How will we try to take on 3/11 in the classroom? This is the concern of many teachers and anthropologists. David Slater at Sophia University has been active in organizing a workshop in Tokyo or Sendai next summer tentatively titled "Teaching the Crisis: Materials, Pedagogy and Research for 3.11." Announcements for this have been posted on many Japan-related listservs.

There is also a blog set up to assist in teaching 3/11 materials. From its own description:

Teach 3.11 is a participatory resource to help teachers and scholars locate and share educational resources about the historical contexts of scientific and technical issues related to the triple earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear disasters in Japan.

Link: http://teach311.wordpress.com/

There is also the massive Harvard's Japan Disaster Archive. Its own description:

The Digital Archive of Japan's 2011 Disasters project is an initiative of the Edwin O. Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies at Harvard University in collaboration with several partners. We aim to collect, preserve, and make accessible as much of the digital record of the disasters as possible, to enable scholarly research and analysis of the events and their effect. We hope that the records preserved will be useful both in the near term as a source of direct information about the disasters, as well as long into the future as scholars seek to understand the events of March 11, 2011 and their impact on Japan and on the world.

Link: http://www.jdarchive.org/?la=en

This post is a haphazard attempt to organize some of the material on 3/11. In doing so I find myself keep adding more and more. I fear I have lost any sense of structure. So I am going to stop with what I have now (even at the expense of mentioning the increase in sign language interpretation and news sources for the deaf as a result of 3/11 - remember seeing the sign language interpreter at the early press conferences? I'll save this for a future post...)

Here are sources that include photos, videos, first hand accounts, blogs, articles, etc. Please feel free to add more sources and/or comments/advice about the upcoming class session.


Japan Focus' Guide to Resources on Japan’s 3.11 Earthquake, Tsunami, Atomic Meltdown

Japan Focus has several articles on the 3/11 conveniently organized at the following link.

Link: http://japanfocus.org/Japans-3.11-Earthquake-Tsunami-Atomic-Meltdown

A Summary of News From Japan: After the Earthquake and Tsunami


Photo caption: Japan Burning After Earthquake 2011. This source is what is says - a summary. 

Link: http://onemansblog.com/2011/03/16/a-summary-of-news-from-japan-after-the-earthquake-and-tsunami/


Japan marks 6 months since earthquake, tsunami

Here's an update as to how things have progresses in the last 6 months from The Frame at The Sacramento Bee.


This combo image, the initial destruction and progress of cleanup after the March 11, 2011 earthquake and tsunami is seen in Higashimatsushima, Miyagi Prefecture, in northeast Japan. The top photo, taken March 14, 2011, shows Japan Self-Defense Force personnel search for victims near stranded fishing boats and damage from the tsunami. The middle photo, taken June 3, 2011, shows a temporary dump set up in the same area, while the bottom photo taken Sept. 1, 2011 shows a stranded ship still sits in the area after the debris were removed. AP / Kyodo News

Read more: http://blogs.sacbee.com/photos/2011/09/japan-marks-6-months-since-ear.html


Colin Tyner's blog posts on The Great East Japan Disaster

[The posts] exhibit my series of posts on the Great East Japan Disaster (Higashi Nihon Daishinsai). I pasted together as one electronic document. All of the links to the articles and pictures appear as on the day that I wrote the piece.

Link: http://colintyner.wordpress.com/the-great-east-japan-disaster/


MSNBC Photoblog


A Japanese tsunami survivor stands in front of messages displayed on the wall of a relief center in Rikuzentakata, in Iwate prefecture on March 22. The twin quake and tsunami disaster, Japan's worst crisis since World War II, has now left at least 9,079 people dead and 12,645 missing, with entire communities along the northeast coast swept away.

Link: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42144324#.TqdzMk8z9FQ


Conveying the Sadness in Japan’s Stoicism

Associated Press photographer David Guttenfelder lives in Japan and was able to capture some great shots to document the 311 disaster and after effects.

Link to a slideshow of his 311 photos: http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/14/conveying-the-sadness-in-japans-stoicism/?emc=eta1


Japan Quake Shakes TV: The Media Response to Catastrophe

By Philip J Cunningham at Japan Focus: A discussion and description of the Japanese media coverage of the earthquake. Includes several interesting YouTube clips.

Link: http://japanfocus.org/-Philip_J_-Cunningham/3506


JPQuake: Journalist Wall of Shame

Lots of examples of how the foreign/western media has provided "sensationalist, overly speculative, and just plain bad reporting" of the events.

Link: http://www.jpquake.info/home 


Debris from Japanese Tsunami Could Hit US

Video from NBC Nightly News via MSNBC.





Bringing Photography Into Life-- After 311 Japan Quake




Documentary: 311

Announcement from H-Japan:

311, Directed by Mori Tatsuya, Watai Takeharu, Matsubayashi Yojuu, and
Yasuoka Takaharu, 2011 / Japan / HD / 94 Minutes

311 is one of the first documentaries completed about the March 2011
disaster in Japan and focuses not just on the destruction and human toll,
but also, in a self-reflexive fashion, on the fundamental problems of
media attempting to report on such suffering.


See more information in the flyer below (click to expand):



VAOJ Posts on 311

A distant view from Osaka...

March 12

March 22

March 28

It seems we have more than enough to get started. I am looking forward with great anticipation to our class and how we will organize and discuss 3/11. Again, I beg for comments and advice.

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