Monday, September 15th, 2008, 3:30 p.m. - 5:45 p.m.
Bu Ping is Dean of the Center for Modern History, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. He is also the Chinese chair of the official Japan-China Joint History Research Committee, Director of the Chinese Historical Association, and President of the Northeast China Association for the History of Sino-Japanese Relations. He was previously the deputy director of the Heilongjiang Provincial Academy of Sociel Sciences, and prior to that was the director of the Academyís History Research Institute. He is a graduate of Harbin Normal University, has researched the damage caused by poison gas left by the Japanese Imperial Army, and has published several books on this and other topics in Chinese and Japanese.
Kawashima Shin is an Associate Professor at the University of Tokyo, where he teaches the history of East Asian internatioal relations. He was previously a special researcher at the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science and an Assistant Professor at Hokkaido University. He graduated from Tokyo Foreign Language University and received his Ph.D. from the University of Tokyo. He is the author of several books in Japanese on East Asian international relations. His first book, The Formation of Modern Chinese Diplomacy (in Japanese), was awarded the Suntory prize in 2004.
Lim Jie-hyun is a Professor at Hanyang University in South Korea, where he specializes in Polish history and comparative studies of nationalisms. He is a leading figure in South Korea in the development of transnational history. He is also the director of the Research Institute of Comparative History and Culture. He received his Ph.D. in Western Intellectual History from Sogang University and is the author of several books in Korean on nationalism and dictatorship.
Mitani Hiroshi is a Professor at the University of Tokyo, where he specializes in the 19th century history of Japan and East Asia, political and diplomatic history, history education, and the methodology of historical research. He is currently in residence at the Harvard-Yenching Institute. He was previously an Assistant Professor and Lecturer at Gakushuin Womenís College. He was born in Hiroshima and received his Ph.D. from the University of Tokyo. Dr. Mitani is the author of Escape from Impasse: The Decision to Open Japan and a co-editor of Contentious Issues in Sino-Japanese Relationships.
Daqing Yang is an Associate Professor at George Washington University, where he specializes in the modern history of Japan and East Asia. In 2004, Dr. Yang was appointed a Historical Consultant to The Nazi War Crimes and Japanese Imperial Government Records Interagency Working Group at the U.S. National Archives, and in fall 2006 he served as the Edwin O. Reischauer Visiting Professor of Japanese Studies at Harvard University. Dr. Yang is a founding co-director of the Memory and Reconciliation in the Asia Pacific program at GWU. He grew up in Nanjing, graduated from Nanjing University, and received his Ph.D. from Harvard University. He is the co-editor of Contentious Issues in Sino-Japanese Relationships and was also an editor of Rethinking Historical Injustice and Reconciliation in Northeast Asia: the Korean Experience. His book Technology of Empire: Telecommunications and Japanese Expansion, 1895-1945 is forthcoming.
Mike Mochizuki is Associate Professor of Political Science and International Affairs at The George Washington University. He holds the Elliott School's endowed chair in Japan-U.S. relations in memory of Gaston Sigur. Previously, Dr. Mochizuki was at the Brookings Institution where he was a senior fellow. Before that he was with RAND where he served as co-director of the Center for Asia-Pacific Policy. He has taught at the University of Southern California and at Yale University. He received his Ph.D. in political science from Harvard University. Some of his recent publications include, Japan in International Politics, The Okinawa Question and the U.S.-Japan Alliance, and Crisis on the Korean Peninsula. He is currently working on a book entitled The New Strategic Triangle: the U.S.-Japan Alliance and the Rise of China.
Understandings of history have profound implications for international relations in East Asia. "Memories" of historical events are used by governments as instruments of diplomacy as well as foci of national identity. The speakers will discuss the backgrounds of current disputes over history as well as ongoing efforts at dialogue and transnational historical cooperation. This seminar grows out of a five year project undertaken by Japanese and overseas Chinese historians (supported by The Sasakawa Peace Foundation, Japan) that produced a book of essays with the tentative English title, Contentious Issues in Modern Sino-Japanese Relations: Toward a History Beyond Borders. This book was published in Chinese (PRC) and Japanese editions in 2006. An English translation is now underway.
