Towards a culture of responsibility – relating Fukushima, Chernobyl, and the atomic bombings in Setoyama Misaki’s theatre
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 21112145 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Barbara Geilhorn (corresponding author) |
| Year | 2021 |
| Volume | 33 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 497-521 |
| Publication date | 2021-10-02 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Japan Forum (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0955-5803 • E-ISSN: 1469-932X |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/09555803.2021.1942138 |
| OpenAlex | W3188994754 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 12 |
Through a close reading of two post-Fukushima plays by Setoyama Misaki, this article examines the potential of theatre to shape cultural memory and raise critical awareness. The playwright-director is known for exploring contentious issues in Japanese society based on in-depth interviews conducted with the people concerned. Among the various art works addressing the Fukushima nuclear disaster, her plays are rare in exposing how intricately the roles of victim and perpetrator are entangled. Setoyama’s plays raise the question of responsibility so crucial to processing cultural trauma and to triggering traumatogenic change. Relating the Fukushima nuclear disaster to the atomic bombings and the Chernobyl disaster, Setoyama opposes national discourses of a spatially and temporally limited disaster to construct 3.11 as a disaster on a global scale. Almost ten years after the calamity, a broad public debate to attribute responsibility for the nuclear disaster has not yet begun. And with the shift of national attention to the Tokyo Olympics and the global coronavirus pandemic, a rare window of opportunity for transformation in Japanese society is closed. Setoyama’s plays go far beyond the criticism of nuclear power and touch upon essential problems in Japanese society, such as the lack of an open culture of discussion and the strong suppression of dissenting voices, as my analysis will show
Dissenting opinion · Environmental ethics · Fukushima Nuclear Accident · Media studies · Nuclear disaster · Nuclear power plant · Nuclear weapon · Political science · Sociology · Disaster Management and Resilience · History · Law · Nuclear Issues and Defense · Risk Perception and Management
The Victim as Hero
The Trauma of Perpetrators
Toward a Theory of Cultural Trauma
Null
Fukushima Fiction
Japan Through the Lens of the Tokyo Olympics
No More Bystanders
Smartphones versus NHK? Mobilization strategies of the Japanese anti-nuclear movement under Abe’s restrictive media policy
Narrating the cultural trauma of 3/11
Multidirectional Memory
| Citations per year | 0.5 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2024 - 2024 (1) |
| Highly cited | No |