Please join the Center for Asian Studies for a lecture Friday, March 2nd, at 11:20 a.m. in the Hatfield Room.

Title: “Goodwill and the Alliance: U.S. Japan Cooperation during and after March 11th.”

Presenter: Ambassador James P. Zumwalt

Abstract: On March 11, 2011, a 9.0-magnitude earthquake struck Japan off the coast of Tohoku followed by a devastating tsunami that killed nearly 20,000 people including two Americans. It was the largest earthquake on record to hit Japan and triggered the meltdown of two nuclear reactors in Fukushima. In the days and weeks following the disaster, the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo mobilized U.S. government operations and resources provided to the Japanese government while the U.S. military coordinated massive humanitarian aid and disaster relief operations dubbed, Operation Tomodachi (i.e. “friend” in Japanese). This support has generated significant goodwill between the two countries and reinforced the importance of the U.S.-Japan alliance.

As part of its newest outreach series on U.S.-Japan relations, The Alliance Working in America, Sasakawa USA is co-sponsoring a special lecture at Willamette University to discuss U.S.-Japan cooperation in the aftermath of Japan’s March 11 Great Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami. The lecture will feature Sasakawa USA CEO, Ambassador James P. Zumwalt, who was the Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo at the time of the crisis. He will discuss his role and the U.S. government’s response following the disaster, the importance of the U.S.-Japan alliance to American interests, and the future of U.S.-Japan cooperation.

About Sasakawa Peace Foundation USA
Sasakawa Peace Foundation USA is an independent American non-profit, non-partisan institution in Washington, D.C. devoted to research, analysis, and better understanding of U.S.-Japan relations. Through research and education programs, Sasakawa USA facilitates people-to-people exchange and dialogue between American and Japanese policymakers, influential citizens, and the broader public.

Contact Information:
Name: Miho Fujiwara
Phone: 503-370-6015
Email: mfujiwar@willamette.edu

Please join us for the first event of the Spring 2018 Hallie Ford and Teppola Literary Series, a poetry reading by Samiya Bashir. The reading will take place on Monday, February 12th at 7:30 p.m. in the Hatfield Room (2nd floor of Hatfield Library) and is free and open to the public.

PLEASE NOTE: The event date has changed. Previously, Professor Bashir was slated to read this Thursday. Due to a scheduling conflict, the event has been changed to next Monday, February 12th. So mark your calendars!

Samiya Bashir is the author of three books of poetry: Field Theories; Gospel; and Where the Apple Falls, which were both Lambda Literary Award finalists. Her poetry, stories, articles and editorial work have been featured in numerous publications most recently including Poetry, World Literature Today, Ecotone, HOAX, The Offing, and Poet Lore among many others. Sometimes she makes poems of dirt. Sometimes zeros and ones. Sometimes variously rendered text. Sometimes light. Bashir has collaborated with a number of visual and media artists on projects such as M A P S :: a cartography in progress, with Roland Dahwen Wu, Coronagraphy with Tracy Schlapp, and “Breach,” with Alison Saar, currently on exhibition at L.A. Louver. She lives in Portland, Oregon, where she teaches creative writing at Reed College.

About Field Theories:
“In verse, Bashir considers multiple realities through the lens of race and class, questioning dominant narratives. ‘Starting with her title, Field Theories, Samiya Bashir challenges the vocabulary of science,’ Durand writes, ‘finding inflections and echoes within that vocabulary of the long and brutal history of race and racially based economic exploitation in the U.S.A.’

“When used within the respective sciences of physics, psychology and social science, the term “field theory” (singular) has specific meanings. “Unified field theory,” in particular, coined by Albert Einstein, refers to the attempt to find a single framework behind all that exists (gravity, however, continues to escape this effort). But by changing “theory” to “theories,” (plural) Bashir subverts that idea of a singular framework to reveal the multiplicity of reality: where there is one reality there will be other realities told in various forms, splitting the dominant narrative into a prism of narratives. In contrasts and convergences, she questions history (histories) and how it is (they are) articulated in even the most objective of “fields.” In fact, “field” itself is a loaded word within slavery’s context, indicating enforced agricultural labor.” (Hyperallergic, Marcella Durand)

“Field Theories pivots around this central theme, that the black body—scientifically speaking—is an idealized physical body that absorbs (my italics) electromagnetic radiation, while a white body reflects (my italics) all rays completely and uniformly in all directions. It’s how Bashir renders that theme which makes this collection worth reading. She has taken science and folklore and emphasized the interactions between the individual and his or her environment with a lyrical adeptness that excites the poem/s. There is an intuitive force and a soul to this collection, but there is also the shadow. The mind versus the body, light versus darkness, the individual versus society, and how we measure them all —all of which are very alive throughout each section, either through her exploration of properties or characteristics, “life space,” and the behaving selves.” (The Poetry Foundation, Harriet Staff)