From Week 3 to Week 10

Week 7, 2/15

Asia, Art, Politics to Come

Film

Seaweed Woman, Yamashiro Chikako (2008) – Still Hear the Wound DVD Times: [44:40-1:04:00] Mud Man, Yamashiro Chikako (2016)

https://youtu.be/7ZLwxxYmwHU

Readings

Specters of East Asia: Okinawa, Taiwan, and Korea, Choi Jinseok (2008)

https://apjjf.org/2016/18/Choi.html

In your discussions, I would like you to:

1. Respond to the question posed at the end of Tuesdays lecture

2. Ask at least one question that you have about the topics or ideas addressed in the lecture, a scene from the film, or the reading

3. Respond to at least one question in the discussion.

Credit will only be applied to those who have fulfilled these three requirements.

As we are learning asynchronously, your participation grade will be calculated based on your weekly group discussion posts for weeks 3 through 9. Group discussion posts should be short, informal responses to the questions I pose in Tuesdays lectures. They are due on Thursday each week by 9 PM and cannot be made up for credit.

Lecture Link(WATCH IT PLEASE!!! IT WILL HELP!!!):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gy5gYbN6JXU&feature=youtu.be

Discussion Question (Pick One) (Discussion Questions are also in the ‘lecture slides’ file, kindly check it out if confuses due to my possible typos below):

1. Discuss your understanding of Han. How can Han be used as a term to address the links between different historical injustices?

2. After watching the interview with Yamashiro Chikako in “Still Hear the Wound and the Mud Men Clip”, describe some of the images that you found most striking. What, if any, message or reading do these images offer?

3. What does Choi Jinseok mean when he writes that ” ‘Multiplicity’ is a way of thinking based on… a ‘dwelling together with the dead’ “? Can you think of an example (from our readings, films, or your own knowledge) of “Multiplicity”?

4. What are the “Specters”? What/who do you think are the “Specters” of East Asia?

Discussion Post from A Peer:

Question 2

After watching Yamashiro Chikakos interview in Still Hear the Wound and Mud Man, I thought the images of nature were most striking. In Still Hear the Wound, Yamashiro goes to a small fishing village inhabited by old men and stray dogs. There is an invisible boundary that exists between the village and the military bases nearby. The seaweed woman, depicted on the first page of our syllabus, is a personification of the boundary of Mokuninhama or Shore Connivance. More specifically, the bases on Okinawa serve as a reminder of the Asian-Pacific War, the Okinawa Reversion Agreement of 1971, and the continuation of military occupation in East Asia. In her interview, Yamashiro compares the water to a mirror and references Narcissus, who died staring at his own reflection. In Mud Man, the people represent the casualties during the Battle of Okinawa. The scene represents the cycle of life: the mud people die and life is created from the very earth that they were buried in. Although the people are forgotten, their memories still live on.

How have the atrocities that occurred in Okinawa, Taiwan, and Korea changed your view on Japan?