Workshop (München)

Vom 29. bis 30. Januar 2016 veranstaltet Andreas Renner (Lehrstuhl Russland-/Asienstudien) zusammen mit Rotem Kowner (Fellow der Graduiertenschule) den Workshop "Seventy Years to the End of the War in Asia. Divergent Perspectives on the War Denouement and the Onset of the Cold War".

In a seventy-year hindsight, August 1945 emerges as an epoch-making month and by far the most crucial turning point in the twentieth-century history of East Asia. But how exactly has Japan’s surrender affected the various processes that came to an end or began in that date? Is it possible to construct a meta-narrative of the various events and processes that occurred in 1945 and the subsequent decade? In this symposium we intend to examine these and other questions by offering a broad international perspective and relying on new materials and approaches. We are looking in particular for novel (and unconventional) perspectives representing either one or more of the powers involved (i.e., China, Japan, the two Koreas, Soviet Union/Russia, and the United States) but which transcend national historiographies.
The symposium will be held at the Graduate School for East and South East European Studies in Munich. It will be conducted in English.

Program

DAY 1 (Friday, 29 January 2016)
10:00-10:30 Greetings and Introduction
10:30-12:00 Session I: Japan’s Collapse and Its Ultimate Surrender (1945)
Chair: Dr. Tatiana Linkhoeva (Ludwig Maximilans University, Munich, Germany)
Prof. Sheldon Garon (Princeton University, USA): Five Things You’d Want to Know About in Explaining Japan’s Surrender in 1945
Prof. Andreas Renner (LMU, Munich, Germany): Hiroshima in the Russian mind
13:00-15:00 Session II: On the Way to a New Order in Northeast Asia (1945-1955)
Chair: Prof. Janis Mimura (Stony Brook University, New York, USA)
Prof. Jonathan Bull (Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Japan): The Making and Unmaking of Soviet “Southern Karafuto Japanese”
Prof. Christian A. Hess (Sophia University, Tokyo): War, Decolonization, and the Making of Socialist Modernity in Soviet-occupied Dalian, 1945-1955
Prof. Rotem Kowner (University of Haifa, Israel): Stranded Japanese soldiers in the Asian sphere: A postwar predicament and its gradual solution
15:30-17:30 Session III: Japan during the American Occupation (1945-52)
Chair: Dr. Shohei Saito (Ludwig Maximilans University, Munich, Germany)
Prof. Ben-Ami Shillony (Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel): How Did the Imperial Institution of Japan Survive the Heavy Bombings and the Disgraceful Defeat at the End of the War in Asia?
Prof. Kristine Dennehy (State University Fullerton, USA: Japanese Americans in the Military Intelligence Service (MIS) during the Occupation of Japan.
Prof. Ayano Nakamura (Osaka University, Japan): Denazification in Occupied Japan: Confiscation of German Property and Repatriation of German Nationals in Japan
DAY 2 (Saturday, 30 January 2016)
10:00-12:00 Session IV: The Asian War Crimes Trials, 1945-1949
Chair: Prof. Dr. Sven Saaler (Sophia University, Tokyo, Japan)
Dr. Kerstin von Lingen (Heidelberg University, Germany): Transcultural Legal Debates: The United Nations War Crimes Commission between London and Chongqing.
Dr. Milinda Banerjee (Presidency University, Kolkata, India): Legal Ideology and the Restructuring of Empire: The Tokyo Trial and its Intellectual Legacies.
Valentyna Polunina (Heidelberg University, Germany): From Tokyo to Khabarovsk – Soviet war crimes trial policy and formation of a new postwar order in East Asia.
13:30-15:00 Session V: Current Legacies of the War (2000-2015)
Chair: Dr. Stefan Hübner (Bundeswehr University, Munich, Germany)
Prof. Yakov Zinberg (Kokushikan University, Tokyo, Japan): Japan as a Major Territorial Contender: In the Shadow of the U.S. Military Presence in the Asia-Pacific
Prof. Oleg Timofeev (State University of Management, Moscow, Russia): Russia and China Joint Commemoration of the Victory in the World War II as a Tool of Public Diplomacy
15:30-16:30 Session VI: Round Table and General Discussion
Symposium’s steering committee:
Prof. Andreas Renner
Prof. Rotem Kowner