HSI Report: Representing andWitnessing Cultural Trauma andMemory in East Asia
University News | February 24, 2023

The course Representing and Witnessing Cultural Trauma and Memoryin East Asia was held between July 12, 2022 and July 22, 2022 as part of
the Hokkaido Summer Institute (HSI) 2022. The course, which comesunder the field of media studies, primarily dealt with the critical analysisof media, specifically addressing how to analyse and engage with therepresentation of traumatic experiences in media.
The course was instructed by Dr. Tomoe Otsuki, at the Université deMontréal, and was coordinated by Professor Eiko Tsuchida at Hokkaido
University. This is the third course they have organized for the HSI. The
course was held in a hybrid format to accommodate online participants.

In the current information era, critical engagement with the media —print, broadcast media or the internet — is vital. Videos of various events
can be shared with large audiences in real time. However, the platforms
on which media is shared are not neutral; on the contrary, they aremediated, and are often biased and manipulated. This bias ormanipulation also extends to broadcast media and print. Active
involvement with media requires critical engagement with it, tounderstand how information is being (re)presented and framed.
Disasters and catastrophes of all sorts result in the displacement of a large
number of individuals. The course specifically delved into how visual
images — such as photographs, paintings, and films — represent andreflect traumatic events, the emotions they evoke, the connection theycreate between the viewer and the victims, and the ethics ofrepresentation of the pain of others.
“In addition to helping students learn to critically engage withrepresentations of trauma, I also wanted them to engage responsibly andrespectfully,” said Tomoe Otsuki, speaking about her goals when
designing the course. “Trauma representation in media can easily be
manipulated to elicit a variety of responses; I want students to become
active audiences of the media they consume.”

Tomoe Otsuki instructing the course.

The course was designed with careful thought, beginning with a broad
introduction to different philosophies and paths to critically engaging
with media. A key point raised early in the course was that of the modes ofengaging with trauma representations. Many representations perpetuate
trauma, or elicit feelings of hopelessness; however, critical engagementwith these representations is desirable.
Iris Xu, a master student in Sociology from Northwest A&F University,
Shaanxi, China was fascinated and inspired by the course. She came toHokkaido University as an auditing student, and was recommended thecourse by her advisor here. “I wanted to learn how trauma and cultureinteract,” she said, “as this is a major interest of mine as a sociologist. I
was more than satisfied by the new ideas and insights revealed by thecourse.”
The course then addressed trauma and its representation in specificoccurrences in recent history: the case of Alan Shenu (Aylan Kurdi), a
two-year-old Syrian boy of Kurdish ethnic background, to address theissue of the refugee crisis; The Korean War and the Sewol Ferry Disaster;and the traumatic legacy that resulted from Japan’s colonialism in EastAsia.
Nguyen Tan Dat, a Vietnamese doctoral student at Department ofNeuropathy, Graduate School of Medicine, Hokkaido University, wasfavourably impressed by the breadth of the course. “I especiallyappreciated that the Vietnam and Korean Wars were addressed,” he said.
“The course exceeded my expectations, and I appreciated the honest andstraightforward way that the topics in the course were dealt with.”Stills from the documentary Ushiku (2021) © Thomas Ash.

The capstone of the course was the screening of thedocumentary Ushiku (2021). Covertly filmed by the prize-winningdocumentary director Thomas Ash, Ushiku follows the story of nine
individuals whose appeals for asylum in Japan were summarily denied,following which they were detained indefinitely in a facility in Ushiku,
Ibaraki Prefecture. The documentary starkly describes how the vast
majority of asylum seekers in Japan are treated. The screening wasfollowed by a vibrant discussion of the history that led to the way asylum
seekers in Japan are treated, as well as the issues with the system bothwithin and outside Japan; Otsuki also encouraged students to criticallyengage with the documentary using what they had learned during thecourse.

Tomoe Otsuki (left) and Eiko Tsuchida (right).

Otsuki was fascinated with the level of student engagement during thecourse. She offers a similar course to her students in Canada and the USA,but this was her first time compressing the course to fit into two weeks.
She explained, “The hybrid (online-digital) format was very challenging.
The class size was very small but all students participated and all of them
prepared for the classes as expected. I plan to offer the same course nextyear, but improve it based on what has been learnt this year.”
The course list for the Hokkaido Summer Institute 2023 is now available
at https://hokkaidosummerinstitute.oia.hokudai.ac.jp/ . Applications
will run from March 6 to March 15, 2023.
The Representing and Witnessing Cultural Trauma and Memory in East
Asia course will be held from August 16 to August 25, 2023.
Written by Sohail Keegan Pinto