MIMESISINTERNATIONAL		HASEKURA LEAGUE INTERCULTURAL STUDIES EDITIONS

n. 3

Editorial Board
Raffaele Milani (University of Bologna), Rolando Minuti (University of Florence), Ikuko Sagiyama(University of Florence), Andreas Niehaus (Ghent University), Judit Arokay (Heidelberg University),
Harald Fuess (Heidelberg University), Ivo Smits (Leiden University), Franco Mazzei (University ofNaples “L’Orientale”), Giangiorgio Pasqualotto (University of Padua), Matilde Mastrangelo (Sapienza
University of Rome), Glenn Hook (University of Sheffield), Ozaki Akihiro 尾崎彰宏 (Tohoku University),Nagaoka Ryūsaku 長岡龍作 (Tohoku University), Satō Hiroo 佐藤弘夫 (Tohoku University), SatōYoshimichi 佐藤嘉倫 (Tohoku University), Takahashi Akinori 高橋章則 (Tohoku University),
Paul Ziche (Utrecht University), Bonaventura Ruperti (Ca’ Foscari University of Venice), Georg Stenger(University of Vienna)3.11
Disaster and Trauma in Experience,
Understanding, and Imagination
Edited byChristopher Craig, Enrico Fongaro, Andreas Niehaus

MIMESISINTERNATIONALThis book has been subjected to a peer review process.

© 2019 – Mimesis International – Milan
www.mimesisinternational.com
e-mail: info@mimesisinternational.com
Isbn: 9788869772207
Book series: Hasekura League Intercultural Studies Editions, n. 3
© MIM Edizioni Srl
P.I. C.F. 02419370305

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Foreword: Revisiting and Understanding 3.11
by the Editors 		

7PART I
CONCEPTUALIZING CATASTROPHETechne, Catastrophe, and the Buddha-Nature		
Marcello Ghilardi
Forget the Unforgettable or Recall the Unrecollectable?
How to Commemorate Fukushima’s Nuclear Disaster(If Time Has Gone out of Joint)		
Enrico Fongaro

1729

After 3.11: Toward a Rehabilitation of the Mind		
Ozaki Akihiro

51

Ango, Mishima, War, and Nuclear Power		
Luca Milasi

59

PART IIDISASTER IN HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE
Trauma Mediated: The 1933 Sanriku Earthquake and Tsunami
in the Press					Christopher Craig

77

3.11 and Historical Studies:
Developments in Japanese Historiography		
Adachi Hiroaki

99

Dark, Cold and Hungry, but Full of Mutual Trust:
Manners Among the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake Victims		 111Abe Tsuneyuki, Juthatip Wiwattanapantuwong, Honda Akio
PART IIISTUDENT PAPERS
Disaster and Its Representation in Pompeii		Endō-Buseki Sae127

An Analysis and Interpretation of the Descriptions of Miyako
in Heike Monogatari		
Yu Le137

The transmission of images in East Asia:
The role of Pictorial Models for Buddhist Statues		Ōnuma Yōtarō

153

The Ideal Heian Capital as Portrayed in Daidairizu kōshō		Watanabe Miki169

FOREWORD:REVISITING AND UNDERSTANDING 3.11

3/11 is – much like 9/11 – engraved and (re)produced inJapanese and also global memory as a synonym for disaster,
catastrophe, trauma, destruction, loss, and uprooting, butequally of solidarity, resilience, and individual heroism. While
9/11 marked the globalization of terror and let to a paradigm
shift in global geo-politics, the triple disaster of a magnitude 9
earthquake, a tsunami, and the subsequent nuclear meltdown
in the Fukushima Daiichi Power Plant, which together caused
almost 20.000 casualties, was first of all an environmental
catastrophe, exposing the limitations of technology and therisks of political and scientific arrogance in the face of nature.1
Although the direct impact of the earthquake and tsunami wasgeographically limited to the Sanriku coast, the northeasternpart of the main island Honshū, the catastrophe is by no means
simply a national one. Radioactive clouds travelled around theglobe, as did debris from destroyed and washed-out houses andother structures, and fish swimming in the affected currents werecontaminated by nuclear waste. Nor, too, has any catastrophe inhuman history been as mediatized and reproduced globally as thetriple disaster. TV, YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, and other social
media – in a compelling iterative loop – immediately brought
unfiltered impressions of shaking buildings, of tsunami waves
crawling over quay walls washing away buildings, ships, cars,etc., and the explosions at the Fukushima power plant into thehomes of media consumers. The political and social aftershocks
1According to the latest statistics of the National Police Agency of Japan
15.897 people were killed, 7.157 injured and 2534 persons are still missing.
https://www.npa.go.jp/news/other/earthquake2011/pdf/higaijokyo_e.pdf.

83.11in Japan almost immediately triggered and influenced political
discussions and decisions on the future of nuclear energy aroundthe globe.
In the areas struck, – even now, seven years later and despite
effective reconstruction work and strong governmental support– the scars of the disaster are still visible in the landscape in theruins of buildings, in nuclear waste-filled plastic bags stored infields and along roads, and in uninhabitable red-zones and nogo evacuation zones. The catastrophe also left behind invisible
scars in the minds of the victims – scars of trauma that are still
not healed. Survivors often felt guilty for not having been able tohelp or for having survived while others died. Fear of radiationand contamination prevented and still prevents families fromreturning to their hometowns. The triple disaster meant that people
lost their homes and that they had to leave their communities andother family members, often relocated to temporary housing units(kasetsu, 仮設) that proved to be “permanently temporary”.2 The
disaster certainly created a “communitas of disaster”3 based onshared national experience and trauma. However, the communityof shared experience was effective on a national level only in thedirect aftermath of the disaster, and was soon replaced by separate
communities of those who had witnessed the catastrophe on TV
and those who had experienced it first-hand, exposed to radiationand experiencing direct hardship and tragedy. The discourseof sharedness thus became fragmented and turned into one ofexclusion and marginalization; survivors that had left the area
were accused of not showing solidarity and standing together
in times of crisis. The discussion that surrounded the selection
2335.000 people were still living in temporary housing on March 11, 2017
(Japan Times, 2.4.2017) and Abe Shinzō 安倍晋三 in his memorial
address on March 11, 2017 states: “even today, 120.000 people are still in
evacuation, leading uncomfortable lives.” http://japan.kantei.go.jp/97_abe/statement/201703/1221562_11573.html. According to the most current reportof the National Police Agency of Japan 121.779 houses were completelydestroyed and 280.920 are categorized as “half collapsed” https://www.npa.
go.jp/news/other/earthquake2011/pdf/higaijokyo_e.pdf.
Edith Turner, Communitas: The Anthropology of Collective Joy (New York:Palgrave Macmillan, 2012).

Foreword: Revisiting and Understanding 3.11

9of the buzzword kizuna (絆, connection) as 2011’s word of theyear provided an especially revealing glimpse at how in timesof catastrophe questions of identity and belonging are culturally,socially, but also politically re-negotiated and utilized. Evacuees
also faced discrimination, bullying, and stigmatization connectedwith fears of radiation, thereby adding to the feelings not only of
being uprooted and separated from their furusato (故郷, 故里, 古里, home), but actually of being excluded from the larger nationalcommunity. Social exclusion thus adds yet another scar andweighs heavily on the mental health of survivors and evacuees.
Sloterdijk (2006) and Yi-Fu Tuan (1977) have stressed that it is abasic human need to create a protective and secure environment
as a social being.4 The need for protection and security thenbecomes one of the reasons for the emotional bond with one’s
home and homeland. The Japanese philosopher Nishitani Osamu
in his book Fushi no wandaarando (Wonderland of Immortality)
argues that the human being is not born in Heimat (home), but“born by forming his place of birth as himself,” thus creating akind of organic entity of self and space.5 In this perspective, thealienation from one’s home results in an alienation from the self.
This line of thought also generally includes a nostalgic tendency,
as “home” has to be brought back, not in the sense of returning
to the origin, but“to let the origin return within the present, to make the present a
repetition of the past and by that recreate the union with one’s origin. The
present must obtain its depth through one’s origin, one’s Heimat. “Loss”
means “destruction” and “oblivion” is “blindness”. “Loss” as well as“oblivion” guide the human towards the uncanny.”64

56Peter Sloterdijk, Sphären II (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp 1999), p. 633.
See also André Leroi-Gourhan, ‘Die symbolische Domestikation des Raums’,in Jörg J. Dünne, Stephan Günzel (ed. by), Raumtheorie (Frankfurt am Main:Suhrkamp, 2006), pp. 228–243 and Yi-Fu Tuan, Space and Place: The
Perspective of Experience (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1977).
Nishitani Osamu 西谷修, Fushi no wandaarando [Wonderland of Immortality]『不死のワンダーランド』(Tokyo: Kodansha 講談社, 1996), p. 230.
Nishitani Osamu, Fushi no wandaarando, cit., ibid..

103.11

Despite major governmental and individual efforts to restore
a sense of security by reconstructing the area and reinforcing
tsunami protection along the coastline, a Freudian sense of“unheimlich” (uncanny) remains present in the afflicted areas
due to social exclusion, expulsion, uninhabited no-entry zones,
and the fear of the intrusion of the invisible and insensible.
But disasters, while being natural, human, and social
catastrophes, also have another side that cannot be seen in theimmediacy of catastrophe itself. This side is generally ignored indisaster-related research, which tends to focus on the immediate
consequences or preconditions of a catastrophe. Disasters are acatalyst for cultural, social and political change. They “mobilizeforces of cultural change,”7 generating such positive effects assolidarity, creativity, renewal and economic growth (at least if one
is a believer in the positive effects of economic growth). As an
example, after the catastrophe, a wave of solidarity hit the region.
The humanitarian response by nations around the globe started
immediately by deploying rescue teams,8 including medical
support teams and rescue dogs. Alongside institutionalized relief
activities by governmental institutions or NGOs, individuals
also started to organize support events, offered shelter, or simply
sent money, food, clothes, toys, and other items to the region.
Japanese citizens living as expats abroad were deeply shocked,
often having lost friends or family and feeling guilty of being
absent when the disaster hit and fellow countrymen and -womenneeded help.9 For example, messages of support by Japaneseartists, written in Japanese to the victims of the 11.3 disaster,
were posted on the ACT FOR JAPAN website:
789Susanna M. Hoffmann, Anthony Oliver-Smith, ‘Why Anthropologists Should
Study Disaster’, in Susanna M. Hoffmann, Anthony Oliver-Smith (ed. by),Catastrophe & Culture. The Anthropology of Disaster (Santa Fe: School ofAmerican Research Press, 2002), pp. 3-22.
For a complete list see: https://www.mofa.go.jp/j_info/visit/incidents/pdfs/
press/20110418/foreign-press-briefing-20110418-mofa.pdf)
See Andreas Niehaus, Tine Walravens, ‘Home Work: Post-Fukushima
Constructions of Furusato by Japanese Nationals Living in Belgium’, inFlorian Kläger, Klaus Stiersdorfer (ed. by), Diasporic Constructions ofHome and Belonging (Berlin, Boston: de Gruyter, 2015), pp. 123-145.

Foreword: Revisiting and Understanding 3.11

11

“We are trying to unite our efforts and act to support our home country(furusato). From Belgium, where we are blessed with a rich culturalenvironment and the opportunity to share our art, we pray for Japan’s
rebirth and declare the message that no matter how hard it may be, Japan
will rise up and shine again, just like the sun always rises in the morning.
In this time of darkness, Japan needs your support. Until the day weovercome the difficulties and smile again, we will join our hands and act
for Japan.”10

On the national level, nuclear energy politics were suddenlychallenged by protests.11 Social scientists proclaimed thereturn of civil society, challenging the long-held (and highlyquestionable) Western paradigm of a Japanese society devoidof social grassroots movements.12 The country witnessed thelargest protests since the 1960s, sometimes attended by morethan 100,000 participants, despite the fact that media provided
scant coverage of or ignored outright the citizens’ demonstrationsof discontent. Politicians then aimed to link the protests tosentiments of anti-patriotism, claiming that in times of crisis it
is a patriotic duty to support official efforts to manage disasterand attempts to restore normality. Local groups and concerned
female citizens voicing concerns over contaminated foodshowed their decisiveness against political ridicule and pressure,
as well as traditional gender stereotypes, when they countered
the accusation of spreading unscientific and harmful rumors(fūhyōhigai, 風評被害) by founding organizations that monitored
radioactive contamination and becoming “citizen scientists”.13
Artists, too, responded to the triple disaster and processednational, communal, and individual shock, and mourning
10111213

See http://www.actforjapan.be/?page_id=20 (30.12.2012).
For the protests in Japan following the nuclear catastrophe see Katrin
Gengenbach, Maria Trunk, ‘Vor und nach “Fukushima”: Dynamiken sozialer
Protestbewegungen in Japan seit der Jahrtausendwende‘, in David Chiavacci,Iris Wieczorek (ed. by), Japan 2012, Politik, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft(Berlin: VSJF, 2012), pp. 261-282.
Isa Ducke, Civil Society and the Internet in Japan (London, New York:Routledge, 2007).
Aya Hirata Kimura, Radiation Brain Moms and Citizen Scientists: The
Gender Politics of Food Contamination after Fukushima (Durham: DukeUniversity Press, 2016).

123.11in creative forms. “Art plays a therapeutic role in providing
a site of mourning and reaffirming communal bonds”14 andperformances, photography, paintings, installations, sculpture,film, manga, literature, theatre, and music after Fukushima all
became means to deal with national and individual trauma andreunite communities. Others used art to send environmentalist
messages and warned of the destructive powers of nuclear
energy or disclosed political (ir)responsibility, the shortcomingsof political response, and the mendacity of official narratives andofficial memory.15
The articles collected in this volume are based on the papers
presented at the Hasekura League Conference jointly organizedby Tohoku University and Ghent University in Ghent from 1213 March 2018. Divided into three parts, this book presents theefforts of scholars from several disciplinary backgrounds tograpple with the social, cultural, and political significance of thetriple disaster.
The first section, entitled “Conceptualizing Catastrophe,” iscomprised of four chapters examining the philosophical bases forthe idea of disaster and a range of intangible problems connectedwith recovery and reconstruction. Marcello Ghilardi opens thevolume with a piece exploring the conceptualization of “event”
in Buddhist and European traditions and problematizing themapping of disasters onto events. This is followed by a chapter
by Enrico Fongaro, in which he takes up the issue of defining
the Fukushima nuclear disaster as an event and the limits of
the usefulness of such terms as “catastrophe” and “apocalypse”
to describe it. The third chapter is an extended rumination by
Ozaki Akihiro on the limitations of physical reconstruction in
the recreation of home and the restoration of the spirit in post14
15

Alex Watson: https://wsimag.com/art/37622-fukushima-in-art.
Artists would include: The art collective Chim↑Pom, Nobuyoshi Araki, Ei& Tomoo Arakawa, Naoya Hatakeyama, Takashi Murakami, Manabu Ikeda,etc. See Alex Watson: https://wsimag.com/art/37622-fukushima-in-art;
Barbara Geilhorn, Kristina Iwata-Weickgenannt (ed. by), Fukushima andthe Arts: Negotiating nuclear disaster. (Oxon, New York: Routledge, 2018)and http://artradarjournal.com/2015/05/15/japan-after-fukushima-10-artistsmaking-art-about-the-disaster/Foreword: Revisiting and Understanding 3.11

13

3.11 Japan. The section closes with Luca Milasi’s analysis of theidea of “Hiroshima” in the imaginations and works of Sakaguchi
Ango and Mishima Yukio, tracing through these two imposing
figures the enduring influence of nuclear destruction on postwar
literature.
“Disaster in History and Experience” is the title of the volume’s
second section. It brings together work from scholars in history
and psychology to explore the past and present contexts for the3.11 triple disaster. Appearing first is a study by Christopher
Craig of the media coverage of the 1933 Sanriku Earthquakeand Tsunami exploring how newspapers transmitted trauma toa wider audience in the aftermath of a disaster that struck thesame region as the 2011 disaster and featured many of the samecharacteristics. A historiographical examination by Adachi
Hiroaki follows, in which he outlines the efforts of Japanese
historians following the triple disaster and charts a course
forward for the history of disaster in Japan and around the world.
The final chapter in the section is a study into behavior among
those directly affected by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami by ateam led by Abe Tsuneyuki that finds evidence for both mutual
aid and illegal activity in post-disaster Sendai.
The book’s final section has been reserved to showcase thework of students who participated in a workshop connected to
the Ghent symposium and another that followed immediately
afterward in Venice. These events, based on the theme of “Bodiesand Knowledge across Borders” provided an opportunity forstudents from Tohoku University, Ghent University, and theUniversity of Venice to present their research and interact in
an international academic setting. It is our pleasure to be able
to introduce the work of four of these young scholars. EndōBuseki Sae, a student of archaeology, offers an analysis ofstylistic change in the art of Pompeii and its links to volcanic
activity and the destruction it caused. Yu Le, working inliterature, presents a close reading of the Heike monogatariand its uses of the concept of the capital city as home. ŌnumaYōtarō explores the use of two-dimensional models in thereproduction of three-dimensional Buddhist iconography over143.11

the course of centuries and across East Asia. Finally, Watanabe
Miki’s chapter is an examination of partially-realized plans torebuild a Heian-era imperial palace in the late 18th century andthe ways in which these plans outlined idealized visions of boththe earlier palace and the city that surrounded it.