Hiroshima Assignment
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HIST 241 Spring, 2015 Purdue University Dr. Tillman
EXTRA CREDIT: HIROSHIMA
Learning objectives: The goal of this assignment is to encourage students to understand some of the complexities of crafting an historical narrative, including the selection of facts and the representation of a primary source to a particular audience (their professor and a partner in class). Students should reflect on that experience to the degree that they may critically approach both primary sources (personal testimony) and popular media (film and graphic novels). In terms of historical content, this assignment allows students to explore public memory regarding the bombing of Hiroshima. Students are encouraged to think about age and time as factors shaping memory and audience and genre as factors shaping story-‐telling. Students are especially encouraged to think about the tensions between representing such stories as national history (memories of Japanese wartime victimization) or global history (protests against nuclear war). The larger learning objective is to encourage students to engage in the process of writing history, and thereby to see that representations of history may be “subjective,” or based on personal experiences and interpretations, without being any less “true.” What is meant by compatibility of “subjectivity” and “truth”? Ex post facto relativism is different from a priori relativism. In other words, students should understand different perspectives after an examination of historical materials, and perhaps recognize that the comprehensive “Truth” may never be fully known; however, they should not dismiss the idea of experience and truth and, on that basis, argue that historical inquiry is fruitless! Materials (see Blackboard): (1) Isao Takahata. “Graveyard of the Fireflies.” Studio Ghibli, 1988. (2) Keiji Nakazawa. Project Gen, trans. Barefoot Gen: A Cartoon Story of Hiroshima. San Francisco: Last Gasp of San Francisco, 2004 (3) Arata Osada, comp. Publishing Committee for “Children or Hiroshima, ed. and trans. Children of Hiroshima. London: Taylor & Francis, 1980. Instructions: (1) Watch Isao Takahata, “Graveyard of the Fireflies” (1988). Write a one-‐page viewer’s response to the film (see this packet for some background context and questions.) (2) Read Barefoot Gen. Write a one-‐page reader’s response to the film (see this packet for some background context and questions.) (3) Skim Children of Hiroshima. Write a one-‐page reader’s response to the collected volume (see this packet for some background context and questions.)
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(4) Select a story from Children of Hiroshima. (5) Represent the story in a one-‐page manga (comic). (6) Reflect on why you made the decisions you made. Why did you choose that particular story? What was easy to depict visually? What was hard to depict? Did you choose to include dialogue or text? What text did you keep, and why did you keep it? (7) Partner with someone else in the class. First give them your manga, and then have them explain to you the historical narrative. Do you agree with their reading of your manga? How close is it to the original narrative collected in Children of Hiroshima? In what ways is the genre of manga different from that of a personal textual narrative? Does audience also influence the telling of stories? What changes when personal stories become emblematic of national histories? (8) Now return to your reading responses from “Graveyard of the Fireflies” and Barefoot Gen. Write a 2-‐3 page paper addressing the questions, “How are the personal experiences of children represented in Japanese popular history about the bombings of Hiroshima? How and why are genre and audience important for telling history, especially the significance of personal stories for national history?” (9) Be prepared to discuss your manga in class!
What to submit: (1) Reading response for “Graveyard of the Fireflies” (min. 1 page, max. 2 pages) (2) Viewing response for Barefoot Gen (min. 1 page, max. 2 pages) (3) Reading response for Children of Hiroshima (min. 1 page, max. 2 pages) (4) Your manga representing a story from Children of Hiroshima (min./max. 1 page) (5) Your partner’s response to your manga (min. 1 page, max. 2 pages) (6) Paper on the representations of children’s experiences in the bombings of Hiroshima (min. 2 pages, max. 4 pages) Total of at least 7 pages, but no more than 13 pages. Grading and assessment: Based also on reading and preparation, the extra credit has the same weight as a reading quiz OR midterm exam. Students who complete the extra credit will be able to drop their lowest score (thus, in effect, using the extra credit to replace their lowest score). Incomplete assignments will not be considered. DUE DATE: WEDNESDAY, APRIL 1, 2015
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HIST 241 Spring, 2015
EXTRA CREDIT: GRAVEYARD OF THE FIREFLIES Characters: Seita (brother) Setsuko (sister) Mother Aunt 1. The film is structured in terms of a complex series of flashbacks. How do the flashbacks affect the telling of the story of this family? At what junctures does the film “flashback” to an earlier story? 2. Describe a scene that stands out as especially memorable to you. How and why is that scene important in the film? Why does it strike you as important? What visual images, sound effects, etc., helped to make the scene significant to you? 3. This anime film is loosely based on a semi-‐autobiographical novel by Akiyuki Nosaka. Many people who watch the film consider it an “anti-‐war” film, but director disagrees, and insists that it is a movie about the Japanese generation that experienced the war. How do you think different audiences may interpret the film? How would you interpret the film?
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HIST 241 Spring, 2015
EXTRA CREDIT: BAREFOOT GEN
1. What historical events does the manga depict? Was there historical events or background that was new or surprising to you? 2. Describe a scene that stands out as especially memorable to you. How and why is that scene important in the film? Why does it strike you as important? What visual images, sound effects, etc., helped to make the scene significant to you? 3. This manga has often been compared to Art Spiegelman’s graphic novel Maus, a visual representation of an oral history of Spiegelman’s father, a Holocaust victim. Do you think that there is an anti-‐war or political message in the manga? What scenes or comments in the manga would point to that interpretation? 4. Does the manga “blame” anyone for the bombings of Hiroshima? Who appears as “negative” or “positive” in the manga? Do you think these representations are fair?
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HIST 241 Spring, 2015
EXTRA CREDIT: CHILDREN OF HIROSHIMA Background: In the first years of the U.S. Occupation of Japan, it was forbidden to discuss publically the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. However, with the advent of the Korean War, Japanese began to revisit the history of the bombings, and in 1952, Kaneto Shindo released a film “Children of Hiroshima,” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDVIzIpXzpQ) based in part on this collected volume. WARNING: The film is very different from the collected volume, and not a substitute. 1. The Japanese Teacher’s Union allowed Professor Arata Osada to collect these memories of the bombings. In part because memories of Hiroshima were painful, some children did not want their stories to be collected or published, but had to record their memories as a required homework assignment. Why might children have resisted telling their stories? Do you see any clues from “Graveyard of the Fireflies” or “Barefoot Gen” that would indicate why the students may have resisted? Do you think that coercion would change the way that the students told their stories? 2. This collected volume is structured around age cohort. Do you think that age would effect the way that children experienced or remembered the bombings? Which age cohort are you most interested in reading about and why? 3. These stories were collected years after the bombings occurred. Does temporal difference affect the way that the children remembered their stories? What factors do you think might change the way that they remembered the stories?
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HIST 241 Spring, 2015
EXTRA CREDIT: PARTNER RESPONSE
5. Read your partner’s manga. Describe its story. 6. Read the story on which your partner’s manga is based. What are your personal responses to it? Is it in any way different from the visual representation? How so? 7. Talk to your partner about the decisions that he/she made. Did he/she stress particular aspects of the story? How did the visual cues effect your personal reaction to the story?
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