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Let me introduce this year’s editors: Takayuki TATSUMI (editor-in-chief, Literature, Keio University), Yoko SHIRAI (History, Tokyo International University), Ken CHUJO (History, Obirin University), Eiko IKUI (Cultural Studies, Kyoritsu Women’s University), Shoko ITOH (Literature, Hiroshima University), Tadashi UCHINO (Literature, The University of Tokyo), Chieko KITAGAWA OTSURU (Politics, Kansai University), Fukuko KOBAYASHI (Literature, Waseda University), Takuya SASAKI (Foreign Policy, Rikkyo University), Noriyuki SUGIURA (Economics, Keio University), Hiroshi TSUNEMATSU (History, Kyoto Women’s University), Hayumi HIGUCHI (History, Senshu University), Anri MORIMOTO (Religion, International Women’s University), and Tomoyuki ZETTSU (Literature, Rikkyo  University).

 

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Interdisciplinary articles are very welcome. The editors examine the submitted papers very closely and provide the promising authors with the opportunity to revise the manuscripts. Every issue publishes major scholars’ contributions to enrich the special feature section.

     

The American Review

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Since 1967 the Japanese Association for American Studies (JAAS) has published its interdisciplinary annual The American Review . Each issue features special topics like: American  family,  Globalization, post-Cold War,  Religion, Media and so forth. The 40th  anniversary issue due in March 2006 will concentrate on the topic of Violence. What is more, in the 39th issue we set up the section of longer book reviews; while our quarterly The American Studies Newsletter (its issue 160 is also due in March, 2006) has consistently printed short reviews of a variety of books, The American Review  decided to highlight several major works published by our members in the previous year. The editorial board consists of specialists from a diversity of fields.

 

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Special Feature: Nuclear Space, Issue 42

One Minute after the Detonation of the Atomic Bomb: the Erased Effect of Residual Radiation



  After the detonation of the atomic bomb in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, many people were exposed to the blast, heat and initial radiation. In addition to these people, many more people were exposed to the residual radiation which came from black rain, water and food, radioactive dust and so on. In 1947, the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission was established by the Presidential Order of Harry Truman for research on people exposed to the Atomic Bomb. This article focuses on how the U.S. Government handled the facts about residual radiation and how ABCC scientists discussed it in the 1940s and 50s.
  On September 5, 1945, Wilfred Burchett, a correspondent for the Daily Express, based on data gathered in Hiroshima reported as follows: "People are still dying, mysteriously and horribly--people who were uninjured in the cataclysm--from an unknown something which I can only describe as the atomic plague." Concerned about this report, Brigadier General F. Thomas Farrell, chief of the War Department's atomic bomb mission (Manhattan Project), issued a statement denying that the damage was from radiation. He said, "the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were detonated at such a high altitude that no radiation remained, and that even if some people died later, it was because of injuries sustained at the time of the explosion." According to The New York Times on September 13, 1945, he said, "The weapon's chief effect was blast" and that "his group of scientists" found no evidence of continuing radioactivity in the blasted area on Sep. 9 when they began their investigation.
  After this statement, the Manhattan Engineer district continued an investigation of residual radiation in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Mentioning the data which were collected in late September and early October 1945, they concluded, "No harmful amount of persistent radioactivity was present after the explosion."
  However, in 1950, scientists of ABCC noticed the effects of residual radiation and started the "Residual Radiation Survey" by collecting information on the people who had radiation signs and symptoms after entering the city after the bombing. However, according to Lowell Woodbury, physician in the statistic department of the ABCC, "Due to pressure of other work and a shortage of investigators, this projected was not actually initiated."
  Woodbury pointed out the possibility that "The black rain left a deposit sufficiently radioactive to cause radiation signs and symptoms in extremely sensitive individuals, and that deposit was largely washed away in the September rains and typhoon," and the necessity of more detailed investigations. But this investigation was not conducted. On the other hand, the conclusion of the Manhattan District Report, "No harmful effect of residual radiation in Hiroshima and Nagasaki," even though it was conducted after the typhoon and rains, is still the standard which is applied today.
  The US government has continuously denied the influence of residual radiation in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. However this official view was not based on detailed scientific research.

The Language of the Nuclear Age: Critical Approach to the Rhetoric of Containment and Deterrence



  This paper aims to explore a new way of addressing nuclear power in the contemporary world by focusing on the pervasive paradoxes within nuclear discourses. I would like to propose that some of the postmodern theories, which are considered to be anti-political or apolitical, can be an effective intervention in the discussion of the political climate of the nuclear age. The psychoanalytic approach, in particular, has a promising possibility of shedding new light on the institutions and practices of atomic activities, which have been resistant to inspections and criticism. Drawing heavily on the insight provided by the theories of the French psychoanalyst, Jacques Lacan, I tried to situate the American rhetoric in the nuclear age within the psychoanalytical and semiotic discourses of the Imaginary, the Symbolic, and the Real. I argue that inherent to the American rhetoric of the atomic age, including political messages,is the constant struggle for not only political but also linguistic authenticity.
  After World War II, members of the international community tried to define a policy on the control of atomic energy. Containment, which was the privileged narrative of the Cold War period, is supposed to refer to US foreign policy charged with checking the spread of communism. However, close reading of the text of "The Sources of Soviet Conduct" presents the psychoanalytical aspect of the seemingly political text of George Kennan: Soviet as "political personality," and Marxist theory as "a highly convenient rationalization for their own instinctive desires." By reading America's reading of Soviet motives, we are able to read American motives hidden beneath the rhetoric of containment. The main narrative of the rhetoric of containment can be told as the story of American-Soviet rivalry for the position of the agency of law. Rather than castration, America as a Symbolic Father tried to contain "Russian expansive tendencies" in the Symbolic of American democracy. Containment is a psychological as well as political discourse for repressing the Soviet desire of becoming the Symbolic Father.
  Though no reference to atomic bombs is found in Kennan's text, we can situate the rhetoric of the Cold War within a narrative triggered by the unspoken potency of the atom. Nuclear discourse is the stage of linguistic competition for the position of the Symbolic Father. The function of the Father is to endorse the legitimacy of atomic activities, which include mining, developing, and manufacturing materials such as uranium. The monotheistic system of universal control of dangerous elements of the entire spectrum of atomic power is what the American rhetoric has struggled to establish since the first experimental atomic explosion in July 1945. It seems that America, by playing guardian of the nuclear law, has enjoyed linguistic hegemony to make difference between safe and dangerous activity in the field of atomic technology and practice.
  The position of the Father becomes unstable when the Real intrudes into the Symbolic. To avoid confronting the reality brought by destruction caused by atomic weapons, we are willing to use "nuke-speech," which translates unspeakable reality of fatal destruction into dangers manageable by means at our disposal. In this sense, both comical performance of "Duck & Cover" (Atomic Café) and serious discussion of "deterrence" are supported by the same deceitful intention to cover the crude signified of nuclear power. Fatal destruction could be brought upon us even in waging a rhetorical war of atomic weapons. The possibility of global survival depends on the literacy of nuclear power, which is intrinsically unspeakable.

The Nuclear Imagination of a Mad Scientist: a Note on Nikola Tesla



  The 20th century saw the rise of scientists rubbing shoulders with politicians or military officers. In World War I they promoted the development of aircraft, tank, and poison gas, while in World War II they invented weapons of mass destruction, such as atomic bomb. If these weapons are the results of their wish-fulfillment, scientists will turn out to be on different from mad scientists.
  The mad scientist, who dreams of conquering and demolishing the world or actually does so, is one of the stereotypes frequenting science fiction. Endowed with talent, they are likely to pursue unorthodox science. What is more, their lack of reasons or grudge against society invites them to assault the very society they live in. We can locate the archetype of mad scientists in the life of Nikola Tesla (1856-1943), a Croatian inventor who played an important role at the end of the 19th century. Tesla, who used to be regarded as comparable to Thomas Edison, succeeded in inventing the alternating current electric power system, and also paved the way for wireless technology. Since his later years did not see precise appreciation of his ingenious achievements, Tesla became so dissatisfied and heretical as to be conceived of as a mad scientist. He played a big role in establishing the image of mad scientist in early science fiction. Although the impacts of Tesla helped create the negative images of mad scientists as obsessed with world domination and global apocalypse, we should have explored the type of technocratic mad scientist.
  Technocrats put special emphasis on scientific knowledge, at the same time that they seek for success in life by making use of their expert knowledge. They participate in politics to get success or glory in life. Furthermore, they even participate in war or completely deviate from the social norm. It is this kind of scientist who played the leading role in Manhattan Project. They could well be called true mad scientists.
  The mad scientists as described in fiction are a kind of trickster or alien. It is this assumption that leads us to know the state of science and scientists. Now l would like to speculate upon the image of scientists peculiar to the nuclear age, illustrating my point with Nikola Tesla as the archetype of mad scientists.

Nevada Test Site and Yucca Mountain: The Construction of Nuclear Space and Racism



  This paper analyzes the spatial processes inherent in the nuclear landscape in the American West, focusing on the historical geography of Nevada Test Site and Yucca Mountain in the State of Nevada from the critical perspective of environmental justice. The cultural and social landscapes cultivated by the local indigenous peoples, including the Western Shoshone, have been institutionally made invisible in the ideological context of nationalism during and after World War II.
  In reference to the publications of the Department of Energy (DOE) and the ethnographic reports put together by the DOE anthropologists, the paper clarifies how the federal government has initiated, facilitated, and justified the emergence of the National Sacrifice Zone in the "remote," "desolate," and "unpopulated" West. The government systematically facilitated the birth of the myth of the unpopulated desolate desert, which justifies the use of the land as a nuclear dumping ground. DOE has repeatedly stressed the significance of utilizing the isolated landscape in order to develop national security.
  In contrast, the letters written by the Western Shoshone leaders in the 1950s and interviews of various actors involved in the Nevada Test Site, conducted and maintained by the University of Nevada scholars, present different stories. The nuclear landscape has actually been a place where indigenous peoples and other locals have worked and lived. Moreover, the Western Shoshone have been claiming the legal rights to the land, referring specifically to the 1863 Ruby Valley Treaty. For the Western Shoshone, the establishment of the Nevada Test Site and the ongoing Yucca Mountain project epitomizes the federal government's negligence and denial of the treaty. The construction of nuclear landscape represents and reproduces the processes of historical colonialism over the indigenous populations who have been made invisible.
  The National Environmental Policy Act (1969), the Executive Order 12898 on environmental justice (1994) and other post-war policies have mandated that the federal government make sure that the interests of the surrounding residents and indigenous populations are incorporated into the environmental decision making processes. Accordingly, the federal government has funded a group of anthropologists to do research on the historical relationship between the Nevada Test Site and Yucca Mountain and the local indigenous peoples. Opposed to the myth of unpopulated desolate desert, their studies do recognize the existence of indigenous cultures embedded in the regional landscape. At the same time, however, they define indigenous peoples and cultures as clearly opposed to the Western science. As a result, the ethnographic studies end up making the landscapes and peoples of the area as complete "others" without legitimacy for claiming autonomy. Indeed, one of the eminent Western Shoshone activists criticizes the federally funded ethnography as having used the cultural data provided by the indigenous peoples to materialize and practice the federal nuclear policies. The analysis of environmental justice must, therefore, look at the reproduction of colonialist space that has been intertwining with ideological racism and nationalism.

The Pugwash Conferences and American Scientists' Quest for Disarmament and Stable Mutual Deterrence, 1955-1963



  In the late 1950s and the early 1960s, people around the world faced the danger of nuclear holocaust. The US and the USSR, having acquired the hydrogen bombs, were developing the ballistic missiles such as ICBMs and SLBMs. Against the backdrop of the détente after Stalin's death, the two nuclear powers were apparently stuck in nuclear stalemate. It, however, came into question if uncontrolled nuclear arms race would automatically lead to stable mutual deterrence between the two nations in view of the rapid technological evolution of their nuclear arsenals. How to manage the transition to stable mutual deterrence, thus, became a major issue of concern for such emerging fields of research as strategic and arms control studies in the US.
  This article focuses on the Pugwash Conferences and the role that American scientists played in the transnational non-governmental organization's pursuit of disarmament under such circumstances; it is also an attempt to reconsider the history of the nuclear age from transnational perspectives. The Pugwash Conferences was organized in 1957, to provide a forum for scientists from the East and the West to discuss issues concerned with peace and security of the world during the Cold War. In the late 1950s and the early 1960s, the major topic of discussion was disarmament. Especially the reduction of nuclear danger and the prevention of a nuclear war were considered to be urgent. By the time the first conference was convened, however, distrust between the East and the West was so deep that nuclear disarmament seemed to be infeasible both technically and politically. Scientists could not ignore the formidable reality.
  In the early 1960s, minimum deterrence became one of the most contentious issues between American and Soviet scientists at the Pugwash conferences in relation to general and complete disarmament (GCD). Some American scientists, considering minimum deterrence as desirable and feasible to prevent a nuclear war and to restrain nuclear arms race in the interim, proposed disarmament schemes based on the concept. On the other hand, Soviet participants supported their government's GCD proposal, opposing to nuclear deterrence intransigently. Although it was after the USSR's concession to the West on GCD that Soviet scientists accepted minimum deterrence, American scientists helped create broad support for minimum deterrence by introducing it to and providing its logical and political foundations at the conferences.
  Consequently, the Pugwash Conferences came to seek ways to live with nuclear weapons, while striving to ease distrust between the East and the West. In fact, the Pugwash Conferences supported American-Soviet collaboration to form and maintain a strategic arms control regime based on the concept of mutual assured destruction during the Cold War. Nevertheless, nuclear arms race did not stop under the security framework. This was a disappointment for many scientists who were involved in the Pugwash movement, though humankind survived the Cold War. After all, the nuclear age is far from over even today. Ironically, however, American scientists' intellectual struggle to pursue the challenging goals without yielding to despair would remain worth remembering, unless we are set free from the nuclear threats.

NPT Regime and Defense Industrial Base-US, UK, and West Germany Nuclear and Military Expenditure Negotiations (March 1966-Apri1 1967) Surrounding the NATO Crisis of 1966



  In the 1966 NATO crisis settlement process, the united States switched from its traditional "hardware solution" to a new approach for dealing with both nuclear and military expenditure issues. The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) negotiations between the United States and the Soviet Union revealed no possibility of the Soviet Union approving access by West Germany to nuclear weapons through the Multilateral Force (MLF) (NATO nuclear force) system. As a consequence, West Germany was guaranteed participation in American strategy through the NATO Nuclear Planning Group (NPG) via the Defense Planning Committee, an arrangement that the Soviet Union could permit. At the same time, the United States would continue to deploy nuclear weapons in existing NATO regions under the NPT system based on the US interpretation of articles 1 and 2 of the NPT. As for military expenditure issues, the system of offsetting foreign exchange payments due to the stationing of American troops in West Germany by the purchasing of American weapons by West Germany reached its limit with the fall of the Erhard government (October 1966). In response to this issue, the United States and West German governments mutually agreed in conjunction with West German parliament deliberations that, first and foremost, these foreign exchange payments would not be offset through the government's budget but rather be "neutralized" by having the Bundesbank hold onto American treasury securities with a pledge to refrain from exchanging them for gold.

Prosthetics in the Cold War: Discourses and Representations of Hearing Aid in the Atomic Age



  Although Bernard M. Baruch has been described in cold war studies as the United States representative to the United Nations Atomic Energy Commission, he was also regarded as an opinion-leader for hearing aid for World War II veterans. It is not only Baruch but Cybernetic groups and John Edgar Hoover, to name a few, who were greatly concerned with the recovery of wounded bodies. To understand why postwar cultures share a rhetoric of deafness and hearing aid, this paper explores magazine articles, advertisements, Hollywood films, and diplomatic discourses of the early cold war period. The various documents connect the notion of engineered, high-fidelity listening with the notion of masculine and freedom-loving nations that were beginning to confront the Soviet menace after the war.
  Medical research soon after the World War II showed that there were more than seven million male veterans who were suffering from hearing disabilities as a consequence of military combat. To fight against the soviet regime, Cold Warriors such as Harry Truman, George Kennan and George Marshall argued that "deafness" was both the symptom of a lack of tough masculinity and the decline of free nations. They insisted that the United States should not "turn a deaf ear to" the appeal from the other nations (Truman Doctrine) and was destined to help the devastated world to "recover" with economic aid (Marshall Plan).
  Civil defense against the Soviet's missile in the 50's also stimulated a cultural and sociological reception of hearing aid. Soon after the development of the hydrogen bomb in the Soviet Union, the film version of The War of the Worlds (1953) depicted a male character who complained that "something [was] wrong with [his] hearing aid". Warning sirens spreading around the nation, also featured in the film, transformed the notion of human ear into a machine, which could distinguish information from noise.
  Deafness was also a politically contested disease among males in the McCarthy hearings. When John Howard Lawson of the Hollywood ten was asked whether he had been a member of the Communist Party, he acted as if he were deaf and avoided naming names. Many blacklistees repeated Lawson's hard of hearing performance while citing the First Amendment. This logic was also featured in Joseph H. Lewis's noir film The Big Combo (1955). The film treats hearing aid as a dangerous technology as the protagonist, an American policeman, breaks his ear organ.
  Historically considered, deafness in the postwar society was first interpreted as weak national stance against Communism. Along with cultural infiltration of hearing aid technology, human ears with prosthetic were gradually narrated and recognized as an information machine. In this regard, Cyberneticians, audiologists, cold warriors, and citizens in the 50's started, all at the same time, to share an unconsciously political view of the body. With cultural constructions of prosthetic-appended ears, the wounded spaces of the post-war world were at last transformed into, and perceived as, the cold war information space.

The Claim Against the "Enemy Alien" Status of Koreans in Wartime Hawai'i: Redefining "Korean" and Reconstructing Nationalism



  Ethnic categories are taken for granted for most Asian immigrants in the US, but it was not the case for the Koreans in Wartime Hawai'i. Under the Martial Law (1941-1944), Koreans in Hawai'i were classified as "Japanese subject," and as a result they were categorized as "Enemy Aliens."
  Studies on Korean immigrants during WWII have developed recently, while the experiences of Japanese immigrants have been widely-studied. However, the studies on Korean immigrants tend to consider the "Korean" category as a given fact vis-à-vis as a category that is reconstructed at the eve of the Pacific War: Koreans protested the military government to recognize their category as a unique and independent one that is different from "Japanese." Therefore, this article will first question the process in which Koreans justified their category, and then discuss what this case represents in relation to nationalism of the Korean immigrants during WWII.
  After the outbreak of the war, Koreans tried to repeal their "Enemy Alien" status by differentiating themselves from the Japanese in two ways. First, by stressing their homeland nationalism, Koreans explained fhcir uniqueness by comparing dapanese history, culture, race and national identity and emphasized their difference. Second, by stressing their community history, Koreans emphasized their political protest that have resisted against the Japanese colonial power for the past three decades in Hawai'i.
  Military government, however, did not take this into account, but rather questioned the loyalty of Koreans towards the US government. In spite of the concerns among Koreans on their "Enemy Alien" status and their classification as a "Japanese subject," military government expected Koreans to stress their war effort as a loyal citizen of the US. In addition, under the supervision of the Morale Section of the military government, Koreans were expected to speak about their contribution to the "unity" of Hawaii's multicultural society, not about their "Enemy Alien" status.
  Then in 1943, the "Enemy Alien" status of Koreans was questioned once again. Syong Woon Sohn, a Korean immigrant who went in trial for curfew violation argued that he is not an "Enemy Alien," therefore should not be punished as an "Enemy Alien." The military government rejected his argument, while local newspapers supported Sohn's claim and addressed to the Hawaiian Community that the categorization of Koreans as an "Enemy Alien" is unconstitutional and Koreans should be justified as a "Friendly Alien" rather than an "Enemy Alien." This argument eventually changed the Korean status when Martial Law ended in 1944. Under the new security order, it became clean that in the definition of the "Enemy Alien" Koreans are not Japanese.
  In sum, the claim against the "Enemy Alien" status of Koreans represents a case where ethnic categories are reconstructed when nationalism of the immigrants is reframed, and questions the Korean American Studies that tend to take for granted the "Korean" category・

Hardhat Patriots: Construction Workers in New York City and the Change of Their Lives



  This article explores the background of patriotism which the construction workers in New York City clearly showed in 1970. They have been regarded as conservative by many previous studies. The reason for this is the "Hardhat Riot," which happened in NYC in May, 1970. Hundreds of construction workers wearing hardhats attacked anti-Vietnam War protesters around Wall Street violently, chanting patriotic slogans. It is true that they were conservative politically but very little has been discussed about why they identified themselves as patriots then and what kinds of changes in their lives alienated them. This article focuses on their everyday lives and tries to elucidate the relationship between their daily lives and the patriotism they displayed.
  When the "Hardhat Riot" occurred, many construction workers had been organized by the unions belonging to the Building and Construction Trades Council of Greater New York (BCTC). Every union had an original program for apprentices. To be an apprentice, having a father or relative who was a union member was an essential membership requirement. Consequently, membership was restricted and most of the members were white men from specific immigrant groups.
  Having exclusively skilled workers had contributed to the unions' negotiating power with contractors and had brought higher wages and stable employment to the unions, so that they could establish substantial compensation systems and insurance schemes, and scholarships for members. The bonds of solidarity and camaraderie between the unions and the members had become stronger in daily life. From the 1950s to the early 1960s the BCTC was at the height of their power.
  However, it was in the 1960s that the civil rights organizations started to vehemently criticize the construction unions for discriminatory employment practices. This criticism caused to the BCTC serious problems. Moreover, at that time, the new technology of prefabrication started to be used on construction sites. This method of construction cut the costs and made many skilled workers redundant. The power these workers had enjoyed began to be challenged.
  In this very situation, the anti-Vietnam War movement was gaining momentum and it came as a surprise to the construction workers. They were not only drafted more easily than students but could not evade military service in the way that many college students could. In reality the unions had many veterans and members who were serving as soldiers in Vietnam. Naturally, their discontent increased further.
  Although the Nixon administration had announced the "Philadelphia Plan," which required construction unions to establish a goal for minority employees, it approached the BCTC to get their political support for Nixon's reelection. The BCTC tried to compromise with the Nixon administration despite having many problems with Nixon.
  Clearly, the construction workers were not simple patriots. Their patriotism showed how complicated and ambivalent their feelings were at this time. They personally identified themselves as patriots to protect the order, values and the boundaries they had held when threatened by others.

Other Issues

Special Feature: Nature and Environment, Issue 41
Special Feature: Violence, Issue 40
March 2005, Issue 39