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Paper short abstract

The presentation explores Yoko Tawada’s ecopoetics after 3.11. Focusing on The Emissary and the poem "Hamlet not See", I argue that the language crisis mirrors the crisis of the environment. Tawada renders radiation legible, shifting the literary imagination to meet the reality of the Anthropocene.

Paper long abstract

The triple catastrophe of March 11, 2011, in Japan marked a tectonic shift not only in the thematic concerns of Japanese writers but also in the hermeneutics of reading "after the disaster." Yoko Tawada stands as a pivotal figure who seeks to articulate the ineffable and challenge the anthropocentric failures that precipitated the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident, as well as the practices of exploitation driving ecological decay.

In Tawada’s works, language becomes a critical site of struggle: it must render the invisible reality of radiation and pollution into a legible vocabulary, while simultaneously preserving cultural heritage beyond the vanishing borders of a "motherland." For Tawada, linguistic production is inextricably linked to the "overseas"—a concept reflected in her title Überseezungen (a play on "overseas tongues" and "translation"). Consequently, the ecological crisis that isolates the Japanese archipelago is mirrored by a crisis of language, where the only viable path toward representation appears to come from an exophonic perspective.

The new reality of the Anthropocene poses radical questions regarding representability that can only be addressed through a reconfigured vocabulary and international collaboration.

This presentation investigates the symbolism of marine pollution and radioactive landscapes in several of Tawada’s post-disaster works, most notably the poem “Hamlet no See” and her dystopian novel The Emissary. By analyzing these texts, I argue that Tawada’s ecopoetics functions as a necessary expansion of the literary imagination in a world fundamentally altered by ecological collapse.

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Paper short abstract

In the wake of the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, artists attempt to explore ways to present the motif of “3/11” beyond geographic confinement—beyond Japan. Given restricted access to the nuclear zone, how do artists respond to “3/11” without direct physical proximity to Fukushima?

Paper long abstract

In the wake of the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, artists attempt to explore ways to present the motif of “3/11” beyond geographic confinement—beyond Japan. Given restricted access to the nuclear zone, how do artists respond to “3/11” without direct physical proximity to Fukushima? How do overseas Japanese artists represent what took place back in their homeland? How do people outside Japan gain the access to experience and respond to “3/11”? To grapple with this representational dilemma of “here and there,” this paper looks at the performance art of the contemporary Japanese artist Ei Arakawa—Does This Soup Taste Ambivalent? (2014). In this conceptual project, he attempted to mediate a geographic gap between New York (where he works) and Fukushima (where he comes from). He also intended to reach a geographical balance between Fukushima and the international audience by bringing his family to Frieze London. In dialogue with Does This Soup Taste Ambivalent?, this paper brings comparative examples of Rirkrit Tiravanija’s installation Untitled (Free/Still) (2007) and the socially engaged art piece Conflict Kitchen (2010). This paper attempts to extend the metaphor of a geographic boundary to invisible yet crucial boundaries among people, and to further spatialize what Nicolas Bourriaud regards as relational aesthetics. Visual representations of “here and there” can thus be thematically translated into a rendering of boundaries between artists and spectators/participants, between social environment and human beings and between different ethnic groups. Moreover, this paper examines the instrumental role of food in performance art. With the same incorporation of food, these works take advantage of the taste to unite people from different backgrounds, and to provide a corporeal medium to raise concerns for nuclear radiation and safety. The remediation of food, in art practice and social media, further produces a micro-social and micro-political narrative to think of food safety, human safety, and community conflicts.

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Paper short abstract

This paper examines the discourses around the proposal to develop a tropical research center in Iriomote between 1959 and 1972. It examines how imperial ideas about agricultural development and Cold War ambitions were projected onto the island, and why locals were enthusiastic about the proposal.

Paper long abstract

Between the late 1950s and early 1960s, Japanese policymakers and scientists envisioned transforming Iriomote—the largest island of the Yaeyama archipelago, south of Okinawa—into a living laboratory for tropical research. Spearheaded by Japanese politician Takaoka Daisuke, Iriomote was imagined as a “peace base,” a counterpart to the American military bases in Okinawa, designed both to foster relations with Okinawans to support eventual reversion and to advance Japan’s foreign policy ambitions in Southeast Asia. Japanese scientists enthusiastically supported this proposal, calling the island a “second Taiwan,” a comparable ecological zone suited to training a new generation of technical experts in tropical agriculture in the same manner as the former colony. Long suffering from underdevelopment, locals on Iriomote welcomed the attention, interpreting the vision to establish Iriomote as a “second Taiwan” not as a colonial project but as an economic proposal that would turn the island into an important center of trade between Japan and Southeast Asia. Although the proposal never materialized due to differing visions of development held by American Occupation officials, this paper argues that the discourses surrounding the Tropical Research Center embodied the imbrication of imperial memory and postwar development, as well as the colonial relationship between Okinawa and Japan. By tracing how policymakers, scientists, and local actors mobilized the island’s landscapes and Japan’s colonial legacies, this study reconsiders tropical research and agrarian development not as mere scientific enterprises but as vital sites for interrogating the entangled boundaries between empire, environment, and expertise in the twentieth-century Asia-Pacific.