First Name:
Caroline
Last Name:
Noel
Major Department:
Cultural Anthropology
Thesis Director:
Craig Fischer
Date of Thesis:
May 2013
In Japan there is a conceptual split in the minds of the Japanese when it comes to nuclear energy. It is a country that experienced the devastation of nuclear weaponry in 1945, yet in 1966 Japan adopted nuclear power. Since then the country has depended on nuclear power to generate a significant portion of the country’s electricity. It is viewed as a sustainable energy source for a country with such an immense energy demand, since they lack in other natural energy resources. The events at Fukushima Daichii in 2011 highlight the complexity of this split, and showed how in Japan ‘nuclear’ is both a danger and a hope for a sustainable future. Fukushima opens up questions about how this split began in the first place, how it has been challenged and how it changes. The methodology of my research is to examine two Japanese films, Gojira (1954) and Record of a Living Being (1955), as indexes of initial meanings that the Japanese gave to the term ‘nuclear’ and the possibilities that such an entity held. Through this examination I will observe how interpretations of nuclear energy form and change in conjunction with social issues, historical events, and cultural change. Essentially, the project will trace back how and why a split notion of ‘nuclear’ originally formed. Understanding its leads to a better understanding of what cultural and conceptual issues arise from the Fukushima disaster, as well as the current discussion of nuclear energy in Japan and the world. I predict that the imagery and themes of these films will show signs of a split notion of nuclear energy. In addition, I believe these concepts were largely influenced by the way the Japanese people gave meaning to the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.
“Peering at the post-tsunami devastation in Japan on miniature YouTube windows or video-streaming displays from Japanese news outlets provokes not only great empathy and concern, but an unmistakable feeling of déjà vu” (Kirby).