The CEP seeks to engage with relevant and riveting topics. Keeping with the focus on Asia, the CEP hosted Norma Field to discuss the Fukushima Nuclear Disaster. The disaster began on March 11, 2011 following the giant tsunami that hit Japan. Following the tsunami, three of their six reactors had a meltdown and began releasing radioactive material. The following attempts at stopping the flow of radioactive material was a hot topic across international news.
Norma Field, Professor Emerita of Japanese Studies at the University of Chicago, was invited to campus on December 4th, 2014, to speak about ongoing issues pertaining to the post-Fukushima disaster. Her talk, entitled “Living with the Fukushima Nuclear (Accident? Disaster? Crime?)” drew the interest of students, faculty, as well as the wider local community, and was a successful and well-attended public event.
Her lecture, which examined the history of the “nuclear age” took up ongoing Fukushima issues in connection with US test sites such as Trinity, as well as other nuclear disaster sites including Chernobyl. Her framing of these global interconnections opened up new conversations across programs within Bard and became a focal point for information sharing among the numerous faculty working on issues of nuclear weaponry, nuclear energy, and radiation.