Thursday, October 2, 2025 | 8:00-9:30 PM ET REGISTER FOR ZOOM
The Geography of Injustice: East Asia's Battle between Memory and History (Cornell University Press, 2024)
Presenter: Barak Kushner, Professor of East Asian History, Cambridge University
Discussant: Daqing Yang, Associate Professor of History, George Washington University
Moderator: Emer O'Dwyer, Associate Professor of History and East Asian Studies, Oberlin College
The Modern Japan History Association invites the wider community to a conversation with Barak Kushner, who will be speaking about his new book The Geography of Injustice: East Asia's Battle between Memory and History (Cornell University Press, 2024). The Geography of Injustice argues that the war crimes tribunals in East Asia formed and cemented national divides that persist into the present day. In 1946 the Allies convened the Tokyo Trial to prosecute Japanese wartime atrocities. At its conclusion one of the judges voiced dissent, claiming that the justice found at Tokyo was only "the sham employment of a legal process for the satisfaction of a thirst for revenge." War crimes tribunals, Kushner shows, allow for the history of the defeated to be heard. In contemporary East Asia a fierce battle between memory and history has consolidated political camps across this debate. The Tokyo Trial courtroom, as well as the thousands of other war crimes tribunals opened in about fifty venues across Asia, were legal stages where prosecution and defense curated facts and evidence to craft their story about World War II. These narratives and counter narratives form the basis of postwar memory concerning Japan's imperial aims across the region. The archival record and the interpretation of court testimony together shape a competing set of histories for public consumption. Daqing Yang (George Washington) will serve as interlocutor.
The Modern Japan History Association is a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) non-profit organization supported by member contributions.
