Religious Studies Lecture Friday, Sep 14

Date/Time: Friday, September 14, 2018 (12:30pm)

Location: Hazlewood Dining Room, James Union Building (second floor)

Legacy of Dominance in Japanese American Monuments

Controversies surround monuments because they dominate space with one version of history. Japanese Americans have created monuments and utilized this power to express their ancestors’ legacy of surviving dominance, notably the overt racism of the 19th century, the World War II internment camps, and WWII atomic bombs. Yet even while illustrating the horrors of domination, controversies arose around Japanese American monuments regarding their domination of space. In this lecture, Dr. Esaki will detail controversies around three monuments, especially how the Japanese American artists carefully negotiated politically fraught environments while maintaining roots in Japanese American religions. In the process, he will shed light on the hope and ruin intrinsic to the legacy of dominance in monuments.  

Speaker: Dr. Brett J. Esaki (Arizona University)

Dr. Esaki is a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of Religious Studies and Classics at the University of Arizona. He researches how American minorities creatively use religion and art to preserve, to reinvent, and to discover a sense of their full humanity, and specializes in resonances between Asian Americans and African Americans. He has taught at Georgia State University and Central Michigan University, and holds graduate degrees from UC Santa Barbara and the University of South Carolina.

Date/Time: Friday, September 14, 2018 (12:30pm)

Location: Hazlewood Dining Room, James Union Building (second floor)

Speaker Series: Lecture & Lunch with Religious Studies

Sponsored by: Department of Philosophy & Religious Studies

For more information contact: Dr. Rebekka King (rebekka.king@mtsu.edu)

Religious Studies (BA/BS): https://www.mtsu.edu/programs/religious-studies/