UPDATE: ICU–WSU Peace and Security Research

ICU–WSU Conference: "Building New Pathways to Peace"
April 5-6, 2007, Washington State University, Pullman, Washington

Seven faculty members from International Christian University (ICU) in Tokyo, Japan, and 8 WSU faculty members from the College of Liberal Arts participated in the second ICU-WSU conference in Pullman on the theme of "Building New Pathways to Peace." President and Mrs. Norihiko Suzuki of ICU also came to celebrate the success of the partnership, which entered its fifth year, and to congratulate WSU President V. Lane Rawlins on his retirement.

The intense, 2-day conference was a great success. Drawing on the general consensus reached at the preliminary conference held in March 2006 in Tokyo, the 15 ICU and WSU participants from diverse disciplines presented thought-provoking new ideas to build various pathways to peace. In the process of this intellectual mapping exercise, the participants were able to identify certain key words and concepts and divide the various pathways into certain groups. The participants will continue to work toward the publication of the conference's outcome.

The following 8 WSU participants presented their papers (in alphabetical order):

• Martha Cottam (political science), "Impediments to Human Security: Social Categories, Privilege, and Violence"

• Gregory Hooks (sociology), "Can Grand Theories of the State Help Us Envision a Grand Theory of Peace?"

• Noriko Kawamura (history), "Transnationalizing War Memory for Peace and KyÅsei: Reconciliation of Pearl Harbor and Hiroshima"

• Otwin Marenin (political science and criminal justice), "The Lessons of Peacebuilding for KyÅsei"

• T.V. Reed (American studies), "Globalization, Culture, and the Strategic Use of the Arts for Peacebuilding"

• Susan Ross (communication), "Fleeting Glimpses: Media Discourses of Peace"

• Noël Sturgeon (women's studies), "Planetary Security and Extraterrestrialism in U.S. Culture"

• Raymond Sun (history), "'Remembering Is Not an Innocent Act': Reflections on Postwar German Memory, Peace Studies, and KyÅsei"

After the first day of the conference, President Rawlins hosted a dinner at the Lewis Alumni Centre to welcome the ICU guests and various WSU administrators and to celebrate the successful partnership. President Suzuki and the WSU peace and security research partnership presented President Rawlins a glass plate as his retirement gift. View the design engraved on the plate

ICU–WSU Graduate Student Joint Project on Peace and Security in East Asia

Hilary Elmendorf (Ph.D. candidate, history), K. Caleb Sparks (Ph.D. candidate, history), Ayano Ginoza (Ph.D. candidate, American studies), and Jason Blazevic (M.A. '06, history) participated in the joint project with the graduate students from International Christian University in Tokyo, Japan, on the studies of "Peace and Security in East Asia." The project consisted of 3 major components.

First, 3 ICU graduate students and 4 WSU graduate students participated in the four 2-hour videoconference sessions between Tokyo and Pullman between January and April 2006. They discussed various peace and security issues in East Asia under the guidance of Professors Shin Chiba at ICU and Noriko Kawamura at WSU, wrote individual research papers, and critiqued one another's papers through videoconferencing.

Second, these papers were presented at the annual conference on Asian Studies on the Pacific Coast (ASPAC) held at WSU in Pullman June 16–18, 2006.

Finally, WSU participants' papers were published in the Journal of Social Science 61 by the Social Science Research Institute at ICU with the following titles:

• Hilary Elmendorf, "'Divine' Intervention: American Religious Narratives of the Atomic Bombings, the End of the Pacific War, and the Allied Occupation"

• K. Caleb Sparks, "Constituting Democracy: Psychological Warfare, Democratization, and the Remaking of the Japanese Constitution"

• Ayano Ginoza, "The American Village in Okinawa: Redefining Security in a 'Militourist' Landscape"

• Jason Blazevic, "Oil, the United States, and China"

Elmendorf and Sparks were invited to ICU in Tokyo as research fellows. They are conducting research for their doctoral dissertations at ICU through July 2007.