On 7 August, Dr Michele Mason (University of Maryland) gave a lecture titled “Comingling Histories: Ikezawa Natsuki’s Novel Representations of Colonial Hokkaido”.
This is an extension of the work in her 2012 book Dominant Narratives of Colonial Hokkaido and Imperial Japan about Ikezawa’s novel A Quiet Land.
It precipitated a lively discussion about how to incorporated discussion of the indigenous Ainu into broader discussions of Japanese and Hokkaido history.
The following day, as part of the inaugural Modern Japanese Studies Program Workshop, Dr Mason, Dr Richard Siddle (Research Faculty of Media and Communication) and Dr Philip Seaton accompanied
four MJSP students to the recently rennovated Hokkaido Museum to discuss how the exhibits have changed (particularly relating to the colonial era) since the 1970s.
