Events

In order to encourage dialogue and ongoing exploration of the themes in When the Emperor Was Divine, a series of events have been planned throughout the 2009-10 academic year. Many events centering around the theme of racial profiling are offered in partnership with the Center for Ethics and Human Values and are marked below with an asterisk.

Spotlight event

Julie Otsuka Assembly Series Lecture
Otsuka, author of the book chosen for the 2009 Freshman Reading Program, When the Emperor Was Divine, will speak about Japanese Internment Camps and the experience of writing the book. A book signing will follow the lecture.
Date: Tuesday, September 15, 3:30 p.m., Graham Chapel

Ethnic Profiling Exhibition Grand Opening Events

* The Ethnic Profiling Exhibition Grand Opening and Reception
Photographs by Ansel Adams and paintings by Chiura Obata. Images will be put into dialogue with other visual records that chart the range of experiences and reactions to the Japanese American internment during World War II.
Date: Friday, October 2, 7:00-9:00 p.m.
For the most current program information please check the Center's website at: http://humanvalues.wustl.edu/

* Welcome and Remarks on the Washington University's Commitment to Diversity
Chancellor Mark Wrighton, Ph.D.
Date: Friday, October 2, 6:00 p.m., Steinberg Auditorium

* Remembering the Internment: A Conversation by the Sons of Chiura Obata and Ansel Adams
Gyo Obata and Michael Adams, M.D.
Date: Friday, October 2, 6:15-6:45 p.m., Steinberg Auditorium

* Performance of the play "Dust Storm: Art and Survival in a Time of Paranoia"
Playwright: Rick Foster; Actor: Zac Drake
This is a one-man play written by Rick Foster that tells the story of the internment of Japanese Americans and survival in the time of xenophobia during World War II using the art of Chiura Obata.
Date: Saturday, October 3, 8:00-9:30 p.m., Steinberg Auditorium

* Lecture and Slide Presentation "The Art and Life of Chiura Obata"
Kimi Kodani Hill
Ms. Hill, the granddaughter of Chiura Obata, is responsible for the selection of Obata's watercolor paintings for our exhibit and will do a lecture and slide presentation on the artist's the art and life, including his stay in internment camp.
Date: Sunday, October 4, 2:00-3:00 p.m., Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Room 103

* Performance of the play "Dust Storm: Art and Survival in a Time of Paranoia"
Playwright: Rick Foster; Actor: Zac Drake
This is a one-man play written by Rick Foster that tells the story of the internment of Japanese Americans and survival in the time of xenophobia during World War II, using the art of Chiura Obata.
Date: Sunday, October 4, 2009, Time TBA, Steinberg Auditorium

Speakers/Lectures/Panel Discussions

Julie Otsuka Assembly Series Lecture
Otsuka, author of the book chosen for the 2009 Freshman Reading Program, When the Emperor Was Divine, will speak about Japanese Internment Camps and the experience of writing the book.
Date: Tuesday, September 15, 3:30 p.m., Graham Chapel

Constitution Day Panel Discussion — "Did the Japanese American Internment Violate Constitutional Rights...and Why Do We Care?"
Moderator: Randall Calvert, Thomas F. Eagleton University Professor.
Panelists: John Haley, William R. Orthwein Distinguished Professor of Law, Denise Lieberman, Lecturer in Political Science, Wendy Roll, President of the Japanese American Citizens League, St. Louis Chapter
Sponsored by the Gephardt Institute for Public Service in partnership with Controversy N' Coffee, Center for the Study of Ethics and Human Values, Freshman Reading Program, and Political Science Student Association.
Date: Thursday, September 17, 7:00-8:30 p.m., Danforth University Center, Room 242

Lecture and Slide Presentation "Ansel Adams — Photographs of Manzanar and the West"
Michael Adams, MD will discuss his father's work in photographing the Manzanar Internment camp.
Date: Saturday, October 3, 2:00-3:00 p.m., Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Room 103

"Sharing Personal Accounts of the U.S. Japanese Internment Camps during WWII"
United States citizens who were interned in the camps will relate their first-person accounts of the experience and the impact it had on Japanese Americans.
Featuring Janice Koizumi, a native of California who was interned in Rohwer, Arkansas with her family and later at Tule Lake, California, with her husband. Other representatives of the Japanese American community will also participate. Moderated by Robin Hattori, Program Director, Gephardt Institute for Public Service. Reception will follow the event.
Date: Monday, October 5, 7:00-8:00 p.m., Location TBA

* Debate on the Political Justification of Ethnic Profiling
Faculty presenters: Andrew Rehfeld, Ph.D., professor in political science, will be defending the moral permissibility of ethnic profiling. Camille Nelson, Ph.D., professor in the School of Law, will be responding. Kit Wellmon, Ph.D., professor in philosophy, will moderate.
Date: TBA

* Debate on the topic of Security Based Ethnic Profiling
Faculty presenters: Margaret Chon, J.D., Donald and Lynda Horowitz Professor for the Pursuit of Justice, Seattle University School of Law and Kevin Johnson, J.D., Dean of Law School at UC Davis. Professor Chon is co-author of a book about the internment of Japanese Americans and co-authored an article entitled "Walking While Muslim."
Date: Thursday, October 8, 7:00-9:00 p.m., Umrath Lounge

Homer G. Phillips Public Health Lecture
Lecture by Harriet Washington, author of the book Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present followed by faculty panel discussion.
Date: Friday, October 9, 6-9:00 p.m., Medical School Campus, Eric P. Newman Education Center (EPNEC), 320 S. Euclid, St. Louis MO 63110

Book Discussion When the Emperor Was Divine
A community book discussion of Julie Otsuka's novel about a Japanese-American family forced to live in an internment camp, led by a panel including a Washington University professor and student and person who experienced the interment first-hand.
Date: Saturday, October 10, 2:30 p.m., The Big Read Festival, Clayton High School

"An American Diary"
Lecture by Roger Y. Shimomura, Artist and University Distinguished Professor of Art Emeritus, University of Kansas, about his experience as an Asian-American who was interned with his family during WWII, led him to paint about culture, discrimination, and ethnic stereotypes. "An American Diary" is a survey of his paintings, prints, and experimental theatre pieces that span a 40-year career. His work is included in both private and public collections, including the Smithsonian Museum of American History, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Denver Art Museum, the Seattle Art Museum, and the Whitney Museum of American Art (New York).
Date: Monday, October 12, 6:00-8:00 p.m., Steinberg Auditorium

"Racial Profiling: Beyond "pro" and "con""
Faculty panelists will present arguments both defending and opposing the moral permissibility of ethnic profiling. Panelists: Frederick Schauer, J.D., David and Mary Harrison Distinguished Professor of Law , University of Virginia.School of Law; Andrew Rehfeld, Ph.D., Political Science. Moderator: Kit Wellmon, Ph.D., Professor of Philosophy.
Date: Thursday, November 5, 7:00-8:30pm., Women's Building

"A Challenge to Democracy" Gallery Talk
Walkthrough of the exhibition: "A Challenge to Democracy: Ethnic Profiling of Japanese Americans During World War II" with the curators: Professor of Art History & Archaeology, Angela Miller, and Graduate Students Anna Warbelow and Elissa Weichbrodt.
Date: Wednesday, November 11, 5:00-6:00 p.m., Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum

* Lecture by Roger Y. Shimomura
Shimomura is an artist who is teaching at the University of Kansas and represented at galleries in Kansas City, New York and Seattle. He is primarily a painter, but has also executed performances and made small sculptures from found objects, which he refers to as "Haiku Assemblages." He has been mounting solo exhibitions around the country since the late 1960s. His work, equally informed by 60s pop, comics, and traditional Japanese imagery, centers upon various stereotypes and clichéd depictions of Asian people in Western (generally pop) culture.
He usually uses all this appropriated pop culture imagery to illustrate personal anecdotes about racism, or relevant news stories about bias (see his 2003 exhibition Stereotypes and Admonitions, at http://www.gregkucera.com/shimomura_stereotypes.htm.
Date: TBA

* Ethics Night on Campus: "Hate Crimes: Personally Experiencing Ethnic Profiling"
Date: TBA

* The Way People Dress: Clothing and Ethnic Profiling
A student fashion show depicting ethnic profiling followed by a faculty-student panel discussion with John Bowen, Dunbar-Van Cleve Professor in Arts & Sciences, James Singleton, Associate Professor, Fashion Design, and Bonnie Kruger, Senior Lecturer and Costume Director, in the Performing Arts Department.
Date: Wednesday, October 21, 6:00-9:00 p.m., Women's Building

* Ethnic Profiling in the Medical Community: The Mound City Physicians and Homer G. Phillips Hospital
A panel discussion involving members of the Metropolitan Medical Society and the Mound City Medical Society.
Date: TBA, Medical School Campus

Performances

* Dancing Who I Am: Performance and Panel
A performance and panel discussion focused on ethnic profiling as it affects the dance artist. Performance of choreography by Rulan Tangen, Cecil Slaughter, Ting-Ting Chang, Alicia Graf, and Ivan Pulinkala, who will also be panelists with Elizabeth Zimmer, former dance editor for The Village Voice, and Thomas DeFrantz, dance scholar, performer and critic.
Moderated by Mary-Jean Cowell, Associate Professor of Dance, Performing Arts Department.
Free and open to the public. No reservations required.
Date: Saturday, September 12, 8:00 p.m., Edison Theatre

* Performance of the play "Dust Storm: Art and Survival in a Time of Paranoia"
Playwright: Rick Foster; Actor: Zac Drake
This is a one-man play written by Rick Foster that tells the story of the internment of Japanese Americans and survival in the time of xenophobia during World War II, using the art of Chiura Obata.
Date: Saturday, October 3, 8:00-9:30 p.m., Steinberg Auditorium
Date: Saturday, October 4, 2009, Steinberg Auditorium

* "The Laramie Project"
A play by Moises Kaufman and members of the Tectonic Theater Project about the reaction to the 1998 murder of University of Wyoming student Matthew Shepard in Laramie, Wyoming. The murder is widely considered a hate crime motivated by homophobia. Faculty panel discussion to follow.
Date: October 12, 2009, Missouri History Museum

Classical Music and Poetry Reading Musicians from the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra will perform a free concert on campus and Jason Hill, an MD/PhD student, will read original poems on the topic of ethnic poetry.
Date: Monday, October 19, 7:00-8:30 p.m., Holmes Lounge

* Performance of a special concert "A Child of Our Time" by St. Louis Symphony Orchestra A dramatic oratorio written by Michael Tippett that explores "man's inhumanity to man."
Preconcert lecture by David Robertson for students attending concert.
Date:Thursday, October 22, 7:00-9:00 p.m., Powell Symphony Hall

* Ethnic Profiling: Poetry Reading and Spoken Word
Speaker: John Baugh, Ph.D., and Jason Hill, M.D./Ph.D. candidate
Date: TBA

Film Series on Profiling and Discrimination

Film "A Powerful Noise"
A film about three women in vastly different worlds who overcome significant gender barriers to rise up and claim a voice in their societies. Through their efforts remarkable changes occur in fighting AIDS, rebuilding communities, and educating girls.
Following the film is a panel discussion led by Washington University faculty, including Dr. Linda Cottler, Professor of Epidemiology at the Medical School, Barbara Baumgartner, Senior Lecturer and Associate Director, Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program, Shanti Parikh, Assistant Professor of Anthropology and African and African American Studies Program, Carolyn Sargent, Professor of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and Anthropology, moderated by Mary Ann Dzuback, Director, Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program and Associate Professor of Education.
Date: Thursday, October 1, film 5:00-6:30, panel discussion 6:30-7:30, Danforth University Center, Room 276.

Film — "Adio Kerida" (Farewell My Love)
Originally a song sung by those leaving Spain and used as a symbol of Sarajevo saying farewell to its Sephardic Jewish culture.
Rabbi James Stone Goodman will make introductory remarks.
, Danforth Campus
Date: Sunday, October 18, 2:00 p.m., Holocaust Museum, Millstone Campus, Kopolow Building, located at the corner of Schuetz and Gulbreth.

* "Divided We Fall: Hate Crimes After 9/11"
A documentary film about hate crimes in post-9/11 America. The film tells the stories of hate crime victims in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001.
Date: Thursday, October 15, 6:00 p.m.-8:30 p.m., Danforth Campus
Date: Thursday, November 12, 6:00 pm-8:30 p.m., Medical School Campus

* Policing Black Activism Program
Viewing of selections from the film Eyes on the Prize II followed by a faculty panel discussion with local black activists. Professor Elsa Barkley Brown, U. of Maryland Dept. of History will introduce film and will moderate panel discussion.
Date: Monday, November 16, 7:00-9:00 p.m., Missouri History Museum

* "Passing Poston, An American Story"
This is film about a Japanese internment camp on an Indian reservation.
Date: Thursday, November 19, 6:30-9:00 p.m., Brown Lounge, George Warren Brown School of Social Work

* "The Cats of Mirikitani"
The film tells the story of Jimmy Tsutomu Mirikitani, his art and the Japanese Internment. Eighty-year-old Jimmy Mirikitani survived the trauma of WWII internment camps, Hiroshima and homelessness by creating art on the streets of New York City.
Date: Thursday, October 29, 7:00-9:00 p.m., Danforth University Center, Room 276

* "Snow Falling Upon Cedars"
A multi-layered film about a high school romance and a murder trial a decade later. What first looks like a straight-forward case soon turns into a series of mysteries, intensified by flashbacks to WWII Japanese concentration camps.
Date: TBA

* "American Pastime" and a lecture by Kerry Nakagawa The film tells the story of Kaz Nomura and his wife Emi who struggle to maintain a normal life after forced relocation to an internment camp in the remote town of Abraham, Utah.
Date: TBA

* "Adio Kerida" (Farewell My Love)
Originally a song sang by those leaving Spain and used by Sarajevo as a symbol of saying farewell to its Sephardic Jewish culture.
Rabbi James Stone Goodman will make introductory remarks.
Date: Sunday, October 18, 2009 at 2:00 p.m., Holocaust Center, Millstone Campus and Kopolow Bldg., Schuetz & Lindbergh

* 18th Annual St. Louis International Film Festival
Cliff Froehlich, Executive Director
The Center for the Study of Ethics and Human Values will be a sponsor of the festival and plans for including selected films in the Ethnic Profiling program are underway.
Date: November 12-22, Tivoli Theatre in University City, Dates and Times TBA

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