This event is free and open to the public. The Center for Korean Studies is located at 1881 East-West Road on the UH Mānoa campus. Parking is available mauka of the CKS building for a $3 charge.
For further information, including arrangements for access for the handicapped, call 956-7041.
Monday, April 27, 2009
4:00 p.m. to 5:30 p.m.
Center for Korean Studies Conference Room
This presentation will compare Japan’s and Korea’s respective images of the nuclear bomb between 1945 and 1960. As the first and only victims of the nuclear bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, the Japanese had a very unfavorable view of the nuclear bomb and nuclear energy in the postwar period. The hydrogen bomb test by the United States at Bikini Atoll in March 1954 renewed Japan’s fears and prompted one-third of the country’s citizens to sign a petition against the nuclear bomb by August 1955. Japanese scientists analyzed the harmful side-effects of nuclear bombs, emphasized the peaceful use of nuclear energy, and even led the anti-nuclear movement.
In contrast, since the nuclear bombs that were dropped on Japan brought the unexpected liberation of Korea from Japanese occupation, Koreans had a very favorable image of the nuclear bomb and nuclear energy from the beginning. After the end of the Korean War in 1953, South Koreans strongly supported the development of the nuclear bomb in order to deter another North Korean invasion. When the U.S. government provided South Korea with a research nuclear reactor in the late 1950s, most South Koreans regarded it as the first step to developing their own nuclear bomb. Dr. Kim will analyze how and why these two very different attitudes emerged and prevailed in Japan and Korea.
Dong-Won Kim, a research associate in the Department of the History of Science and Technology at Johns Hopkins University, received his Ph.D. at Harvard University in 1991. He is the author of Leadership and Creativity: A History of the Cavendish Laboratory, 1871–1919 (2002) and Yoshio Nishina: Father of Modern Physics in Japan (2007).