Since the 3.11 Fukushima nuclear disaster, the Japanese government and the nuclear energy industries have been attempting to promote a new safety myth by downplaying the harmful effects of radioactive exposure on the human body and the environment. How have citizens’ activism responded to the ruses of the safety myth? The talk will introduce various sites and forms of anti-nuclear activism that ordinary citizens have organized to defend their basic rights to health, safety, and dignity.

Katsuya Hirano teaches history at UCLA. He is the author of "The Politics of Dialogic Imagination: Power and Popular Culture in Early Modern Japan." He has published numerous articles and book chapters on cultural and intellectual history of Japan, Fukushima nuclear disaster, settler colonialism, and critical theory. His Fukushima interview series is available in the "Asian-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus."

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