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With close to 20,000 dead, hundreds of thousands temporarily or permanently displaced, and a spiraling crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, the Japanese people today are still reeling from a disaster of a horrific scale and unprecedented dimensions. In this presentation, Levi outlines the effects of events triggered by the massive Great East Japan Earthquake Disaster of March 11, 2011 (known now as 3/11) and responses these events have inspired at different levels of Japanese society. He describes ways government, industry, NGOs, religious organizations, and other institutions mobilized rescue and relief efforts in the immediate aftermath of the earthquake and tsunami, and how the meltdown of reactors at Fukushima has inspired new forms of civic activism that express public outrage over collusion and ineptitude in government and industry. The talk includes assessments of dilemmas Japanese institutions and individuals face as they carry out post-disaster reconstruction and look to rebuild amidst anxiety over nuclear fallout, economic decline, and Japan's new and uncertain place in the world order. Levi McLaughlin is a Post-Doctoral Scholar at the University of Iowa's Center for Asian and Pacific Studies. He received his B.A. and M.A. in East Asian Studies from the University of Toronto and his Ph.D. from Princeton University. Levi also carried out years of study on contemporary Japanese society as a researcher at the University of Tokyo and Kokugakuin University.
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