Alex Jania

University of Chicago, History Department

“‘A Blood Red Sun Rises’: Affective Nationalism in the 1923 Korean Panic and Massacre”

Thursday, April 20th

**3-5 PM**

John Hope Franklin Room (SSR 224)

Discussants:

Gregory Valdespino, University of Chicago History Dept.

Please join us at a slightly earlier time as the East Asia: Transregional History Workshop welcomes our own Alex Jania, who will present his second-year seminar paper entitled “‘A Blood Red Sun Rises’: Affective Nationalism in the 1923 Korean Panic and Massacre.” This paper explores the affective nationalism of the Korean Panic and Massacre in order to understand the relationship between emotion, violent ethnic scapegoating, and the imagining of the nation. This study uses the recollections of children who lived through the disaster in Tokyo and Yokohama, in addition to a critical passage from the Tokyo novelist Ema Shū’s disaster memoir When the Sheep Rise in Anger to explore how latent Japanese prejudices against Koreans created an affective environment that led to massacre. Using these sources, the study explores the creation and circulation of hate, fear, insecurity in the Korean Panic and later, excitement, security, and ambiguity in the Korean Massacre. Ultimately, he argues that the desire for a feeling of security and its creation through violence was a powerful, but fraught, part of Japanese affective nationalism following the Great Kantō Earthquake.

Alex’s paper can be found in the post below.

As always, first-time attendees are welcome. Light refreshments and snacks will be served. If you have any questions or require assistance to attend, please contact Jessa Dahl at jdahl@uchicago.edu or Erin Newton at emnewton@uchicago.edu.