Japanese history comes to Newcastle

Friday 25 November 2005

A University of Newcastle researcher says an upcoming conference on Japan will highlight the important work being done by historians in Australia and elsewhere in improving our knowledge of a nation with which we have had a long and sometimes difficult relationship.

Dr Beatrice Trefalt from the University of Newcastle received a $25,000 grant from the Japan Foundation to hold the Japanese history conference which will run from Monday 28 – Wednesday 30 November 2005.

“The conference will gather a cross-section of the most productive historians of Japan working in Australia as well as three international keynote speakers,” says Dr Trefalt.

The papers presented in the conference will span pre-Meiji Japan to the present, and will address a wide range of issues including the impact of the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923, Japanese involvement in Mongolia in the 1930s, legacies of war in the 1950s, and the debates over war remembrance in post-war Japan.

Dr Trefalt who is known for her work on the so called ‘stragglers’, Japanese soldiers of World War II who didn’t know that the war was over for thirty years, will present a paper on the Association of the Families of the Missing and their opposition to the San Francisco Peace Treaty.

Dr Trefalt says the conference will provide a timely insight into our understanding of Japanese history as we approach the year of exchange between Japan and Australia.

The Japanese History Workshop: State and Society in Japan will run from Monday 28 – Wednesday 30 November 2005 at University House, Newcastle.

For interviews contact Beatrice Trefalt on (02) 4921 5218 or 0414 978 580.