Science | United States

Date: Tuesday, October 19, 2021. 12:00 PM. Location: Hybrid event - Public via Zoom Derek Kramer explores the theme of liberatory science in Korean narratives of the atomic bombings. In doing so, his work highlights how North and South Korean conflations between science and developmentalism silenced Korean survivors of the attacks. The bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were a constant feature of the post-liberation Korean press. During this time, the science behind the bomb acted as a marker of futurity that circulated in ways that directly commented on the nature of the postcolonial condition. For some, atomic science simply pointed to the predominance of global hegemons and demonstrated the liberatory potential of these powers. Versions of these readings are explored through an examination of the concept of “Science War” in Korean accounts of the Asia-Pacific War. While this narrative certainly demoted the authority of the Japanese metropole to define the future, it did little to undermine a Eurocentric vi...