This article examines the systems for designating and containing both the contamination from the March 2011 Fukushima nuclear power plant (NPP) accident and the fear of radiation. This discourse of containment appears in the cinematic images of two fiction films: Land of Hope (Kibō no kuni, 2012) and The Tranquil Everyday (Odayaka na nichijō, 2012). I look at the films' portrayals of the female characters who struggle to confirm and assess radiological danger in so-called “safe” zones. When they voice their fears and challenge the illusion of safety, they themselves are contained and made invisible by the diagnoses of radiophobia, hysteria, and paralyzing fatalism.

In the next 30 to 50 years, rising sea levels caused by global warming will subsume low-lying islands in the Pacific Ocean. Inhabitants will have to relocate, but there are few choices. Among nations (with the exception of Fiji and New Zealand) there is little preparation for the inevitable migration of Pacific Islanders. Which nations should commit to the processes of equitable relocation? The following article will address this question through historical context and colonial occupation; current legal debates surrounding climate change and maritime migration; and the potential rights of “deterritorialized” states, such as retention of exclusive economic zones. Historical context includes an examination of U.S. insular territories in the Pacific and the continued exercise of presidential authority over island possessions.

The Asian Studies Department of Cornell University is proud to announce the recipients of the 2017 Kyoko Selden Memorial Translation Prize competition, concluded on November 1. The prize for an unpublished translator has been awarded to Erin L. Brightwell, Assistant Professor of Premodern Japanese Literature at the University of Michigan, for her translation of “The Torrent” (奔流, Hon'ryū, 1943) by the Taiwanese writer Wang Changxiong (王昶雄, also known by his Japanese name, Ō Shōyū/Ō Chōyū), who lived from 1916 to 2000. Brightwell's translation is a welcome contribution to recent scholarship on Japanese-language literature produced in the era of Japan's multi-ethnic empire. The translation vividly renders into English the numerous subtly charged dialogues in this story, with their attendant psychic repercussions.

The Japanese government's refusal to recognize the presence of Korean and Chinese forced laborers during World War II at Nagasaki's Hashima Island coal mine, popularly known as Gunkanjima (“Battleship Island”) continues since the abandoned mine was World Heritage inscribed in 2015. Hashima is one of a number of locations approved under the title “Sites of Japan's Meiji Industrial Revolution.” Hashima has become a major tourist draw, but lacks any meaningful historical information at or near the site, while excluding any mention of Korean and Chinese forced laborers. The site also is in serious decay and appears to lack any conservation plan in line with World Heritage “Operational Guidelines.” The South Korean and Japanese governments agreed to acknowledge the presence of Koreans who “were forced to work” at the mine, but the Japanese government has subsequently refused to implement the agreement. Use of Hashima as an “urban ruins tourist attraction” instead raises questions as to whether the Japanese government has complied with requirements for World Heritage listing. This policy of neglect continues the Abe government's refusal to acknowledge full responsibility for Japan's injustice toward Korean forced laborers during World War II.