HIROSHIMA 2026 OCT | Los Angeles-based Author Naomi Hirahara to Speak at Symposium “Beyond the Era of Witness 2: Passing the Lessons Forward in Hiroshima” Presented by Yale University and Hiroshima City University | October 16-18
From Namoi Hirahara, Los Angeles, October 8, 2026
I’m going to be participating in this symposium in Hiroshima on October 16-18.
https://fortunoff.library.yale.edu/2026/10/05/beyond-the-era-of-the-witness-2-passing-the-lessons-forward-in-hiroshima/
Please forward to anyone who you think may be interested.
Sincerely,
Naomi
Beyond the Era of the Witness 2: Passing the Lessons Forward in Hiroshima
By Eliana Swerdlow – October 5, 2026
October 16–18, 2026
Hiroshima, Japan
Please join us for Beyond the Era of the Witness 2: Passing the Lessons Forward in Hiroshima, a symposium presented by the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies and the Hiroshima Peace Institute at Hiroshima City University.
The symposium brings together scholars and practitioners based in universities and museums to consider how to continue to research, teach and talk about the horrors and of World War II when we can no longer hear from those who witnessed them firsthand.
The symposium is the second in a multi-part series. The inaugural symposium was held at UCLA on October 18–19, 2025. The Hiroshima symposium will continue these conversations through panels and discussions on the inheritance of memory, diaspora, religion and art, education and public history, museum practice, and new technologies in an era beyond the living witness.
Symposium Program
Friday, October 16
Hiroshima City University Satellite Campus, Seminar Room 1
4:00 p.m. | Keynote Address
Omer Bartov, Brown University, Memory, Reality, and Denial: The Holocaust, Gaza, and Israeli Memory Politics
Commentator: Nobuya Hashimoto, Kwansei Gakuin University
Saturday, October 17
Hiroshima City University Satellite Campus, Seminar Room 1
9:15 a.m. | Opening Remarks
Report on the 2025 symposium
9:30 a.m. | Panel 1: Keisho: Inheritance of Memory – a transnational concept?
Makiko Takemoto, Hiroshima City University; Hibiki Yamaguchi, Nagasaki University; Naoko Wake, Michigan State University, virtual.
Moderator: Emily Anderson
11:00 a.m. | Break
11:15 a.m. | Panel 2: Diaspora, Religion, and Art
Naomi Hirahara, Novelist; Aya Udagawa, Kyoto University; Chad Diehl, Piedmont College; Charlotte Schallié, University of Victoria.
Moderator: Emily Anderson
12:45 p.m. | Lunch Break
2:15 p.m. | Panel 3: Education and Public History – teaching difficult topics in inhospitable climates
Jan Lauwereyns, Kyushu University; Catherine Boyd, Johannesburg Holocaust and Genocide Centre; Glenn Timmermans, Macao University.
Moderator: Ran Zwigenberg
Sunday, October 18
Hiroshima City University Satellite Campus, Seminar Room 1
10:00 a.m. | Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum Tour and Conversation with Curators
2:00 p.m. | Panel 4: Museums – changing role of testimony in museum practice
Zuzana Dziuban, Technical University Berlin; Miki Akutsu, Institute of Ars Vivendi and the Kinugasa Research Organization at Ritsumeikan University; Daniel Milne, Kyoto University; Emily Anderson, Independent.
Moderator: Ran Zwigenberg
3:45 p.m. | Break
4:00 p.m. | Panel 5: New Technologies and the End of the Era of the Living Witness
Daniel Kolb, Leibniz Supercomputing Centre; Fabian Heindl, LMU Munich; Maika Nakao, Hiroshima University; Rachel N. Baum, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee; Ariko Kato, Nagoya University of Foreign Studies.
Moderator: Stephen Naron
5:30 p.m. | Symposium Concludes
The symposium is presented by the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies and the Hiroshima Peace Institute at Hiroshima City University.
Fortunoff Archive
C/O Beinecke Library
344 Winchester Ave
Dock 7&8
RM C-193
New Haven, CT 06511
fortunoff.archive@yale.edu