Wilmington College is hosting an academic conference surrounding the 35th Westheimer Peace Symposium and the Peace Resource Center’s 50th anniversary observance. The two-day, academic conference, “Archives as Witness, Preserving History, Memory, and Art at the Wilmington College Peace Resource Center,” is planned for Sept. 30 and Oct. 1. The public is invited to participate free of charge.
The Peace Resource Center is observing the 50th anniversary of its founding at Wilmington College while recognizing five decades devoted to nuclear abolition through archival preservation, scholarship, awareness, activism and art. The Peace Resource Center is the only academic center and archives in the United States wholly dedicated to the human experience of nuclear war as informed by the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan.
“The observance continues with a two-day academic conference highlighting the multi-disciplinary historical materials, artistic creativity and scholarship from the extraordinary Barbara Reynolds Memorial Archives that can be used as resources for imagining a world in which nuclear and military violence are no longer viewed as solutions for resolving global conflict,” according to Dr. Tanya Maus, director of othe Peace Resource and Quaker Heritage centers at WC.
The conference includes nightly special events, keynote events and seven multi-disciplinary scholarly panel sessions regarding atomic histories, competing historical narratives during the Cold War era, nuclear legacies and voices of those impacted by nuclear weapons development, as well as nuclear abolitionist art and photography presented by distinguished academics and artists from around the globe.
WC President Corey Cockerill noted the significance of this component, especially designed for professionals in public history, archival collections and related history fields. “My hope is that the scholarly and artistic achievements represented in this conference and symposium will deepen our understanding of the Peace Resource Center Barbara Reynolds Memorial Archives and their potential to illuminate the human and environmental costs of nuclear weapons.”
On the first evening of the conference, Sept. 30, the special event Borrowed Landscape takes place at 7:30 p.m., at the Murphy Theatre in downtown Wilmington. It is written by tauchgold, with music composed by London-based composer Dai Fujikura and performed by actors and musicians from Cincinnati's concertnova collective.
“Borrowed Landscape is a play that beautifully tells stories about string instruments like a Hiroshima piano, a double bass from Poland and a surviving Stradivarius violin in Budapest,” Maus said. “The tales weave together our connection to music, history and how fragile life can be.” For this event, tickets are provided at no cost, and it is open seating. A discussion of the composition and performance will follow with the world-renowned composer, Fujikura.
(PICTURED) Lisa Yoneyama will examine the relationship between nuclear development, legacies of nuclear harm and the role of the archives in revealing histories of harm and hope.
Keynote events start on the morning of Sept. 30 with Witnessing and Photographing Atomic Bombing Suffers presented by Murasato Sakae, (virtual), Claude Baillargeon, Migiwa Orimo and Yoshiko Tanigawa, the latter three all in person. Murasato is a 91-year-old documentary photographer who photographed hibakusha (atomic bombing sufferers) in the 1950s in Nagasaki, Japan. In the afternoon, there will be a “Conference Keynote Dialogue” titled “Archives as Witness” by Bo Jacobs, professor emeritus at the Hiroshima Peace Institute and the Graduate School of Peace Studies of Hiroshima City University (in person) and Lisa Yoneyama, professor, Toronto University (virtual), that examines the relationship between nuclear development, legacies of nuclear harm and the role of the archives in revealing histories of harm and hope. The dialogue will be moderated by Norma Field, author and emeritus professor of East Asian Studies at the University of Chicago.
(PICTURED) Nate Hofer will pair his music on pedal steel guitar with photography of decommissioned missile sites,
Closing the conference on the evening of Oct. 1 will be a special event titled “Decommissioned,” a musical and photographic performance by artist Nate Hofer from 7 to 8:15 p.m., at Hugh Heiland Theatre in WC’s Boyd Cultural Arts Center. A member of the Atomic Photographers Guild, Hofer pairs his music on pedal steel guitar with photography of decommissioned missile sites, capturing the beauty of the emptiness and nature’s quiet return.
The conference is provided at no cost, but registration is required online. See the Peace Resource website for more information/to register at: https://library.wilmington.edu/prc-50cholarly Conference Complements Peace Symposium Programming