書本章節:「起始與暫緩」（中文摘要）

Editors’ Note: This is a Chinese translation of a Teach 3.11 annotation. We invite volunteers to translate and/or contribute content in Korean, Japanese, and Chinese languages. Thank you.

編輯的話: 本文為本站已發表的英文摘要之中文翻譯，我們誠摯地邀請有志者協助我們翻譯或撰寫韓文，日文，或中文的摘要。謝謝。

書本章節:「起始與暫緩: 國民黨，科學，與科技」(Greene, 2008)

Greene, J. Megan. 2008. “Starts and Stops: The Kuomintang and Science and Technology.” The Origins of the Developmental State in Taiwan, 14-46. Harvard University Press.

對日本東亞鄰國的核能研究源起感興趣的學者來說，Greene的台灣科學政策史，清楚地解釋核能物理這個領域，在國民黨政府在台灣著手科學研究的過程中的特別角色。在她The Origins of the Developmental State in Taiwan 一書中，特別是「起始與暫緩」一章中，描述了二戰後的一、二十年內，國民黨政府有制度、系統性地在台灣推廣核能研究。這些五零年代和六零年代所建立的核能研究機構中訓練出來的研究者，在八零年代後於核能安全和環境安全的相關公共爭議中擔當要角。該章分析核能研究在台灣早先由國家系統性建置而成的原因和過程。

Greene追蹤從1927年到1958年，國民黨對科學教育和應用研究機構的提倡。1927年到1949年國民黨政府仍在中國時，不遺餘力地支持科學教育和研究，然而到了五零年代，這樣的支持嘎然止息。國民黨政府的決策改變受到許多因素影響。舉例來說，科學機構所需的研究經費對缺乏資源的政府而言是筆不少的支出。再者，若國民黨政府在台灣投資昂貴的研究設施，將意味著「對這個島嶼的永久或等同於永久的承諾」，這與國民黨反攻大陸的計畫相抵觸。

在此歷史脈絡下，Greene認為1950年代的國民黨政府，之所以願意建立數個數個原子能研究機構，是因為意識到這類研究應用在軍事用途的可能性。在43頁到45頁，她描述了台灣最早建立的三個原子能研究機構，及這些機構和美國政府單位和研究機構彼此間的關係。

第一個機構是原子能委員會（AEC），在台灣與美國1955年簽署和平使用原子能協定之後成立，隸屬行政院。第二個機構則是1957年設立於國立清華大學的核能研究所，校園內設置了泳池式反應爐，其中部分資金來自美國原子能委員會，此反應爐在1961年開始運作。第三個機構是中山科學研究院，由行政院原子能委員會成立的軍事單位，在六零年代開始著手核能研究。

Greene的文章剖析國民黨政府對核能研究的興趣，並指出國民黨政府對核能專家培育的投資，和1950年代時國民黨對其他科學的漠然態度形成強烈對比。這個章節很適合關注國家領導科學或是研究冷戰期間不同科學領域的不同角色的課程。

- By Honghong Tinn (鄭芳芳), with translation by Hsiao-Ling Chen (陳曉齡)

단행본: 지진국가 (2006)

Editors’ Note: This is a Korean translation of a Teach 3.11 annotation. We invite volunteers to translate and/or contribute content in Korean, Japanese, and Chinese languages. Thank you. (한국어, 일본어, 중국어로 기존의 내용을 번역하거나 새로운 내용을 기고할 자원활동가를 찾고 있습니다.)

Clancey, Gregory. 2006. Earthquake Nation: The Cultural Politics of Japanese Seismicity, 1868-1930. University of California Press.

Earthquake Nation 은 비교적 최근–1995년 고베, 2011년 토호쿠와 칸토 지방—에 일어난 “일본 지진활동도(Japanese seismicity)”를 이해하는 데 매우 중요한 역사적 배경을 제공한다. 미국 기술사학회 에서 시상하는 시드니 에델슈타인 상의 2007년 수상작이기도 한 이 책은, 일본의 역사에서도 특히 역동적인 기간 동안 일어난 지진학, 건축학, 공학, 문화, 정치, 그리고 살아있는 지구의 복잡한 상호 작용을 설득력 있게 보여주고 있다.

메이지 시대(1868-1912)는 일본 역사에서 열성적으로 “근대화”에 노력을 기울였던 시기로 종종 그려진다. 이 시기 지진활동도는 일본인들의 자연, 기술, 그리고 “서양”의 지식과 일본을 비롯한 아시아 지역의 지식의 차이에 대한 이해를 형성해 나가는 데 있어 어떤 역할을 하였는가? 또한, 지진활동도의 과학, 기술, 그리고 이의 물리적 경험은 국가 건설, “근대화,” 그리고 제국의 확장에 어떻게 영향을 끼쳤는가? 클랜시는 정보를 풍부하게 담고 있으면서도 이해하기 쉬운 이 책에서, 이와 같은 질문들을 다루고 잇다.

이 책에서 다루고 있는 대부분의 분석과 이야기는 1891년 나고야 부근을 강타한 규모 8.0가량으로 추산되는 노비 대지진에 관한 것이다. 이 지진으로 인해 7,000명 이상이 사망하고 140,000명이 집을 잃었다. 메이지 시대 일본에 혹독한 시련을 가져다 준 재앙이었다. 클랜시는 이 노비 대지진 이전부터 시작하여, 도쿄와 요코하마를 초토화시키고 142,000명 가량이 사망한 것으로 추산되는 규모 7.9의 1923년 칸토 대지진과 이에 따른 화재에 이르기까지 “일본 지진활동도의 문화 정치학”을 추적한다.

클랜시의 주장은 다면적이고 복잡하지만, 그 일부를 들여다 보면 이렇다. 메이지 시대의 과열된 “근대화” (“서양화”)의 열기 속에서, 서양의 벽돌과 석조 중심의 건축물은 근대 문명의 상징이라고 할 수 있는 강하고 영속적이며 남성적인 이미지를 획득한 반면, 일본의 목조 건축 구조는 한물간 전통의 상징적인 모습, 즉, 약하고 일시적이며 여성적인 모습으로 그려졌다. 그러나 노비 대지진으로 인해 유연한 목조 건물들보다 더 만신창이가 된 단단한 석조건물들은 이러한 관념을 송두리째 흔들어 놓았다. 비록 이 지역 풍경은 산산조각이 난 일본식 건축물과 서양식 건축물의 잔해로 엉망이 되었지만, 일본 기자들과 예술가들은 이 지진으로 인하여 명백하게 드러난 서양식 구조의 취약성과 전통 건축물의 상대적인 탄력성이 서로 대조되는 놀라운 현상에 대한 담론을 재구성 해 나갔다. 이는 이후 일본의 국가 건설 프로젝트(궁극적으로는 제국주의적 확장)를 주도하는 새로운 민족주의적인 담론의 재 부상을 불러왔다.

이 책에서 클랜시가 다루고 있는 노비 대지진에 관한 대부분의 내용은 50페이지 가량의 논문으로도 출판되었다.

Clancey, Gregory. 2006. “The Meiji Earthquake: Nature, Nation, and the Ambiguities of Catastrophe.”Modern Asian Studies 40:909-951. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3876638.

– YeonSil Kang

 

Article: 災害資本主義の発動 二度破壊された神戸から何を学ぶのか？

Tsukahara, Tōgo. 2011.「災害資本主義の発動 二度破壊された神戸から何を

学ぶのか？」現代思想 *(Gendai Shisō)* vol. 39-7: 202-211.

本論文はナオミ・クラインの「災害資本主義」という概念に依拠しつつ、3.11の復興に付随する「大規模な社会的再編」について歴史的脈絡に即して分析した論考である。筆者によると、1995年に発生した阪神淡路大震災で破壊された神戸の街は、「復興」の名目のもとで組織的に公共事業などによって再び破壊され、震災の後に起きた自然と災害をめぐる科学論争も経済と行政権力の論理によって蹂躙された。筆者は、このような大災害を契機とした「組織的収奪」を促進する「災害資本主義」が3.11後の日本でも発動され、「総力戦体制の構築が行われる」と警鐘を鳴らしている。

また、科学史的見地から3.11を鑑みると、今回の原発事故は「技術的帝国主義の役割分担であり、軍事技術をアメリカに、代替えである発電の技術を日本が担うかたちのポスト・スリーマイル体制の制度疲労が露呈したもの」であると同時に、「明治から続く十九世紀的な帝国主義システムにおける科学技術体制の問題点の噴出」であるという（207頁）。これらの歴史的経験を踏まえた復興の科学的思想の枠組みとして、筆者は専門家が決定的な権威を持つ従来の「ノーマル・サイエンス」を超えた民主知に基づいた「ポスト・ノーマル・サイエンス」という概念を提示している。

本論文は、科学史的観点から3.11を理解するうえで役立つ文献であるとともに、神戸の復興などの教訓から3.11からの復興のあり方について考えるうえでの一つの見地を提示している。近代以降の歴史的知識を要するので、大学生（もしくは大学院生）以上の教材として適切であろう。

– Yasuhito Abe

書: 《地震國度: 日本地震的文化政治1868-1930 》（中文摘要）

Editors’ Note: This is a Chinese translation of a Teach 3.11 annotation. We invite volunteers to translate and/or contribute content in Korean, Japanese, and Chinese languages. Thank you.

《地震國度: 日本地震的文化政治1868-1930 》

Clancey, Gregory. 2006. Earthquake Nation: The Cultural Politics of Japanese Seismicity, 1868-1930. University of California Press.

《地震國度》幫助我們理解近期日本神戶、東北地區與關東等地區頻繁的地震活動背後的歷史脈絡。《地震國度》榮獲科技史年會（Society for the History of Technology）2007年的Sidney Edelstein獎。此書流暢地闡述日本明治時代中，關於地震學、建築、工程學、文化、政治、土地之間複雜的交互影響。 現代化（modernization）是日本明治時代（1868-1912）的重要特色。在此時期，地震學如何形塑日本社會中諸如「自然」、「科技」、「西方知識」（相較於日本或其他亞洲知識）等概念？地震活動及其相關科學、科技與經驗如何影響了國家建造（state-building）、現代化與日本帝國的擴張？作者 Clancey利用豐富且平易近人的案例來說明這些問題。

強度高達8級的濃尾地震是本書中主要分析的歷史事件。這是於1891年在名古屋附近發生的地震，導致7千人死亡，14萬人無家可歸，對明治政府是個嚴峻的考驗。為了分析「日本地震活動的文化政治性」，作者Clancey從1891年的濃尾地震談起，然後延伸到1923年震度7.9級的關東地震及火災，該地震摧毀東京與橫濱的多數建築，並導致約14萬2千人死亡。

Clancey的論點包括幾個複雜的面向，其中最核心的論點是：在明治時期現代化/西化熱潮下，西式磚瓦、石造建築贏在堅硬、永存且陽剛（作為一種現代文明的象徵），但木製日式建築被形容為脆弱、暫時且陰柔（作為一種被淘汰的傳統的符號）。當濃尾地震毀壞這些堅固石造建築時，濃尾地震已動搖了上述的象徵體系；木造建築於是被當作是具有良好彈性的傳統文化的象徵。雖然當地各地皆是許多日式建築崩壞的遺跡，但日本記者跟藝術家仍然再製了一個新論述來說明日本建築比起西方建築更具有良好彈性。此新論述激發了新的本土文化保護、國族主義式的論述，而這樣的論述也為日本國家建造計畫（state-building）的支持者所接受，此國家建造計劃最終轉變成帝國主義。

對於想使用精簡版本的老師或學生而言，Clancey曾發表一篇50頁關於濃尾地震的文章: Clancey, Gregory. 2006. “The Meiji Earthquake: Nature, Nation, and the Ambiguities of Catastrophe.” Modern Asian Studies 40: 909-951. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3876638.

- Translation by Kuan-Hung Lo

CHAPTER: “Starts and Stops” (2008): Nuclear Energy Research Institutes in Taiwan

Greene, J. Megan. 2008. “Starts and Stops,” The Origins of the Developmental State in Taiwan, 14-46. Harvard University Press.

For those interested in the origins of nuclear energy research by Japan’s East Asian neighbors, Greene’s history of science policy in Taiwan elucidates the extraordinary role of nuclear physics in the early history of the Kuomintang government’s investment in scientific research. Her book, in particular the chapter “Starts and Stops,” describes the state’s institution-building efforts to promote nuclear energy research in the first two decades after WWII. Since the 1980s, researchers trained at Taiwan’s nuclear research institutes, established in the ’50s and ’60s, have played an important role in public debates about nuclear energy’s safety and environmental impacts. This book chapter analyzes why and how nuclear energy research was institutionalized by the state in the first place.

Greene traces the historical changes in the Kuomintang government’s promotion of “science education and applied research institutions” from 1927 to 1958. While the Kuomingtang government enthusiastically supported science education and research in China from 1927 to 1949, it ceased to do so when it settled in Taiwan in the ’50s. Many factors contributed to the government’s change of heart. For example, the required scientific facilities were particularly costly for a government that lacked resources. Moreover, investment in such expensive facilities, which “represented a permanent or semipermanent commitment to the island,” contradicted the Kuomingtang leadership’s plan of mainland recovery.

In this historical context, Greene attributes the Kuomingtang government’s willingness to establish several atomic energy research institutions in the 1950s to the potential military applications of such research. From pages 43 to 45, she describes the first three atomic energy research institutions in Taiwan and their relationships with United States government agencies and research institutes.

The first such institution was the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), created under the Executive Yuan (the equivalent of the Cabinet or the Council of Ministers) after the Taiwanese government signed an agreement with the U.S. on the peaceful use of atomic energy in 1955. The second institution was a graduate program in nuclear physics at National Tsing Hua University in 1957. A “swimming pool” reactor, partially funded by the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission in 1957, was installed at the university and started to function in 1961. The third institution was the Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology, a military unit established by the AEC, which participated in nuclear research in the 1960s.

Greene’s chapter contextualizes the Kuomingtang government’s interest in nuclear energy research, including its investment in nurturing generations of nuclear scientists, in contrast to its lukewarm attitude toward other sciences in the 1950s. This book chapter would be appropriate for classes interested in state-supported science as well as the various roles of different scientific disciplines during the Cold War.

– Honghong Tinn

FILM: A Is For Atom (1953)

Urbano, Carl, John Sutherland Productions. 1953. A is for Atom, YouTube video, 15 min, posted by “nuclearvault,” Jul 30, 2009, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gi-ItrJISQE

This animated short was sponsored by General Electric, one of the key U.S. manufacturers of electric appliances, power generation stations, and nuclear weapon components, in an effort to promote the peaceful use of nuclear energy. The film belongs to the genre of so-called “benevolent atom” films that were released during the 1950s as part of the “Atoms for Peace” campaign. A Is For Atom is an artifact of an era characterized by a strong narrative of belief in science and in technological progress. The potentially threatening nuclear technology is presented to the public in a “humanized” fashion, with elemental forces being depicted as humanoid figures such as Dr. Atom, who has an atom for a head. In a key sequence, the film introduces the five atomic “giants,” which “man has released from within the atom’s heart”: the warrior and destroyer, the farmer, the healer, the engineer and the research worker. Each of these giants is depicted as a majestic figure, towering over the earth, bringing progress and limitless growth to the world. The viewers are reassured that ”all are within man’s power and subject to his command,” that our future depends “on man’s wisdom, on his firmness in the use of that power.” –Christian Dimmer

Various versions of the film document can be downloaded at the Internet Archive or at the Open Video Project.

Note: This video may require you to open a new browser window.

FILM: A Is For Atom (1992)

Curtis, Adam. 1992. A is for Atom, Google video, 45:51 min, accessed Apr 24, 2011, from http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1860517361048002456

The British 45-minute documentary A Is For Atom was named after the 1953 animated short of the ‘Atoms for peace’ campaign with the same title. The final installment of a BBC-2 series about politics and science, called Pandora’s Box, the film tells the story of the development of peaceful nuclear technologies in the United States, Britain and Russia, and how political and business forces of the time contributed to these transformation. In order to make the production of nuclear power plants profitable, for example, private corporations like Westinghouse and General Electric pushed for the construction of bigger plants in order to utilize economies of scale. However, with growing reactor sizes, safe operation could no longer be fully guaranteed. The film shows that despite repeated warnings by senior scientists from the Atomic Energy Commission  and the industry itself, the corporations succeeded in avoiding costly changes to the plant design. In the Soviet Union, on the other hand, political pressure for a rapid electrification of the country coupled with an insufficient budget resulted in inferior reactor designs, which ultimately culminated in the Chernobyl disaster. One of the most unsettling scenes of the film unfurls as AEC scientists state as early as 1964 that “we have found in our present study nothing. . . which guarantees either that major reactor accidents will not occur or that protective safeguard systems will not fail. Should such accidents occur very large damages could result.”  What they refer to are evocative of the problematic design issues of the very type of nuclear reactor that would be used later in the Fukushima No.1 plant that came into operation in 1971.
– Christian Dimmer

A 10 minutes longer version of this documentary is available on the blog of director Adam Curtis

BOOK: Earthquake Nation: The Cultural Politics of Japanese Seismicity, 1868-1930. (2006)

Clancey, Gregory. 2006. Earthquake Nation: The Cultural Politics of Japanese Seismicity, 1868-1930. University of California Press.

Earthquake Nation provides crucial historical context for understanding more recent outbreaks of “Japanese seismicity” in Kobe (1995) and the Tōhoku and Kanto regions of Japan (2011). Recipient of the 2007 Sidney Edelstein Award from the Society for the History of Technology, this book eloquently lays out the complicated interactions among seismology, architecture, engineering, culture, politics, and the living earth itself during a particularly dynamic period in Japanese history.

The Meiji Period (1868-1912) has often been characterized as a time of febrile “modernization” in Japanese history. During this period, what role did seismicity play in shaping Japanese conceptions of nature, technology, and “Western” vs. Japanese or other Asian knowledges? How did seismicity – the science, the technology, and the physical experience of it – influence the projects of state-building, “modernization” and imperial expansion? These are some of the questions that Clancey addresses in this richly detailed and accessible study.

The historical event that propels much of the book’s analysis and narrative trajectory is the estimated 8.0 magnitude Great Nōbi Earthquake, which struck near Nagoya in 1891, killing over 7,000 people, leaving 140,000 homeless, and providing a stern test for the Meiji state. Clancey traces “the cultural politics of Japanese seismicity” from before this event all the way through the 7.9 magnitude Great Kanto Earthquake and subsequent fires of 1923, which devastated Tokyo and Yokohama and killed an estimated 142,000 people.

Clancey’s argument is multifaceted and complex, but part of it goes like this: During the feverish “modernization” (née “Westernization”) of the Meiji era, Western brick- and masonry-based architecture was championed as strong, eternal and masculine – an emblem of modern civilization – whereas wooden Japanese structures were portrayed as weak, temporal and feminine – symbols of obsolete tradition. The Great Nōbi Earthquake literally shook up these notions when it wrecked the rigid masonry buildings that often did not fare as well as the more flexible wooden buildings, at least among larger, more prominent, marquee structures. Although the landscape was littered with the remains of shattered native architecture as well as Western, Japanese journalists and artists reproduced a discourse on the remarkable phenomenon of the apparent brittleness of Western structures versus the perceived, relative resilience of native buildings. This gave rise to new nativist, nationalistic discourses that became taken up by the ongoing state-building (and eventually, imperialist) project in Japan.

For teachers or students who would like to use a shorter, pared-down version of Clancey’s book, he has also published a 50-page paper that tells much of this story of the Great Nōbi Earthquake:

Clancey, Gregory. 2006. “The Meiji Earthquake: Nature, Nation, and the Ambiguities of Catastrophe.” Modern Asian Studies 40:909-951. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3876638.

– Tyson Vaughan

Note: This appeared originally as a sample annotated citation for Teach 3/11. We welcome scholars and graduate students to participate in this project.

Educational Module: Understanding the International Nuclear Event Scale

by Angie Boyce
Ph.D. student, Cornell University, Department of Science & Technology Studies

Note: This week’s posting schedule starts with a sample educational module. We hope this may inspire and encourage fellow educators to design and share educational modules to help teach about 3/11. We’re posting at a minimum every weekday at 2:46 p.m. local time in Japan for the rest of April. Please stay tuned for new content, and thank you for participating.

When the Japanese government reclassified the triple disaster from 5 to 7 on the International Nuclear Event Scale (INES) on April 11, 2011, the disaster went from being classified as an “accident with wider consequences” to a “major accident.” Moreover, Fukushima was now placed in the same category as Chernobyl, a move that sparked multiple questions in media discourse: is Fukushima “really as bad” as Chernobyl? Did the Japanese government hide information from the public because it had initially rated the disaster lower on the scale?

Approaches from the social and historical studies of science and technology tend to ask different kinds of questions about things like the INES. Looking at current public discourse provides a useful starting point, and one such question that can be explored when starting to think about this reclassification critically is: How are different considerations of time and timing playing a role in shaping actors’ opinions on the reclassification?

In this module, have students read the New York Times article entitled, “Japan Raises Severity Level for Fukushima Nuclear Accident,” using the above question first as an initial probe, and second as a prompt to help raise their own questions. Teachers may wish to keep in mind some interesting things that may help guide class discussions: 1) the notion that the level 7 put out too early could cause “panic,” 2) that TEPCO is thinking about the “worst-case scenario,” and 3) that initially, the “margins of error” on computer models of the disaster were too big to justify decision-making. Students should also explore the INES webpage, raising questions about it as well. Thinking questions could include:

• Is the INES similar to the Richter scale or temperature, as the website states?
• Why is the INES user’s manual only available in English, Russian, and Spanish?
• Why doesn’t the INES web page discuss time and timing?

Many of these questions can only be addressed by contextualizing the INES and finding out more about its historical development. One such resource to investigate is a history of the organizational body that created the INES, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) written by an internal agency historian (see p. 212).

Some separate but related study questions may include: What kind of roles do internal agency historians play? How are public records created and preserved, and who may, should, or can access this information? Do all companies, organizations, or governments have historians, and why or why not?

Sources: 

Bradsher, Keith, Hiroko Tabuchi and Andrew Pollack. “Japan Raises Severity Level for Fukushima Nuclear Accident” (Alternate title: “Japanese Officials on Defensive as Nuclear Alert Level Rises”), New York Times, April 12, 2011, accessed April 14, 2011 and April 17, 2011,  www.nytimes.com/2011/04/13/world/asia/13japan.html

Fischer, David. 1997.  History of the International Atomic Energy Agency: The First Forty Years. International Atomic Energy Agency (Vienna: The Agency), accessed April 14, 2011, http://www-pub.iaea.org/mtcd/publications/pdf/pub1032_web.pdf

The International Atomic Energy Agency.International Atomic Energy Agency website, “International Nuclear Events Scale,” www-ns.iaea.org/tech-areas/emergency/ines.asp, accessed April 14, 2011.

BOOK: Beyond Local Science: The Evolution of Japanese Seismology During the Meiji and Taisho Eras (2007) [English]

Kim, Boumsoung 金凡性. 2007. Meiji · Taishō no Nihon no Jishingaku: “Rōkaru · Saiensu” o Koete. 明治・大正の日本の地震学―「ローカル・サイエンス」を超えて [Beyond Local Science: The Evolution of Japanese Seismology During the Meiji and Taisho Eras].  Tōkyō Daigaku Shuppankai. 東京大学出版会 [Tokyo University Press].

During Japan’s Meiji period (1868-1912), when Japanese science was trying to catch up to that of the West, Japanese seismology rose to global preeminence. How did Japanese seismology, particularly seismologist Fusakichi Ōmori, come to occupy this central position in the world? Furthermore, why did they eventually lose that position? These are the questions that Kim discusses with great dynamism.

Chapter outline:

*    Prologue: The histories of seismology and Japanese science
*    Chapter 1: The science of seismographs, the science of networks: seismic research by gaikokujin [foreigners]
*    Chapter 2: The science of prevention and protection: the changing face of Japanese seismology
*    Chapter 3: To observe the world: statistics, seismographs, and Fusakichi Ōmori
*    Chapter 4: The challenge of physics: the fall of Ōmori’s seismology
*    Epilogue: Beyond the historiography of “catching up”

–Takashi Nishiyama, with English translation by Tyson Vaughan

BOOK: Beyond Local Science: The Evolution of Japanese Seismology During the Meiji and Taisho Eras (2007) [Japanese]

Kim, Boumsoung 金凡性. 2007. Meiji · Taishō no Nihon no Jishingaku: “Rōkaru · Saiensu” o Koete. 明治・大正の日本の地震学―「ローカル・サイエンス」を超えて [Beyond Local Science: The Evolution of Japanese Seismology During the Meiji and Taisho Eras].  Tōkyō Daigaku Shuppankai. 東京大学出版会 [Tokyo University Press].

日本の科学全般が西欧に追いつこうとしていた明治時代、日本の地震学は世界のトップを走っていた。どのようにして日本の地震学が、あるいは地震学者・大森 房吉が世界において中心的な位置に立てたのか、そしてなぜその中心的な位置からはずれたのかをダイナミックに論じる。

序章 地震学と日本の科学史
第1章 地震計の科学、ネットワークの科学―外国人による地震研究
第2章 予防と防御の科学 ―「日本の地震学」への変容
第3章 世界を観測する ― 統計、地震計、そして大森房吉
第4章 物理学の挑戦―大森地震学の忘却
終章 「追いつき」のヒストリオグラフィーを超えて

–Takashi Nishiyama

Introduction

Teach 3/11 is a participatory resource to help teachers and scholars locate and share educational resources about the historical contexts of scientific and technical issues related to the triple earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear disasters in Japan.

• “What should I read?”
• “What should I teach?”
• “Who studies these issues?”

These represent a sample of the kinds of questions that have been directed at and among many Japan-watchers and analysts of science and technology since 3/11. As an independent initiative spurred by the hope of helping people find answers to such questions more quickly, Teach 3/11 is a participatory online project built in the spirit of international cooperation and solidarity that disaster recoveries depend upon, regardless where they occur. In partnership with the Forum for the History of Science in Asia, Teach 3/11 has a simple goal: to develop a list of teaching resources with the help of the the collective wisdom of scholars worldwide working at the intersections of history of science and technology and Asia.

Beginning on 14 April through the end of the month, we will make a post every weekday at 2:46 p.m. local time in Japan to remember the events that have since unfolded. We will also field the receipt of citation suggestions during our first phase of development through a self-imposed deadline of April 22nd in order to post the most relevant information about references, readings, and audio-visual materials to aid teachers interested in the most pertinent history of science and technology resources in the wake of 3/11 current events.  In our second phase of development, we will work on preparing contributed material for continued online postings, which will collectively result in an online teaching resource.

Beginning with materials in English, Japanese, Korean, and Chinese, our hope is to make Teach 3/11 as useful as possible for fellow educators everywhere. Here’s a sample of the kind of entries we’re aiming to compile. We’re also interested in compiling a list of study questions for students. Click here to get started.

Our lines of communication are open to the community. Contact teach3eleven [at] gmail [dot] com or @teach_311 to reach us. Bookmark and check teach311.wordpress.com as we make continual updates. As we increase our digital capacity, please stay tuned and help spread the word!

Thank you for participating in Teach 3/11.

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Banner image: A house floats intact in the Pacific Ocean, washed out to sea by the tsunami of March 11, 2011.  Credit: US Navy