Kurahashi Yumiko's 1985 novel Amanonkoku Okanki (Record of a Round-Trip Journey to Amanonkoku) has been described as fantasy science fiction, feminist literature, political satire, and futurist picaresque. Whatever label one might pin on this novel, its thematic and structural emphasis on sexual adventures as an engine of storytelling is undisputable. The tale centers on the missionary P's journey to and from the land of men on earth to the land of women on Amanonkoku in the heavens, where his mission is to civilize and convert them to the monotheistic (monokami) belief system of men. By the end of the novel, however, the outer space travels of P turn out really to have been inner space travels in a woman's body; consequently, the imperialist plot to control Amanonkoku is revealed also to have been a bio-political plot about reproduction, sexuality, and gender difference.

Kurahashi's satire interrogates the politics of both feminism and anti-feminism even as it never lets the violence of presumptive male superiority off the hook. Professor Knighton will read Amanonkoku Okanki against the backdrop of Kurahashi's late-1960s Anpo and Beiheiren-era protests novel, Sumiyakist Q no Boken (The Adventures of Sumiyakist Q). In doing so, in today's historical moment of feminist backlash in Japan, American exceptionalism, and globalized military and religious war-mongering, Kurahashi's work takes on an almost prescient contemporary relevance.

Mary A. Knighton received her M.A. and Ph.D. in English (American Literature), as well as an M.A. in Japanese, at the University of California, Berkeley. Her research attends to global Modernism, the relationship between politics and aesthetics, and postwar Japanese literature, with a special interest in women writers and feminist theories of race, class and gender.

Film screening and panel discussion

About the speakers:

Coit D. Blacker (Opening Remarks)

Coit D. Blacker is the director of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, the Olivier Nomellini Family University Fellow in Undergraduate Education, an FSI Stanford senior fellow, and a professor of political science, by courtesy.

Professor Blacker is the author or editor of seven books and monographs, including Hostage to Revolution: Gorbachev and Soviet Security Policy, 1985-1991 (1993). During the first Clinton administration, Professor Blacker served as a special assistant to the president for National Security Affairs and senior director for Russian, Ukranian, and Eurasian Affairs at the National Security Council.

Blacker is a graduate of Occidental College (AB, Political Science) and the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy (MA, MALD, PhD).

Larry Diamond (Moderator)

Larry Diamond is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution; a Stanford professor of political science, and sociology by courtsey; and coordinator of the Democracy Program at the Center for Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL). A specialist on democratic development and regime change and U.S. foreign policy affecting democracy abroad, he is the founding co-editor of the Journal on Democracy.

During 2004, Diamond served as a senior adviser on governance to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq. He has written extensively on the factors that facilitate and obstruct democracy in developing countries and on problems of democracy, development, and corruption, particularly in Africa. He is the author of Squandered Victory:The American Occupation and the Bungled Effort to Bring Democracy to Iraq; Developing Democracy: Toward Consolidation; and Promoting Democracy in the 1990s.

He received a BA, MA, and PhD from Stanford University, all in Sociology.

Charles Ferguson (Film Director and Producer)

Charles Ferguson is founder and president of Representational Pictures, LLC, and director and producer of No End In Sight: The American Occupation of Iraq, which is his first film. Ferguson was originally trained as a political scientist. He holds a BA in mathematics from the University of California, Berkeley, and obtained a PhD in political science from MIT in 1989. Following his PhD, Ferguson conducted postdoctoral research at MIT while also consulting for the White House, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, the Department of Defense, and several U.S. and European high technology firms. From 1992-1994 Ferguson was an independent consultant, providing strategic consulting to the top managements of U.S. high technology firms including Apple, Xerox, Motorola, and Texas Instruments.

A senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, Ferguson is the author of three books on information technology. He is also co-founder of Vermeer Technologies, the developers of FrontPage.

Lieutenant Colonel Christopher Gibson (Panelist)

Lieutenant Colonel Christopher Gibson is a national security affairs fellow for 2006-2007 at the Hoover Institution. He comes to Hoover from the 82nd Airborne Division, U.S. Army, where he commanded the 2nd Battalion, 325th Airborne, an assignment that included two tours to Iraq in support of all three national elections there to date. Earlier in his career, Gibson fought in the Persian Gulf War, served in the NATO peace enforcement operation to Kosovo, taught American Politics at West Point, and served two liaison tours with the U.S. Congress. He holds several graduate degrees from Cornell University (MPA, MA, and PhD in government) and was the Distinguished Honor Graduate of the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College. Among his personal awards and decorations are three Bronze Star Medals, a Purple Heart, the Combat Infantryman's Badge with Star, and the Ranger Tab. He was recently selected for promotion to Colonel. His research at Hoover focuses on civil-military relations.

David M. Kennedy (Panelist)

Professor David M. Kennedy is the Donald J. McLachlan Professor of History at Stanford University. Reflecting his interdisciplinary training in American Studies, which combined the fields of history, literature, and economics, Professor Kennedy's scholarship is notable for its integration of economic and cultural analysis with social and political history. His 1970 book, Birth Control in America: The Career of Margaret Sanger, embraced the medical, legal, political, and religious dimensions of the subject and helped to pioneer the emerging field of women's history. Over Here: The First World War and American Society (1980) used the history of American involvement in World War I to analyze the American political system, economy, and culture in the early twentieth century. Freedom From Fear: The American People in Depression and War (1999) recounts the history of the United States in the two great crises of the Great Depression and World War II. In 2000, the book was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, the Francis Parkman Prize, the Ambassador's Prize, and the California Gold Medal for Literature.

About the film:

From the Sundance Film Festival - 2007 Documentary Competition:

"On May 1, 2003, President Bush declared an end to combat in Iraq. More than three years later, 3,000 American soldiers and an estimated 790,000 civilians are dead, and Iraq still burns. What happened? The first film to examine comprehensively how the Bush administration constructed the Iraq war and subsequent occupation, No End In Sight: The American Occupation of Iraq exposes a chain of critical errors, denial, and incompetence that has galvanized a violent quagmire.

Drawing on jaw-droppingly frank interviews with an impressive array of high-level government officials, military personnel, and journalists, many on the ground in 'postwar' Iraq, Charles Ferguson zeroes in on the months immediately before and after toppling Saddam. Despite intelligence strongly warning that transforming Iraq into a democracy would be long and brutal without careful planning, massive troops, and international support, Bush launched the invasion after only 60 days of preparation. Baghdad's infrastructure fell along with the city, leaving large-scale looting, lawlessness, and violent chaos in its wake. Installing neither police forces nor self-governing institutions at this crucial juncture, Rumsfeld's inexperienced team disbanded Iraq's military and intelligence, marginalizing 500,000 armed men--only one of a relentless stream of ill-advised moves that ignited resentment, fomented desperation, and fueled a still-raging Iraqi insurgency.

Ferguson's surgical analysis of the way the U.S. government sparked disaster in Iraq is riveting, information packed, and airtight. In his capable hands, the situation has never been so transparently clear, which makes it even more shocking and tragic."--Caroline Libresco

The 2007 Sundance Film Festival Documentary Jury presented a Special Jury Prize to No End In Sight "in recognition of the film as timely work that clearly illuminates the misguided policy decisions that have led to the catastrophic quagmire of the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq."

For more information about the film, please visit:

www.noendinsightmovie.com

This is a CDDRL's Special Seminar, co-sponsored with Shorenstein APARC.

Dr. Fu-Kuo Liu is currently a Visiting Fellow at Center for Northeast Asian Policy Studies, Foreign Policy Studies, Brookings Institution and is an Associate Research Fellow and Adjunct Associate Professor at National Chengchi University's Institute of International Relations. Additionally, he serves as the Executive Director of the National Committee of the Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia Pacific (CSCAP) Taiwan.

Previously, Dr. Liu was Chairman of the Research and Planning Board at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (2002-2004) and a Consultative Advisor for the Mainland Affairs Council (2004-2006). He has taught at the Chinese Culture University and National Chung Shing University. He was a Visiting Fellow at Aoyama Gakuin University in Tokyo and Georgetown University. His research mainly covers Taiwan security and foreign policy, regional security, and the cross-strait development. He received a Ph.D. in Politics from the University of Hull in the United Kingdom in 1995.

Taking advantage of a wide-open border, traders are shipping everything from rice and oranges to porn flicks and South Korean soap operas into North Korea from China. This trade - and the human traffic back and forth - is transforming economic life in the North, changing mindsets and eroding support for the Dear Leader and his Spartan "Juche" philosophy. So what does this mean for the "sanctions vs regime change" debate?

Donald Macintyre is a 2006-2007 Pantech fellow at Shorenstein APARC, Stanford University. He is writing a book on how life in North Korea is changing at the grassroots level and what these changes mean for the international community's approach to Pyongyang. Macintyre was Time magazine's Seoul bureau chief from 2001-2006, covering politics, economics and culture in North and South Korea. He has traveled to North Korea six times and made numerous trips to China's border with the North to interview defectors, refugees and traders. He has also worked as a journalist in Tokyo and Rome and served as a senior advisor to the International Crisis Group's Northeast Asia office on North Korean issues.