The Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center is currently in the midst of a three-year research project, “Divided Memories and Reconciliation.” Divided Memories is a comparative study of the formation of elite and popular historical consciousness of the Sino-Japanese War and Pacific War periods in China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan and the United States with the aim of promoting understanding and reconciliation. The first phase, which has been completed, is a comparative study of high school history textbooks from all five nations, focusing on the way the textbooks treat the wars and their aftermath. The second phase focuses on the impact of popular culture, especially films, on the formation of public memory.
 
The main goal of this international conference is to examine the role of dramatic cinema in shaping popular and elite perceptions of the historical period from 1931-1951, ranging from the treatment of Japanese colonialism to the post-war settlement and the beginnings of the Korean War. Panelists will survey the cinemas of Japan, China, Korea and the United States, identifying important films made during the post-war period and their impact on war memory. The conference will then focus on key issues of the wartime period as they are represented in film, including the Nanjing Massacre, nationalism in Japan, the colonial experience in Korea and the Korean war. Finally, we will examine other forms of popular culture, including manga and anime.
 
This conference is aimed at promoting public discussion crossing national borders and disciplinary boundaries – and producing an edited volume for publication. It will be preceded by a film series, featuring significant films on this wartime period from China, Japan, South Korea and the United States. The series will conclude on the evening of December 4, preceding the opening of the conference, with a showing and discussion of Letters from Iwo Jima with director Clint Eastwood.

Dong-Young Chung, a former South Korean unification minister and ruling party leader, believes that the Korean Peninsula’s geopolitical location among China, Japan, Russia, and the United States offers major opportunities to the international community. If the legacy of Korean national division caused by the Cold War is overcome, the Korean Peninsula can lend impetus to a "fourth wave" of regional and global cooperation. Minister Chung will review his own extensive talks with North Korean leader Kim Jong Il and discuss the essential role played by the embattled Gaeseong Industrial Complex in reconciling the two Koreas. He will also offer recommendations as to how the incoming U.S. administration can best deal with North Korea.

Dong-Young Chung, currently a visiting scholar at Duke University, is a leading South Korean politician. He was unification minister from 2004 to 2005. A former two-term member of the National Assembly, he served as chairman of the ruling party and ran unsuccessfully for the country’s presidency in 2007. Mr. Chung has a bachelor's degree in Korean History from Seoul National University and a master’s degree from the University of Wales. He began his career as a TV journalist.

Secondhand smoke (SHS) is a known cause of cancer, heart disease, respiratory disease, and other ailments. However, these diseases have a multiplicity of causes. Defendants claim SHS exposures are "low" and other sources created the illness. Plaintiffs claim "high" exposures to SHS caused their disease. In the world of toxic torts litigation involving allegations of injury from secondhand smoke, how does the expert witness use multidisciplinary science and technology in the investigation and establishment of facts and evidence in a court of law? Cases have been brought on behalf of railroad conductors, casino dealers, flight attendants, laborers, nurses, barbers, bartenders, prisoners, office workers, and even condo owners. How have they fared in high stakes litigation, and what does it take to prove a case?

James Repace, MSc., is a biophysicist and an international secondhand smoke consultant who has published 83 scientific papers, 70 of which concern the hazard, exposure, dose, risk, and control of secondhand smoke. He has received numerous national honours, including the Flight Attendant Medical Research Institute Distinguished Professor Award, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Innovator Award, the Surgeon General's Medallion, and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Public Health Association. He holds an appointment as a Visiting Assistant Clinical Professor at the Tufts University School of Medicine, and is a consultant to Stanford doing research on secondhand smoke in casinos. He is a former senior policy analyst and scientist with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, serving on both the Air Policy and Indoor Air Staffs, Office of Air and Radiation, and in the Exposure Analysis Division, Office of Research and Development. He served as a consultant to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, U.S. Department of Labor, on its proposed rule to regulate secondhand smoke and indoor air quality. He was also a research physicist at the Naval Research Laboratory in the Ocean Sciences and Electronics Divisions. His degrees are from the Polytechnic University of New York; he has also pursued post-masters' studies at the Catholic University of America in Washington DC.