Title:

Victimhood Nationalism in the Transpacific Space

Summary: 

‘Victimhood nationalism’ is a working hypothesis to explicate competing national memories over the historical position of victims in coming to terms with the pasts. Once put into the dichotomy of victimizers and victims in national terms, the victimhood becomes hereditary and thus consolidates the national solidarity beyond generations. Without a reflection on the victimhood nationalism, the postwar Vergangenheitsbewältigung cannot be properly grasped. Victimhood nationalism is intrinsically transnational since victims are unthinkable without victimizers. The trans-nationality of victimhood nationalism demands a histoire croisée to comprehend the entangled past of the victimized and victimizers. A transnational history of ‘coming to terms with past’ would show that the vicious circle of victimhood nationalisms, based on the antagonistic complicity of nationalisms between the victimizers and victims, has been a rock to any historical reconciliation effort. Focused on East Asia as a transpacific space, I will try a survey of the reciprocal transfer and transnational interconnectedness of the victimhood consciousness in realm of the pubic memory in this region.  

Short Biography:

Jie-Hyun Lim is professor of history and the director of the Research Institute of Comparative History and Culture at Hanyang University in Seoul, South Korea. He has held visiting appointments in Cracow, Warsaw, Cardiff, Kyoto, Paris, Cambridge MA and currently a fellow at the Wissenschaftskolleg in Berlin. He wrote numerous books and articles on comparative histories of nationalist movements, the socio-cultural history of Marxism in East Asia and Eastern Europe, and issues of memory, colonialism and dictatorship in East Asia. He is the series editor of the ‘mass dictatorship in the 20^th century’ (5 volumes) by the Palgrave/Macmillan. His most recent subject is a transnational history of 'victimhood nationalism' covering post WWII Korea, Japan, Poland, Israel and Germany. He serves the assessor of the CISH and international committee of the ITH. 

Date and Time: On 6 June 2012 at 6 pm

Location: Institute of Korean Studies at FU Berlin (Fabeckstraße 7, 14195 Berlin), Room 5