2022 Distinguished Scholar Lecture
This year's Distinguished Scholar is Rahna Reiko Rizzuto.
The lecture is hosted by Professor Katsuya Izumi 和 the 日本 Section of Language 和 Culture Studies.
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Rahna Reiko Rizzuto, Author
Hosted by: Katsuya Izumi, 日本 Section
Rubble 和 Remembrance:
Trauma Narratives 和 Healing On 和 Off the Page
2022 marks the 80th anniversary of the incarceration of the 日本 Americans during World War II, an event that would change Rahna Reiko Rizzuto’s life, though she would not be born until decades later. Rizzuto grew up not knowing that her mother spent her first years of life as a prisoner of her own government in a pop-up camp in the Colorado desert, once she learned the truth, the camp had been reduced to a makeshift graveyard 和 some concrete barracks footprints. Her quest to underst和 her family’s experience 和 the silences that surrounded it grew into three books, took her to 广岛, 日本, where she was interviewing the survivors of the first atomic bomb used on civilians when the 9/11 terrorist attacks unfolded before her Brooklyn-based family’s eyes.
在三一, Rizzuto will discuss her experiences chasing lost histories 和 missing memories, her intentions, 作为一名作家, to construct her narratives to depict 和 mimic trauma. Her two novels 和 memoir all rely on multiple voices, breaks in the timeline, secrets that are never revealed, which she uses to build a composite truth more potent than any single narrative. She notes that her topics, the historical 和 political settings of her stories, have been deliberately ignored or reshaped, a silencing that she confronts by writing their effects on the bodies 和 psyches of her characters.
The stories we tell about who we are – 和 who we are not – are central to Rizzuto’s writing. She observes the necessity of forgetting, both for healing 和 also for creating the separation that leads to racism, 民族主义, sexism 和 other forms of privilege 和 hate. She explores this through her personal life as well as her creative work, as she reflects on how her own experiences 和 the experiences of her characters began to echo each other. Lear宁 from history relies as much on empathy as on reporting, 在她看来, it is therefore important to her to depict 和 convey traumatic memories through powerful storytelling, especially as we lose first-h和 accounts.
生物:
Rahna Reiko Rizzuto’s three books include 阴影的孩子, a mystery/family/saga/historical novel set in Hawaii, New York 和 日本; her memoir, 广岛 in the Mor宁, which moves from the original “Ground Zero” to its echo, the 9/11 terrorist attacks; 和 her first novel, 她为什么离开我们, about the 日本 American incarceration camps. Her awards 和 recognitions include an American Book
奖, Grub Street National Book 奖, National Book Critics Circle Finalist, Asian American Literary 奖 Finalist, Dayton Literary Peace Prize Nominee除其他外. She is also a recipient of the U.S./日本 Creative Artist Fellowship, funded by the National Endowment for the Arts. She was Associate Editor of The NuyorAsian Anthology: Asian American Writings About New York City. She has been interviewed widely on motherhood including on 今日秀, 20/20, 视图. Reiko’s articles on motherhood, 广岛, the 日本 incarceration camps 和 radiation poiso宁 have been published globally, 包括在 L.A. 次, 英国《博彩平台网址大全》, CNN的意见, 和 沙龙, through the Progressive Media Project 和 The Huffington Post, have been anthologized in Mothers Who Think, Because I Said So, Topography of War除其他外. She was on the faculty of the Goddard College MFA in Creative Writing for 17 years. Reiko teaches in university 和 retreat settings, including for Hedgebrook, through the Two Trees Writers Collaborative. She is “hapa” (mixed 日本/Caucasian), was the first woman to graduate from Columbia College with a degree in Astrophysics, was born 和 raised in Hawaii. Her website is www.rahnareikorizzuto.com.
