Environmental Justice, Activism, And Photojournalism: Lessons from Minamata for Today's Challenges
Center for East Asian Studies
Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures
Environmental Justice Working Group
Program in Writing and Rhetoric
Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center
450 Jane Stanford Way, Building 200, Stanford, CA 94305
034 (in the basement)
Come listen to Aileen Mioko Smith, a Stanford alum and renowned photojournalist and activist who co-authored the groundbreaking book Minamata: The Story of the Poisoning of a City, and of the People Who Choose to Carry the Burden of Courage (1975, with the late photojournalist Eugene Smith), which exposed the health and environmental damages from industrial mercury poisoning in Minamata, Japan. In 2015, celebrating her decades-long antinuclear activism and work with survivors of nuclear disasters (Three Mile Island, Fukushima), Ms. Magazine featured her as a “Wonder Woman” who has changed history. In 2020, the film Minamata portrayed her work with ex-husband Eugene Smith (played by Johnny Depp). Her talk will be followed by comments from Timothy George, Professor Emeritus of History, University of Rhode Island, and author of Minamata: Pollution and the Struggle for Democracy in Postwar Japan (2002).
Talk and discussion, followed by lunch