Making ‘1968’ in Japan: The Political Alchemy of Violence

Lecture Information:
1968 became an iconic year as protestors took to the streets in country after country. But what brought about this mass politicization and participation? Through a microhistorical analysis, Prof. Marotti examines the process as it unfolded in Japan between late 1967 and early 1968, bringing into vivid relief the specificities of local engagement in a global moment.

Press coverage of violent protest incidents, argues Prof. Marotti, provided a medium and occasion for transforming public perceptions of the legitimacy of state force and of political protest itself. Attracted initially by the commercial potential of small, spectacular protestor-police confrontations, coverage slowly came to recognize purpose, reason, and humanity on the side of the opposition. Caught up in police attacks, citizen onlookers, as well as photographers and journalists, became surrogates for imagining a citizenry under direct assault.

Even as protesters underwent a transformation from “animals” to “victims” and even “heroes” in the imagery surrounding such confrontations, Prof. Marotti recounts, the state’s response came to be recognized itself as (illegitimate) violence (bôryoku). In turn, protest itself acquired value as legitimate political activity, indeed, as a voice for a range of concerns from a broadening constituency. In the wake of this transformation, a diminution of state force coupled with an expansion of political subjectivation to enable the explosion of oppositional activity characterizing Japan in 1968.

Lecturer Information:
William Marotti is Associate Professor of modern Japanese history at the University of California, Los Angeles. His forthcoming book, Money, Trains, and Guillotines: Art and Revolution in 1960s Japan (Duke University Press), examines the politics of culture and everyday life in Japan during the 1960s.