EP #381 - 11.23.2021 - COVID in Japan w/Kyle Cleveland

Today I welcome sociologist Kyle Cleveland from Temple University Japan, co-editor of Legacies of Fukushima: 3.11 in Context.

Kyle Cleveland is Associate Professor of Sociology at Temple University’s Japan Campus (TUJ), where he is Faculty Director of Study Abroad and Honors Programming.   He is the founding director of the university's Institute of Contemporary Asian Studies (ICAS), which organizes cross-disciplinary programming for public lectures and academic symposia, including a series of lectures and symposia related the 3/11 Tohoku disasters.  Since 2011, he has done extensive ethnographic fieldwork in Fukushima, interviewing nuclear refugees, prefectural mayors, military officials, anti-nuclear activists and nuclear industry experts. He is writing a book on the political dimensions of radiation assessment in the Fukushima nuclear crisis, examining how foreign governments in Japan responded to the crisis. He is co-editor (with Scott Knowles and Ryuma Shineha of the book “Legacies of Fukushima: 3/11 in Context,” published by University of Pennsylvania Press (forthcoming in May of 2021).