For several years now, Professor Mark Williams has been engaged in a research project examining a series of artistic representations of the Asia-Pacific War experience in a variety of Japanese media. He has recently completed an edited volume with David Stahl (Binghamton, SUNY) entitled Imag(in)ing the War in Japan: Representing and Responding to Trauma in Post-war Japanese Literature and Film.

The book includes discussions of representations of the trauma of war from such sources as the literary texts of Mishima Yukio, Ōe Kenzaburō, Murakami Haruki, Shiina Rinzō, Ibuse Masuji, Okuizumi Hikaru, Ōta Yōko and the Okinawan writer, Medoruma Shun. In addition, poetry by Tōge Sankichi and Kurihara Sadako, and films such as Grave of the Fireflies, Battle Royale, Space Battleship Yamato and Mobile Suit Gundam, as well as the documentary photographs of Nagasaki by Yamahata Yōsuke. Premised on Walter Davis' assertion that traumatic events and experiences must be 'constituted' before they can be assimilated, integrated and understood, the book argues that the contribution of the arts to the constitution, integration and comprehension of traumatic historical events has yet to be sufficiently acknowledged or articulated.

To this end, the edited book by Professor Williams examines how various Japanese authors and other artists have drawn upon their imaginative powers to create affect-charged forms and images of the extreme violence, psychological damage and ideological contradiction surrounding the conflict. In so doing, they seek to unravel the process whereby reading and viewing audiences are encouraged to virtually engage, internalize, 'know' and respond to trauma in concrete, human terms.