Thousands of Japanese people lived and died in Australia from the 1860s contributing to the nation's development often in close partnership with Australians. Their isolated places of repose as far spread as Broome, WA, Thursday Island, QLD, Mosman, NSW, and Williamstown, VIC, obscure multi-layered personal stories of love, enterprise and sacrifice often undertaken alongside Australian friends and partners. These individuals and groups were well-connected in a lively network across Australia and beyond into the Pacific and Japan. Although many of them rest in Australian soil, their legacy is still alive today.

PROFILE:
Dr Pam Oliver is an Adjunct Research Associate of the School of Philosophical, Historical and International Studies at Monash University and a professional historian. She has spoken, written and published widely on the Japanese in Australia. Her most recent book Raids on Australia:1942 and Japan's plans for Australia, Australian Scholarly Publishing (to be launched at this lecture) highlights the positive contribution of Japanese people to Australia and the friendship between Australians and Japanese to 1941 and beyond. It questions assumptions often made about the events of 1942. Her book Empty North: The Japanese presence and Australian reactions, 1860s–1942 (CDU Press 2006) won the Northern Territory Chief Minister's History Award for 2007.

Roger Pulvers will discuss his personal experience sharing the cultures of Australia and Japan. Born in America, Roger arrived in Australia in August 1972 and became an Australian in 1976 while living in Canberra and going to Japan often, trying to forge a career in theatre and literature in both places. In 1979, Roger became playwright-in-residence at Melbourne’s Playbox Theatre. Then in 1982, after working on the film Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence, he returned to Japan to write and direct. Today, cultural exchange is in full swing, with both countries aware of the need to foster cultural ties. But how much has really been accomplished? Are Japanese people really interested in Australia, and vice versa?

PROFILE:
Roger Pulvers is an author, playwright, theatre director and translator, who divides his time between Sydney and Tokyo. His publications include General Yamashita’s Treasure, The Honey and the Fires, and his autobiography, The Unmaking of an American. Born in the USA, Roger gained an MA at Harvard in 1965. For five years from 1967, he taught Russian and Polish in Kyoto, before moving to Australia to lecture in Japanese at ANU. Roger has directed at the Adelaide Festival of Arts and has worked with such actors as Kishida Kyoko, and Hashizume Isao. He was assistant director to Oshima Nagisa on Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence. Awards include the 2009 Teheran International Film Festival Best Script Prize for Ashita e no Yuigon and the 2008 Miyazawa Kenji Prize. Roger appears on the NHK television program Gift - E/meigen no Sekai.

Dr. Yuriko Yamanouchi, who completed a PhD in anthropology at the University of Sydney in 2008, will speak about Japanese migratory workers and their descendants in Northern Australia. From the 1870s to the 1960s, Broome and Thursday Island in particular experienced an influx of Japanese migratory workers for the pearl shell and sugar industries, as well as Japanese businessmen and merchants who saw business opportunities. Despite the immigration restrictions of the White Australia Policy and internment and deportation of Japanese during and after World War II, some stayed and married local indigenous people. Based on extensive interviews and archival research, Dr. Yamanouchi will outline the unique experiences of these people with Indigenous Australian-Japanese heritage.

PROFILE:
Dr. Yuriko Yamanouchi finished her PhD (Anthropology) at the University of Sydney in 2008. Her doctoral thesis was on Aboriginal peoples living in Sydney’s south western suburbs. She has taught at the School of Global Studies at Tama University in Japan in 2008 and 2009. She is currently a visiting researcher at Jumbunna Indigenous House of Learning at University of Technology Sydney, under the Endeavour Postdoctoral Fellowship. Her current research topic is the relationship between Japanese migrants and indigenous Australians in northern Australia from the nineteenth century to today. She is undertaking field research in Broome (WA), Thursday Island, and Wakayama Prefecture in Japan.