Why and how did the U.S. Navy’s War Crimes Tribunals Program, the first court of its kind to prosecute Class B war criminals in the military colony of Guam, transform the NanyÅ or the “Japanese Pacific” into an American saltwater state? By drawing from Giorgio Agamben’s political philosophy, Professor Camacho will discuss how the intertwined objectives of racialized punishment and territorial possession— two topics that seldom receive treatment in U.S. legal studies of the Pacific and of Agamben’s theories more generally—animated the tribunal’s hegemony in Guam and the Pacific during World War II. Keith L. Camacho is Associate Professor of Asian American Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. He is the senior editor of Amerasia Journal, the author of Cultures of Commemoration: The Politics of War, Memory, and History in the Mariana Islands (2011), and the co-editor of Militarized Currents: Toward a Decolonized Future in Asia and the Pacific (2010).
This event is co-presented by Scripps College Core Curriculum in Interdisciplinary Studies, Office of Public Events and Community Programs, Department of Spanish, Latin American, and Caribbean Literatures and Cultures, Department of History, Intercollegiate Feminist Center for Research, Teaching, and Engagement, and the Scripps Communities Of Resources & Empowerment (SCORE).