Melissa Anne-Marie Curley
\nOhio State University<\/p>\n
In November 1945, the United States military took over the use of Tokyo\u2019s Sugamo Prison in order to house those charged by the Allied Powers with war crimes. For close to three years, Hanayama Shinsh\u014d served as the prison\u2019s volunteer Buddhist chaplain, attending thirty-six executions. Hanayama did not protest the imposition of the death penalty but this essay argues that in his work as chaplain he nonetheless resisted the carceral logic shaping life and death inside Sugamo by mobilizing the ritual and narrative repertoire of Pure Land Buddhism. In Hanayama\u2019s framing, Sugamo was a site of liberation as well as confinement, affording the condemned a unique opportunity to reflect upon the past and commit themselves to a different future, even in death. As Hanayama tells it, the peace discovered by the dead was an absolute peace, transcending politics; he also insists, however, on a connection between this absolute peace and the ordinary peace that the living might hope to secure. The article concludes with a consideration of the political and ethical implications of Hanayama\u2019s reading of the dead as having \u201cfound peace\u201d in light of larger conversations about how best to remember\u2014or forget\u2014the nation\u2019s dark past, and what it means to share responsibility for crimes against humanity.<\/p>\n
Read article<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" ISSN 1076-9005 Volume 25, 2018 Prison and the Pure Land: A Buddhist Chaplain in Occupied Japan Melissa Anne-Marie Curley Ohio State University In November 1945, the United States military took over the use of Tokyo\u2019s Sugamo Prison in order to house those charged by the Allied Powers with war crimes. For close to three years, … Continue reading A Buddhist Chaplain in Occupied Japan<\/span>