Lectures on Tap - "Godzilla: Japan, Trauma, and the Unkillable Monster"

📍 Location: Exact address given in confirmation email

🧠 Lecture: "Godzilla: Japan, Trauma, and the Unkillable Monster"

🎤 Speaker: Dr. Jason Abbott

Born in the shadow of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Godzilla has spent seventy years doing something Japanese society has struggled to do for itself—staring catastrophe in the face. Why does a radioactive monster keep returning whenever Japan confronts crisis? What can a towering cinematic creature tell us about national trauma, memory, and the stories we tell to survive the unthinkable?

In this talk, Dr. Jason Abbott examines Godzilla as a cultural mirror for Japan’s postwar anxieties, nuclear fears, and unresolved historical wounds. Moving across decades of films and political turning points, he explores how some wounds never quite heal—they only mutate.

Jason Abbott is Professor of Political Science and International Relations at Montclair State University. His work focuses on censorship, digital authoritarianism, and memory politics in Asia. Raised in the north of England, he reads too much history, walks long miles with his border collie Baxter, and has never quite lost his fascination with science fiction—especially monsters, starships, and time travel.

Get a drink, connect, and learn at Lectures on Tap! 🙌

Agenda

6:30 PM – Doors open: find a seat (open seating!), order food & drinks, and expect a bar line—arriving early is key.

6:55 PM – Host introduction

7:00 PM – Lecture begins

7:45 PM – Audience Q&A

8:00 PM – Have 1:1 time with the speaker, mingle with fellow guests, and order another round

8:30 PM – Wrap up.

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