(Posted October 15, 2007)

HUNTINGDON, Pa. -- Eric Freed, a Japanese linguist and lecturer in religious studies at Humboldt State University in Arcata, Calif., will tell the story of a Hiroshima survivor who dealt with the grief and memories of her experience by writing a series of haiku poems in a lecture at 7:30 p.m., Monday, Oct. 29 in Neff Lecture Hall in the von Liebig Center for Science.
The lecture is free and open to the public. The lecture is sponsored by Juniata's Center for International Education, and the departments of politics and peace and conflict studies.
Freed has written an account of the experiences of Hiroko Takanashi, who was 15 years old when the Enola Gay dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima at the end of World War II. Freed also translated a series of haiku poems about the Hiroshima experience written by Mrs. Takanashi and provided commentary on the literary quality of the poems.
During the lecture, Freed will detail Mrs. Takanashi's life story, and relate the Japanese perspective on the atomic bombings at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
He also will read and comment of several haiku poems, including the following:
On the memorial stones
the names of a young girls
tears of the moon
Freed taught high school in Japan for 22 years. He has taught Japanese at Sonoma State University, in Sonoma, Calif. He earned a master's degree in linguistics from Jochi University in Tokyo, Japan, and went on to earn a master's degree in theology from Salesian Pontifical University in Rome, Italy.

Contact April Feagley at feaglea@juniata.edu or (814) 641-3131 for more information.