John Dower, Ford International Professor of History, will deliver the 36th annual Killian Award lecture at 4:30 p.m. Monday, April 7, in Kirsch Auditorium.
Winner of the 2007-2008 James R. Killian Jr. Faculty Achievement Award, Dower will speak on "Cultures of War: Pearl Harbor/Hiroshima/9-11/Iraq."
Dower is renowned for his expertise in modern Japanese history and U.S.-Japan relations. His book, "Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II," won the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction and the 1999 National Book Award for nonfiction, among many other awards.
Dower's MIT courses include the innovative "Visualizing Cultures," co-taught with Professor Shigeru Miyagawa of foreign languages and literature. Using web technology, they apply visual materials and other expressions of popular culture to the study of Japanese and U.S.-Asian history.
Established in 1971 as a tribute to MIT's 10th president, the Killian Award recognizes extraordinary professional accomplishment by an MIT faculty member. The winner delivers a lecture in the spring term.
A version of this article appeared in MIT Tech Talk on April 2, 2008 (download PDF).
