'Self-inflicted gun-shot wound'

I am dedicating this column today to the late Iris Chang, who was found dead in her car on the 11th of November, off of a California freeway. The CNN obit is here. Most of your may know her from her controversial book 'The Rape of Nanking'.

Every story has a beginning, a middle, and an end. I believe I can safely say that I've reached the point in my life when I'm starting to see the endings. I met Iris in the fall of 1998 when a couple of undergrads and grad students at the University of Illinois were organizing a conference on Japanese war atrocities in WWII. Iris was to be the guest of honor, garnering a sizeable honorarium for a lecture at UIUC's Foellinger Auditorium. The lecture itself was well-attended, and enthusiastically applauded. Iris was full of fire and conviction, freely quoting facts from her book, and denouncing a historical coverup of massive proportions. In the end, she received a standing ovation.

The actual conference was a bit more contentious. A few professors were on hand to offer their own appraisal of her book, and the situation clearly did not favor Iris. The problems with Iris's book were significant, if not critical. Iris had relied on others' translations and interpretations for the most part, and her treatment of the Japanese people as a whole was scandalously close to demonization. Nevertheless, there was a whiff of academic jealousy behind the attacks, since her work had garnered far more media attention than any of those of her critics. History was defending its turf, so to speak, and Iris left feeling betrayed. I distinctly recall her complaining to Mark, the undergrad who headed the organizing body why they had invited her there if they were just going to criticize her.

My own feelings about her and her work were and still are ambivalent. She represented all that I thought was wrong with academics: she was a media darling, confident to a fault, and beautiful. To me, she seemed to be flash over substance, and that's why I appreciated her message, but worried over the way she conveyed it. If her arguments were too clumsy, wouldn't they just give ammunition to the war atrocity deniers on the other side?

I considered the 'story' of my encounter with Iris provisionally closed a few weeks later, when I received a card from the Chang family thanking me for my time and effort.

But now she's gone, and I strangely feel a sense of responsibility, at least for misjudging her demeanor, her air of stubbornness and invincibility. My conflicted feelings toward your work notwithstanding, Iris, but I will never forget you.