“Examining the Hiroshima Maiden”

Washington University’s Edison Theatre OVATIONS! Series and Center for the Study of Ethics and Human Values will present a panel discussion titled “Examining the Hiroshima Maiden: Exploring the Historical, Cultural and Ethical Issues” from 7 to 9 p.m. Wednesday, April 20, in the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum’s Steinberg Auditorium.

The talk is held in conjunction with performances of Dan Hurlin’s play “Hiroshima Maiden,” which comes to Edison Theatre April 22 and 23. The play combines Japanese Bunraku-style puppetry and dance to tell the true-life story of 25 Japanese women who, disfigured by the nuclear blast at Hiroshima, visited the United States in 1955 to undergo reconstructive surgery.

Panelists include Barbara Baumgartner, Ph.D., associate director of the Women and Gender Studies Program in Arts & Sciences; Anna A. Kuang, M.D., assistant professor of surgery in the School of Medicine’s Department of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery; Rebecca Lester, Ph.D., assistant professor of Anthropology in Arts & Sciences; and Lori Watt, Ph.D., assistant professor of History in Arts & Sciences.

Also in attendance will be medical historian David Serlin, author of “Replaceable You: Engineering the Body in Postwar America” (2004). Serlin’s book includes a chapter about the Hiroshima Maidens and was a principal source for the play.

The Kemper Art Museum — part of the university’s Sam Fox School of Design and Visual Arts –is located in Steinberg Hall, near the intersection of Forsyth and Skinker boulevards. The discussion is free and open to the public and will be followed by a reception and viewing of the museum’s current exhibition, “Inside Out Loud: Women’s Health in Contemporary Art.” For more information, call 314-935-9358.

Both the discussion and the performances are funded in part by a grant from the Women’s Society of Washington University, the Regional Arts Commission, the Missouri Arts Council and the Heartland Arts Fund, a program of Mid-America Arts Alliance and the National Endowment for the Arts.