Ante-victimhood of Atomic Bombing: Inter-imperiality and Gender in Jackie Copleton’s A Dictionary of Mutual Understanding

This article proposes the notion of “ante-victimhood” to challenge atomic bomb victimhood, whose emotional appeal tends to obscure its larger contexts. Ante-victimhood denotes the sociopolitical contexts, adapting David Kazanjian’s words, “before, against, [and] alongside” victimhood. To substantiate the concept, this study examines how Jackie Copleton’s A Dictionary of Mutual Understanding (2015), heretofore underexamined, portrays the ambivalent atomic bomb victimhood of Amaterasu Takahashi. Such ambivalence arises from struggles with her preceding complicity with Japanese imperialism, which draw out the contrasting victimhood of peoples subjugated by Japan and the co-existing oppression of Japanese women by Japan’s patriarchy. The dynamics of ante-victimhood provide a wider context to understand Amaterasu’s victimhood, which is arguably rendered precarious in her manoeuvre between the Japanese Empire’s militarism and the United States Empire’s nuclear hegemony. Through Laura Doyle’s inter-imperiality, this article demonstrates the tense subjectivity of individuals caught between imperial forces, revealing how inter-imperial rivalries shape personal lives.