HIS 272H,
CULTURAL INTERACTIONS: JAPAN

The following is a preliminary listing of the assignment schedule for the semester; it incorporates due dates for journal assignments, short essays and a variety of oral presentations plus a listing of required and suggested reading assignments for the term. More detailed informataion will be posted to the web site over the coming days.

AN INTRODUCTION TO THE COURSE

Thursday, January 17, 2008:

INSTRUCTIONAL AND LEARNING STYLE PREFERENCE QUESTIONNAIRE

Tuesday, January 22, 2008:

READING ASSIGNMENT / INITIATING JOURNAL ASSIGNMENT ONE

THE IMPACT OF CHINESE AND KOREAN INFLUENCES ON THE FORMATION OF TRADITIONAL JAPANESE CULTURE AND CIVILIZATION

Thursday, January 24, 2008:

AN INTRODUCTION TO JAPAN ASSIGNMENT DUE
EVALUATION CONTRACT DUE
JOURNAL ASSIGNMENT ONE DUE

SUGGESTED READING::

Varley, H. Paul. Japanese Culture. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press (4th edition), 2000.*

Tuesday, January 29, 2008:

THE NATIVE TRADITION ASSIGNMENT DUE

SUGGESTED READING:

Benn, Charles, editor. China's Golden Age: Everyday Life in the Tang Dynasty. Oxford University Press USA, 2004.

Jungmann, Burglind. Painters as Envoys : Korean Inspiration in Eighteenth-Century Japanese Nanga. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004.

Tuesday, February 5, 2008:

THE RULE OF TASTE ASSIGNMENT DUE

Thursday, February 7, 2008:

THE WAY OF THE WARRIOR ASSIGNMENT DUE

WESTERN INFLUENCES AT WORK IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY TRANSFORMATION OF JAPANESE CIVILIZATION AND CULTURE

Tuesday, February 12, 2008:

JOURNAL ASSIGNMENT TWO DUE
RESEARCH ESSAY ONE DUE

Thursday, February 14, 2008:

SUGGESTED WEB RESOURCE

BLACK SHIPS AND SAMURAI: COMMODORE PERRY AND THE OPENING OF JAPAN (1853 - 1854).

Tuesday, February 19, 2008:

SUGGESTED READING:

Sansom, George. The Western World and Japan, a Study in the Interaction of European and Asiatic Cultures. New York: Random House, 1949.

Thursday, February 28, 2008:

SHORT ORAL PRESENTATIONS DUE

JAPONISME IN THE WEST AS AN EXPRESSION OF ORIENTALISM

Tuesday, March 4, 2008:

JOURNAL ASSIGNMENT THREE DUE
RESEARCH ESSAY TWO DUE

Tuesday, March 18, 2008:

GROUP DISCUSSION ONE
BOOK ESSAY ONE DUE

REQUIRED READING:

Downer. Lesley. Madame Sadayakko: The Geisha Who Bewitched the West. New York: Gothan Books, 2004.*

Tuesday, March 25, 2008:

PANEL PRESENTATIONS ONE

THE JAPANESE IMPERIALIST QUEST FOR EMPIRE AND ITS AFTERMATH -- THE OCCUPATION YEARS (1945 – 1952) -- AS OPPOSING INSTANCES OF WESTERN INFLUENCES AT WORK IN MODERN JAPANESE HISTORY

Thursday, March 27, 2008:

JOURNAL ASSIGNMENT FOUR DUE
RESEARCH ESSAY THREE DUE

Tuesday, April 1, 2008:

PANEL PRESENTATION TWO

RETHINKING ORIENTALISM AFTER WORLD WAR TWO IN THE UNITED STATES

Tuesday, April 8, 2008:

JOURNAL ASSIGNMENT FIVE DUE
GROUP DISCUSSION TWO
JOURNAL ASSIGNMENT SIX DUE

REQUIRED READING:

Klein, Christina. Cold War Orientalism: Asia in the Middlebrow Imagination, 1945 – 1961. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003.*

THE “SOFT POWER” INFLUENCE OF CONTEMPORARY JAPANESE POPULAR CULTURE ON THE WORLD SCENE: RECONCILING THE UNIQUE AND THE GLOBAL

Thursday, April 10, 2008:

REQUIRED READING:

Nye, Joseph. Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics. New York: Public Affairs, 2004.*

SUGGESTED READING:

Craig, Timothy. Japan Pop!: Inside the World of Japanese Popular Culture. New York: M.E.Sharpe, 2000.

Iwabuchi Koichi. Recentering Globalization: Popular Culture and Japanese Transnationalism. Duke University Press, 2002.

Martinez, Dolores (editor). The Worlds of Japanese Popular Culture : Gender, Shifting Boundaries and Global Cultures (Contemporary Japanese Society). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.

Tuesday, April 22, 2008:

SMALL GROUP DISCUSSION

Thursday, April 24, 2008:

BOOK ESSAY TWO DUE