HIS 272H,
CULTURAL INTERACTIONS: JAPAN

As one way of initiating our course of study, please read the following articles and view the video excerpt, reacting to the insights or questions they prompt as the initial entry in your journal. (Some suggested avenues to consider in this assessment can be found in the questions attached to the assignment below.)

One intention of this assignment is to provide some sense of the issue of “cultural interactions” as a subject of cutting edge intellectual inquiry and contemporary widespread public interest. It also serves as the opening assignment in a set of entries that together make up Journal Assignment One (as more fully detailed, outlined and explained here).

The assigned materials below should also provoke questions you would like to see answered or topics you would be interested in pursuing further; the exercise, then, should enhance your own willingness to involve yourself and invest your time and energy in the course of study ahead.

Please read / view and react to following articles / video:

• Kitakura Motoko on "'Japan' as a Multi-Cultural Society: In the Era of Cultural Mobility" from Nichibunken Newsletter, no. 60 (November 2005), pages 2 - 3.
• Tadahiro Ohkoshi's article, "Reevaluating Japanese Culture", a short article on the new Kyushu National Museum from Asia Pacific Perspectives: Japan+ (January 2006, Volume 3, Number 9), pages 4 - 5.
• Ian McMullen on "The Worship of Confucius in Tokugawa Japan" from Nichibunken Newsletter, no. 60 (November 2005), pages 3 - 4.
• Jesse Green, "Broadway's Fondest, Furthest Fan Comes Home", New York Times (November 28, 2004), an article on the Japanese director Amon Miyamoto and the Broadway revival of Steven Sondheim's “Pacific Overtures”.
• Mayumi Nakamura's article, "Doraemon Charms the World", a brief article from Asia Pacific Perspectives: Japan+ (December 2005, Volume 3, Number 8), pages 2 - 3.
• An interview from Asia Pacific Perspectives: Japan+ (December 2005, Volume 3, Number 8), pages 36 - 39, with Yoshikazu Takaya, a professor at Seisen University in Japan, on Multiple Civilizations.
• Thomas Friedman's video lecture at MIT (May 16, 2005) on his latest book, The World Is Flat, available as part of the MITOpenCourseware project (first 18 minutes).

QUESTIONS FOR CONTEMPLATION: Which of our three themes under consideration in the course does each reading / video speak to? What questions or areas of interest does each raise for you personally relative to our topics of inquiry in this course?

According to the accounts by Kiyakura and McMullen and in the article on the new Kyushu National Museum, how does it appear that Japan has been affected by past “cultural interactions” with other parts of East Asia and the West?

Based on insights gained from the articles on Amon Miyamoto and Doraemon, discuss ways in which contemporary cultures interact with one another and affect both the culture and the lives of individuals, East and West.

What connections, if any, do you see between Takaya’s notions of multiple civilizations and Friedman’s “flat earth”? Are these concepts opposed to one another or complementary? How do these differing views reflect issues we might think of as important in an inquiry into contemporary “cultural interactions”?