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

FRIDAY, JANUARY 20, 2006:
INSTRUCTIONAL AND LEARNING STYLE PREFERENCE QUESTIONNAIRE

MONDAY, JANUARY 23, 2006:
READING ASSIGNMENT / INITIATING JOURNAL ASSIGNMENT ONE

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

SUGGESTED READING::

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

Monday, January 30, 2006:
CULTURAL INTERACTIONS: PREHISTORIC JAPAN

AN INTRODUCTION TO JAPAN ASSIGNMENT DUE

Wednesday, February 1, 2006:
FAMILIAL JAPAN AND THE NATIVE TRADITION

EVALUATION CONTRACT DUE
JOURNAL ASSIGNMENT ONE DUE

Friday, February 3, 2006:
CHINESE CULTURAL DEVELOPMENTS BEFORE THE TANG DYNASTY

THE NATIVE TRADITION ASSIGNMENT DUE

Monday, February 6, 2006:
TANG DYNASTY CHINA

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.

Monday, February 13, 2006:
ARISTOCRATIC JAPAN AND THE RULE OF TASTE II

THE RULE OF TASTE ASSIGNMENT DUE

Wednesday, February 15, 2006:  
MILITARY ARISTOCRATIC JAPAN AND THE WAY OF THE WARRIOR

THE WAY OF THE WARRIOR ASSIGNMENT DUE

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

Wednesday, February 22, 2006: 
THE STATE OF AFFAIRS IN MID-NINETEENTH CENTURY JAPAN

JOURNAL ASSIGNMENT TWO DUE
RESEARCH ESSAY ONE DUE

Monday, February 27, 2006: 
OPENING JAPAN TO WESTERNIZATION

BLACK SHIPS AND SAMURAI: COMMODORE PERRY AND THE OPENING OF JAPAN (1853 - 1854) is an Internet-based product of the MIT OpenCourseWare project which aims to "make all MIT course materials available on the Web, free of charge, to any user anywhere in the world. The OCW initiative continues a tradition of open dissemination of educational materials and modes of thought, leading to fundamental changes in the way universities utilize the Web for education." The online exhibit, the work of Professors John Dower and Shigeru Miyagawa, supports a traveling museum display of images from both Japanese and American sources detailing the initial encounter between Japan and the United States taking place in the mid-nineteenth century. These materials also form a core for an MIT course on Visualizing Cultures and constituted a major lobby exhibit for the 2004 Broadwayt revival of Stephen Sondheim's musical "Pacific Overtures" directed by Amon Miyamoto. Examining the images and taking time to read the accompanying narrative analysis should help you better understand and appreciate the nature of the cultural similarities and dissimilarities with which the two cultures confronted one another almost a century and a half ago.

SUGGESTED READING:

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

Monday, March 6, 2006:
ACCELERATING MODERNIZATION II

SHORT ORAL PRESENTATIONS DUE

JAPONISME IN THE WEST AS AN EXPRESSION OF ORIENTALISM

Monday, March 20, 2006:
JAPONISME:
THE SOURCES OF JAPANESE INFLUENCES ON WESTERN CULTURES

JOURNAL ASSIGNMENT THREE DUE
RESEARCH ESSAY TWO DUE

Friday, March 24, 2006:
JAPONISME IN REAL LIFE: THE BIOGRAPHY OF MADAME SADAYAKKO

GROUP DISCUSSION ONE
BOOK ESSAY ONE DUE

REQUIRED READING:

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

Wednesday, March 29, 2006:
THE JAPANESE AESTHETIC TRADITION IN THE WEST I

PANEL PRESENTATIONS ONE

Friday, March 31, 2006:
THE JAPANESE AESTHETIC TRADITION IN THE WEST II

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

Monday, April 3, 2006:
MILITARISM AND ITS AFTERMATH IN TWENTIETH CENTURY JAPAN

JOURNAL ASSIGNMENT FOUR DUE
RESEARCH ESSAY THREE DUE

Wednesday, April 5, 2006:
THE JAPANESE GO TO WAR

PANEL PRESENTATION TWO

Monday, April 10, 2006:
OCCUPIED JAPAN (1945 - 1952)

PANEL PRESENTATION THREE

RETHINKING ORIENTALISM AFTER WORLD WAR TWO IN THE UNITED STATES

REQUIRED READING::

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

Wednesday, April 12, 2006:
POSTWAR ORIENTALISM IN THE UNITED STATES: AN OVERVIEW

JOURNAL ASSIGNMENT FIVE DUE

Friday, April 14, 2006:
DISCUSSION: COLD WAR ORIENTALISM: ASIA IN THE MIDDLEBROW IMAGINATION, 1945 - 1961

GROUP DISCUSSION TWO
JOURNAL ASSIGNMENT SIX DUE

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

Monday, April 17, 2006:
DEFINING "SOFT POWER"

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.

Wednesday, April 26, 2006:
EXAMPLES OF JAPANESE SOFT POWER AT WORK
IN THE ASIAN, EUROPEAN AND AMERICAN CONTEXTS

SMALL GROUP DISCUSSION

Friday, April 28, 2006:
EVALUATING CONTEMPORARY JAPAN'S "SOFT POWER"

BOOK ESSAY TWO DUE