COURSE REQUIREMENTS:   

REGULAR CLASS ATTENDANCE, PARTICIPATION IN DISCUSSION and ON -TIME SUBMISSION OF ASSIGNMENTS ARE BASIC COURSE REQUIREMENTS as is the completion of the reading assigned in the accompanying class schedule.    

Required reading for the course includes Taichi Sakaiya's What Is Japan?  Contradictions and Transformations, Patrick Smith's Japan: A Reinterpretation, Karl Taro Greenfeld's Speed Tribes: Days and Noights with Japan's Next Generation, Stephen Addiss' How to Look at Japanese Art and the collection of articles and excerpts on reserve in the Cleveland State University library.  

In addition the class will be asked to complete two research assignments:  

• an interpretive essay discussing - in two parts (descriptive and analytical) -- an aspect of contemporary Japanese life in historical perspective;
   
• a project (including a written personality profile and a series of public opinion survey questions) requiring each student to assume a contemporary Japanese personality appropriate to a pair of role-playing exercises concluding the course of study.