CONTEMPORARY JAPAN
IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE
ESSAY ASSIGNMENT ONE
To
be considered complete, this research essay (seven to nine pages in length
for students in HIS 373, nine to eleven for those enrolled in HIS 573) must
contain a readily identifiable thesis statement, a series of supporting
generalizations and appropriate specific examples and illustrations. In choosing a topic to explore,
first seek the help of the instructor in compiling a preliminary bibliography
of appropriate sources and in the properly defining your approach so
as to prevent taking on too large or too insignificant an issue.
The first portion of your
essay should investigate your chosen topic seeking particularly to determine
current conditions / circumstances and should endeavor to describe the
state of affairs in 2002 -- or, at the very least, the late 1990s.
Therefore, pick an issue or set of issues to investigate (largely dependent
on available resources) on which you can locate current information.
Then, using our discussions
of modern Japanese life and those found in the assigned readings as
a theoretical base, analyze your chosen arena of contemporary Japanese
life with respect to the impact / influence / role therein of tradition
(in all its various guises: maintained, rejected, transformed, reinvented).
Consider both positive and
negative influences. Look for evidence not only of continuities with
the past but discontinuities (ways in which modern Japan consciously
rejects past values and ideas).
When submitted the final essay MUST be accompanied by a portfolio indicating
the completion of the preliminary assigmments indicated in this list of
RESEARCH ESSAY DEADLINES.
The essay must be analytical in approach (not descriptive) and must conform
to one of the following topic approaches: