The items listed below have recently been altered in some significant way or have been added to the site:

• The Mock Public Opinion Survey has been uploaded to the course web site. The completed survey should be brought to class with you on Monday, April 29, 2002, to be discussed in terms of the character you have adopted and written up in Essay Assignment Two, your autobiographical sketch. (Thursday, April 25, 2002)
  
  
• An inadvertent error in listing the due date for the required Writing Assessment Survey project has been corrected both in the Course Schedule and on the Deadlines page. Late assignments due to student lack of awareness of the project due date will be accepted until Monday, March 4, 2002. (Monday, February 25, 2002)
  
  
• A page listing role choices and research topics has been added to the password-protected portion of the course web site. Look for it under COURSE TOOLS AND STUDENT FILES listed under FELLOW STUDENTS' RESEARCH TOPICS AND ROLE CHOICES. (Thursday, February 21, 2002)
  
  
• I have located a good brief discussion of two basic sociological concepts (giri and seken-tei) related to the study of contemporary Japanese society and have uploaded it to the web site as a reading assignment for Wednesday, February 20, 2002. (Wednesday, February 20, 2002)
  
  
• The due date for the OSAKA 2001 SURVEY and WEB ASSIGNMENT has been altered on the DEADLINE page to correspond with the date listed on the COURSE SCHEDULE. I have also removed the erroneous link on the OSAKA 2001 WEB ASSIGNMENT that was causing problems; only the underlined words beneath the image should connect to other pages on the site (not the image itself) -- sorry about that! (Wednesday, January 16, 2001)
  
  
• The password-protected portion of the course web site is now up and running. If you already have opened a WebCT account, you should now be able to add the course using the User ID and Password for the course as indicated on the INTERNET ACCESS GUIDE distributed in class on Monday. Be sure to send me a second e-mail (in addition to the one requested from you when you first accessed the course web site) to indicate you managed to complete the process of gaining entry to the password-protected files. (Tuesday, January 15, 2002)
  
  
• The following INTERNET WEB SITE articles have been added to the COURSE SCHEDULE at various points: "How the World Sees Japan" from Time Asia; "Is Japan Still the Future" from WIRED magazine, "Better is Better Than Nothing" from Kansai Time Out; " A Wizard of Animation Has Japan Under His Spell" from The New York Times; and "From Modern Girls to Parasites: The Enduring Discourse of Women in Japan" from Tsushin. They are the first of many to come, I'm sure, as I continue to scour the web for the latest information! (Tuesday, January 15, 2002)