JTW
Core Course offerings
for
Fall/Winter Semester, Oct. 2009- Mar. 2010
Adjusting
to Japan
Jordan Pollack, Professor, International
Student Center
This orientational course, intended for students with little or no prior experience in Japan, introduces some of the more important requirements for effective functioning in various everyday contexts. Lectures, readings, discussions, and assignments will develop awareness of many of the understandings, attitudes, and communicative skills needed for social competency, and consider these especially in light of broader cultural patterns and principles. The objective is to equip students with insights and strategies for successful interaction.
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Japanese
Life through Tea Ceremony
Tim Cross , Associate
Professor , Fukuoka University
This course gives an overview of the poetics and politics of tea. It introduces the history of tea's development in Japan by referring to English language tea scholarship and representations of tea in Japanese cinema. It is in the context of this national development that the Nambo Ryu School of Tea, based here in Fukuoka, is introduced. The course is suitable for students who are interested in learning the grammar of the tea ritual and understanding how tea synthesized a broad range of material practices to create a distinctive national culture. It is designed to give students a sense of the cultural context of tea's development that should provide some framework for interpreting other Japanese cultural practices. Students will receive an introduction to the serving procedures of the Nambo Ryu School of Tea and will be assessed on their performance of basic tea room etiquette.
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Introduction to Japanese Economy
IMAI Ryoichi, Associate
Professor, International Student Center
The course is designed to provide some introductory knowledge of Japanese economy. Students will learn the essence of historical and institutional background of Japanese Economy. In this course, we will focus on the structural issue of Japanese economy as a background of the 10 year depression since the crash of the bubble economy in 1990.
Key words of this course: Corporate organization and governance, financial system and corporate groups, competition and business strategies, exchange rate regimes and international capital flows, productivity gap across industries, aging society, education and meritocracy, economic development and class stratification, and others.
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Asian-Pacific
Political Economy
Lee,
Hong Pyo, Associate Professor, Faculty of Law
The
objective of this course is to help students understand
Japan’s relations to the developing world
by examining the nature of Japanese international
aid to education development. The course starts
with a review of the major trend in development
paradigm. The paradigm includes economic development,
Basic Human Needs approach and social development.
The introductory session is designed to enable students
to conceive education development from wider development
perspectives. The next few sessions offer an overview
of education development in Japan. Japan itself
has experienced such challenges as modernization
and democratization of education that many developing
nations are facing today. The course will explore
relevance of Japanese experience, particularly policy
and administration, to educational development in
the developing world. Subsequent sessions will examine
current issues of Japan’s education aid from
various viewpoints as responsiveness and efficiency.
Actors involved in Japan’s international education
cooperation include central government agencies,
Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) and local
government bodies. A new synergy of these “actors”
is explored. The course concludes with discussion
on future perspective of Japan’s international
education aid.
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Modern
History of Japan
IMAI Ryoichi, Associate
Professor, International Student Center
The course is designed to provide some introductory knowledge of Japanese history. The course will cover the history of Japan's political and economic system from Edo era to the early Showa era.
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Representations of Crime and Justice in Japan
Mark Fenwick , Associate
Professor , Faculty of Law
The media have a significant influence on the portrayal of crime in society. The images & representations that permeate popular awareness of crime are mainly generated by, and reflected in, the mass media. As such, the media have a tremendous impact in terms of how crime is generally defined & understood within contemporary society. Fictional representations of crime (films, TV series, novels), in particular, both mirror cultural understandings about crime and help to mould them.
In contrast, detailed knowledge and understanding of the realities of criminal law and criminal justice tends to be confined to police, lawyers, prosecutors, judges, academics and law enforcement professionals. It is perhaps not surprising to find a “gap” emerging between fictional representations of crime and the realities of crime and criminal justice.
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| Japanese
Cultural Patterns
Jordan
Pollack, Professor, International
Student Center
This course examines salient cultural patterning—conventional principles and everyday practices—in contemporary Japanese life. The approach is multidisciplinary, applying mostly anthropological, but also sociological, psychological, historical, and other perspectives. Lectures, readings, and class discussions will explore a range of topics, including social identity and nationalism; population dynamics; cultural ecology; kinship, descent, and marriage; gender; enculturation and education; social stratification and consumption; production, labor, and management; governance and social control; and religion and ritual. Connections between and consistencies across different cultural domains are a particular focus. The goal is to deepen appreciation of how Japanese create, understand, organize, evaluate, and otherwise function in their present world.
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| Gender
in Comtemporary Japan
NAKAMURA Tamah, Professor,
Chikushi- Jogakuen University
This course examines issues related to the analysis of gender in the Japanese social context such as role definition, employment and marriage trends, care of children and aged. Required student readings by Japanese and non-Japanese scholars offer varied perspectives on government policies, social issues, the construction of masculinity and femininity, and alternative lifestyle choices. We will see that the concept of gender changes over time (history) and place (culture/society), therefore the definition of gender shifts across cultural and historical boundaries.
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HALF TERM COURSES
1st half : Miyazaki Hayao's World
NAKAMURA Tamah, Professor,
ChikushiJogakuen University
This course initially looks at the development of manga and anime through focus on Miyazaki Hayao’s work in these media prior to the founding of Studio Ghibli. After that the development of the Studio Ghibli company is outlined, including analysis of some of the productions. Following this introduction to manga and anime, the course focuses on a deeper interpretation of one work (Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi/Spirited Away). To create this method of analysis, the class will view and discuss the anime through concepts reflected in Miyazaki’s anime world. Such modes include the apocalyptic, festival, elegiac, fragmentation, loss, possibility, ‘shūkyō asobi’ to explore the questions: What is traditional? What is Japanese? What is global? Student-generated concepts, questions and contributions are required to collaboratively create a method of analysis.
Syllabus
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1st half : Progress in Life Science Made by Japanese Researchers
NAKAMURA Mako, Ph.D., Senior Assistant Professor, Faculty of Agriculture
This course introduces significant topics in Life Science field. We are always curious about a life such as virus, microorganisms, insects, plants, animals etc. So many researchers in the world have tried to find how its body is organized and how each part functions as their curiosity pushed them studying on it. Japanese researchers are not exceptions and have made big steps in the history. I would like to focus on one or two Japanese researcher(s) in each session and show you what he/she found and how important the findings are. The course also provides a small project that you search and introduce one scientist from your home country. The course welcomes your participation.
Syllabus |
Japanese
Humor
Tim Cross , Associate
Professor , Fukuoka University
This course gives an overview of Japanese humour. While it mainly concentrates on literary expressions of Japanese humour, we will also look at more recent visual texts from TV, film and youtube. The course is suitable for students who are interested surveying a range of texts as a means of interrogating the creation of a distinctive Japanese identity. In the case of the youtube texts, we will examine how these representations of Japanese-ness subvert and parody established expectations of what constitutes Japanese identity. We will also examine the use of humour as social activism after viewing Making 「Minbo no Onna」, a documentary about the 1992 Itami Juzo film a.k.a. in English as Minbo: the Gentle Art of Japanese Extortion, The Gangster's Moll and The Anti-Extortion Woman. Your own viewing and lived experiences in Fukuoka will be considered to be important fieldwork for this class. Being able to rent and view DVDs from your local shop is an essential skill for this class.
Syllabus
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