11 - 20 of 71 results for: JAPAN

This course does not teach students how to translate, but rather how to incorporate translation into their critical thinking. Critical translation studies comprises wide-ranging ruminations on the complex interplay between languages, cultures, power, and identity. How can we integrate translation into our thinking about the processes that shape literary, political, ethical, and aesthetic sensibilities, and what do we stand to gain by doing so? Course readings introduce key works from inter-lingual perspectives that range across English, Hebrew, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Tagalog, Bengali, Chinese, Japanese, Indonesian, and Québécois. (Students need only have some knowledge of a language other than Standard American English to productively engage with the readings.) Class discussions and workshop assignments are designed to prepare students to integrate critical thinking about translation into their own research and intellectual interests.

From the culturally distinct urban centers of Tokyo, Kyoto, and Osaka to the sharp contrasts between the southernmost and northernmost parts of Japan, modern Japanese literature and film present rich characterizations of place that have shaped Japanese identities at the national, regional, and local levels. This course focuses attention on how these settings operate in key works of literature and film, with an eye toward developing students' understanding of diversity within modern Japan. FOR UNDERGRADS: This course must be taken for a minimum of 3 units and a letter grade to be eligible for Ways credit

This course focuses on the creation of objects at the boundary between the aesthetic allure of fine art and the utilitarian practicality of everyday life. It is also about how we value the objects with which we surround ourselves, connected to issues that go from sustainability to the intimacy of the handmade - of the little but precise tool marks that evoke the skilled expertise of years spent at the workbench.n nTraditionally in Japan the distinction between a work of art and a utilitarian object was inessential. An aesthetic object acquired its cultural identity and social value precisely because it could be used. Famous examples of this duality can be found in tea ceremony ceramics, complex architectural joinery, lavish fabric design, and fine temple-inspired cuisine. This is true even for painting and calligraphy: illustrated paper-covered architectural partitions were as useful in keeping a room warm as in serving as the highlight of a social gathering; hanging scrolls and flower arrangements displayed in a purpose-built alcove (tokonoma) conveyed delicate political and cultural messages.n nAt a modern museum, as soon as an object is acquired and accessioned into the collection, it ceases to be available to be touched, smelled, or weighed in one's hands. The only contact with warm bodies comes now through the gloved hands of a few trained professionals. A tokonoma alcove, by contrast, has no glass. What is more, a mere hint by the guest will prompt the host to retrieve the object displayed and offer it for close examination, or, as was often the case, actual use by the guests.n nThe sense of closeness between object and body in premodern Japan was intensified by the fact that users were often makers themselves. Socialized utilization became the perfect venue for the assessment, evaluation, and explication of both the techniques of fabrication and the decisions inherent to artistic creation.n nFor these reasons, the ideal way to study Japanese functional objects is to immerse oneself in the tradition by trying one's hand at the fundamental tools and techniques.n nThis course will combine readings, lectures, and practical hands-on training in two core traditional disciplines: woodworking and ceramics. Traditional hand tools will be provided for students to customize and keep. This dimension of the course is made possible by the generous support of the Halpern Family Foundation.n nAttempts to broker a place for traditional craftsmanship in a context of mass production are at the core of modern movements such as William Morris's Arts and Crafts, Walter Gropius's Bauhaus, and Yanagi Soetsu's Mingei. This course is designed for students with interests in making, art history, engineering, anthropology, studio, intellectual history, and the material culture of East Asia more generally.n nNo previous technical expertise required. Course taught in English. Venue: PRL

This class introduces key literary texts from Japan's modern era (1868-present), locating these works in the larger political, social, and cultural trends of the period. The goal of the class is to use literary texts as a point of entry to understand the grand narrative of Japan's journey from its tentative re-entry into the international community in the 1850s, through the cataclysm of the Pacific War, the remarkable prosperity of the bubble years in the 1980s until most recent, post-3/11 catastrophe-evoked Zeitgeist.
We will examine a variety of primary texts by such authors as Futabatei Shimei, Higuchi Ichiyô, Natsume Sôseki, Tanizaki Jun'ichir, Miyamoto Yuriko, Kawabata Yasunari, Ôe Kenzaburô, Yoshimoto Banana, Tawada Yko, and Yu Miri among others. Each text will be discussed in detail paying attention to its specific character and contextualized within larger political trends (e.g., the modernization program of the Meiji regime, the policies of Japan's wartime government, and postwar Japanese responses to the cold war), social developments (e.g., changing notions of social class, the women's rights movement, the social effects of the postwar economic expansion, ecocriticism), and cultural movements (e.g., literary reform movement of the 1890s, modernism of the 1920s and 30s, postmodernism of the 1980s, and exophony). Students will also be encouraged to think about the ways these texts relate to each other and a variety of issues beyond the Japanese socio-cultural and historical context.
No prior knowledge of Japanese is required for this course, although students with sufficient proficiency are welcome to refer to original sources.
Prerequisites: None

Japanese performance traditions present a distinct challenge to modern Western concepts of gender, performance, self-expression, and even the human body itself. This course introduces the socio-historical underpinnings of these traditions, and invites students to engage in a fundamental questioning of the relationship between performance, gender, and cross-cultural interpretation. This course is designed for students with interests in performance, gender, and media as well as those with an interest in Japan. Genres covered include Noh, Kabuki, Bunraku, and Butoh.

This is an English-language course about Japanese group dynamics in industrial and corporate systems, negotiating styles, decision making, and crisis management, as well as about strategies for managing intercultural differences. Includes team project to develop strategy and pitch to take an early-stage U.S. firm to the Japan market. Taught by Professor Richard Dasher, Director of the US-Asia Technology Management Center.

"The Nature of Knowledge" explores the intersections of science and humanities East Asia. It covers a broad geographic area (China, Japan, and Korea) along a long temporal space (14th century - present) to investigate how historical notions about the natural world, the human body, and social order defied, informed, and constructed our current categories of science and humanities. The course will make use of medical, geographic, and cosmological treatises from premodern East Asia, portrayals and uses of science in modern literature, film, and media, as well as theoretical and historical essays on the relationships between literature, science, and society.nnAs part of its exploration of science and the humanities in conjunction, the course addresses how understandings of nature are mediated through techniques of narrative, rhetoric, visualization, and demonstration. In the meantime, it also examines how the emergence of modern disciplinary "science" influenced the development of literary language, tropes, and techniques of subject development. This class will expose the ways that science has been mobilized for various ideological projects and to serve different interests, and will produce insights into contemporary debates about the sciences and humanities.

What is tyranny? When does political power cease to be legitimate and government become tyrannical? And what can individuals do in the face of tyranny? This course will explore East Asia's long political tradition through the problem of tyranny and its resistance. We will cover a wide range of material. We begin with how seminal political thinkers in East Asia, including Warring States philosophers such as Mencius and Han Feizi, understood the boundary between legitimate and illegitimate authority. We will also look at the strategies used by various political actors, including government officials, cultural or social elites, and common people, when they confronted what they perceived to be the unjust exercise political power, whether in the form of despotic monarchs, corrupt authorities, or general misrule. Our discussions will be wide-ranging. We will pay particular attention to how these historical examples from China, Korea, and Japan¿s past have resonated with modern and contemporary political discussions in contemporary East Asian societies.

This course presents a broad survey of classical Japanese literature in English translation, with particular emphasis on prose fiction and poetry. We will make use of multiple, complementary modes of literary criticism, beginning with historicism and formalism, which reflect different assumptions and interpretive priorities. The approach is integrative, with attention paid throughout to the intersections between literature, social and institutional history, and religion. Key questions to be explored include the following: How were the major works of classical Japanese literature understood by readers during the medieval and early-modern periods? How did the current canon of classical Japanese literature arise, and what historical forces shaped its development? How might modern modes of literary criticism help us better approach premodern Japanese literature, and what are their limitations?