AKP-Doshisha Joint Seminar

Susan Pavloska, Doshisha University
Maki Hubbard, AKP Resident Director, Smith College

The Joint Seminar represents a unique opportunity to explore issues in comparative culture in a class that is comprised of both AKP students and regular Doshisha students. The class format will include lectures by the instructors, film, discussion groups, joint projects, and a series of guest lectures by Japanese and foreign experts from the Kyoto environs who will address various aspects of American and Japanese culture from a multi-disciplinary perspective. If you are interested in Hubbard Sensei's class "Japanese Language and Culture" in the spring, she recommends that you take Joint Seminar as well.

Temples of Traditional Japan: Visual Dimensions of the Religious Past

Jonathan Best, Wesleyan University, The Robert Wood Memorial Visiting Faculty Fellow

This course will consist of a series of lectures and fieldtrips intended to introduce the major developments in Japanese Buddhist art and architecture from the time of the religion’s introduction in the sixth century through the construction of the great Zen garden at the Ryoan-ji roughly a thousand years later. Lectures and background readings are designed to elucidate the history of artistic development to changes in the practice of Japanese Buddhism and to changes in the historical context in which the arts were produced. The approach to the material will be introductory; no previous knowledge of Japanese art, religion or history is expected or necessary – although those with such knowledge are certainly urged to participate.

Nature and Place in Kansai Literature

Sarah Strong, Bates College, The Bardwell Smith Visiting Faculty Fellow

Japanese culture has long been loosely associated with a valuing of nature. From Zen gardens, to cherry blossoms to postcards of snow-capped Mt. Fuji, nature as icon seems to be used to represent some essence of what Japan or Japanese-ness “means.” At the same time, contemporary Japan with its sprawling urban landscapes, its cement-banked rivers, and many trash-strewn beaches also strikes many foreign visitors as decidedly un-natural sort of place. How can these two seemingly disparate views of nature and Japan coexist? If not, what terms and categories do fit?

This course seeks to find a partial answer to these questions through an examination of some of the ways non-human nature and the human/nature relationship have been represented in Japanese literature. The course also investigates the way notions of place and landscape (culturally shaped views of the land) have been constructed in Japanese poems and narratives. Since we are living in Kyoto this semester, we will use Kyoto and the larger Kansai area, including Wakayama and the Ki Peninsula, as the special focus of our study. Almost all of our readings are texts that were written in this region. Given the cultural centrality of the Kansai area and the fact that a great deal of what we think of as “Japanese literature” was written here, our focus will allow us to explore some interesting tensions between localness and national paradigms. We will ask ourselves in what ways the texts we are reading represent the particularity of the Kansai region with its own unique geography, plant and animal communities, social customs, etc., and how certain modes and kinds of representation of nature and place have come to be dominant.

Twentieth Century Japan and the World

Peter Mauch, Kyoto University

To understand Japan’s role on the world stage today, this course examines the forces that helped shape that nation throughout the twentieth century. With a historical focus, it examines the political, economic, and sociocultural interactions of Japan with other states and societies. Topics include domestic and international dimensions of Japanese foreign policy, ways that Japan responded and contributed to global forces, and the transnational presence of and response to Japan within other nations. A major theme to emerge from this course is the centrality of Japan’s relationship with the United States, as well as the widely divergent perspectives from which the two nations view their twentieth century relationship.

Japanese Language and Culture

Maki Hubbard, Smith College

The objective of this course is to enhance your knowledge and understanding of the Japanese language by relating the linguistic aspect of Japanese culture to the social and historical aspects as well as to the Japanese perception of the dynamic of human interactions. We will start the course with a brief overview of the predominant beliefs about Japanese language and culture and some questions that challenge these beliefs, and move onto examine the relationship between the language and the cultural perceptions and interpersonal mechanism in Japan, including family and gender. You are expected to exercise critical thinking in reading and discussion. Informed participation in discussion is expected. You will be asked to keep an informal journal, at least once a week about the linguistic culture or behavior which you have encountered (among your host family, in films and mass media, on the street, etc.) together with your own analysis of them based on the readings and discussion at that point. Such exercises might be incorporated into the more theoretical analysis and discussion on your papers on a chosen topic about Japanese language and society.

Buddhism in Contemporary Japan

James Hubbard, Religion Department, Smith College

For many years sociologists predicted that religion would slowly fade into the background of myth and legend as modern, industrialized societies grew increasingly rational and secular. In spite of all such theory, the modern rational industrial and technologically advanced twentieth century has become more, not less, enchanted with religion. This is nowhere more true than in fast-paced and ultra-sophisticated Japan. Hundreds and hundreds of new religious movements abound side-by-side with the ancient and traditional, and in the daily news religion figures (almost) as regularly as the economy. In this course, we will examine aspects of Japanese religious life in the context of contemporary society, including the impact of European thought, the export of Zen and the import of Christianity, Buddhist nationalism, contemporary monasticism, the Kyoto school of philosophy, and Buddhist aesthetics; particular attention will be given to examining attempts a reform and modernization within traditional Buddhism and the emergence of new religious movements.

The Art of Sumi-e

Kenji Shinohara, Wesleyan University

This course begins with basic techniques and composition of traditional Japanese sumi-e painting. Sumi-e is a style of black and white calligraphic ink painting that originated in China and was slowly introduced in Japan during the Heian period, then started to flourish with the practice of Zen monks in the Kamakura period. Students will learn the “four pillars” of the basic subject matter of sumi-e: bamboo, plum blossom, Chinese orchid and chrysanthemum. An appreciation of the history of sumi-e within Japanese art, religion and philosophy will be incorop9orated into our practice through frequent fieldtrips in the Kansai region, and assigned readings. The goal of this course is not perfection or technique, but rather a steady practice of the form combined with the creative intellectual experience necessary for students to produce their own visual images using sumi-e.

Postwar Japanese Economy

Yumiko Yamamoto, University of Utah

Japan achieved rapid economic growth after WWII and became the world's second largest economy. Japan, once a predominantly agricultural economy, is now a leading exporter of manufacturing goods. Japan's successful economic development in the post-WWII period was often described as an economic miracle based on factors such as rapid industrialization, low unemployment, and a low inflation rate. What led to Japan's economic miracle? What social and labor structures have helped Japan to achieve such a miracle economically? What is the impact of globalization on management and labor structure in Japan? What are the consequences of the recent economic recession? In this class we will examine the post war Japanese economy from an institutional perspective and by introducing the concepts of class, gender and ethnicity. No prior economics background is necessary.

Japan and the Environment: Interactions Between Nature and Culture

Aaron Isgar, Kyoto University

What is nature? What is culture? If they are different at all, where do the two meet or overlap? Are the concepts of nature and culture universally consistent or are they dependent on variables of history and location? How do nature and culture affect each other? Recognizing the diversity of individual views, what are some Japanese perspectives on these questions and how have they been shaped? How does this differ from our own perspectives and views common in our own cultures? How do Japanese perspectives influence both the domestic and global environments? This course will seek to explore these questions in order to develop greater understanding of the interactions between nature and culture in both Japan and our home countries.