Click on the professors' names for a biography.

AKP-Doshisha Joint Seminar

Professor Tamae Prinde, Colby College, AKP Resident Director
Professor Masami Izumi, Doshisha University

The Joint Seminar represents a unique opportunity to explore issues in comparative culture in a class comprised of both AKP and Doshisha students. The class format includes panel presentations, discussions, 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.

The topic of this course is American and Japanese views of History and Historical Memory. One of the main purposes of the course is to promote discussion between Doshisha and AKP students on issues related to the course topics. Strategies for promoting good class discussion, including pairs and small groups, will take precedence over organizational purity and continuity. There will be a course packet of readings, but no required texts for this course. Students will complete fieldwork and give a presentation in small groups, and also write a final paper.

 

Desire in Japanese Cinema

Professor Erik Lofgren, Bucknell University

In this course we will study numerous films that portray desire in its myriad manifestations and try to discover what those historical, cultural, and ideological forces were and how they influenced the production of the representations on film, as well as how the technical aspects of the films further that representation Concomitant with this task will be the exploration of how our consumption of these films is also determined by a different set of imperatives and forces. In the process, we will gain an understanding of the force of, effect, and response to these films and, by extension, insights into broader issues of Japanese film and ourselves. Parallel readings in critical materials about films, desire, sexuality, and other related topics will be used to help move our discussion from a simple affirmation of likes or dislikes to a consideration of those filmic and extra-filmic concerns that have produced the movies we have before us.

 

Linguistics of the Japanese Writing System

Professor Michael Flynn, Carleton College

The Japanese writing system is often said to be the most complicated in the world, even as Japan has among the very highest literacy rates. There are several sources of the complexity, including on and kun readings for kanji, and the frequent use of the two syllabaries, hiragana and katakana. The Chinese-derived kanji operate on a different linguistic level than the two native kana. Together they form an extraordinary system, which has attracted the attention of psycholinguists in Japan and elsewhere for decades. The Japanese achieve such high literacy rates because Japanese children invest the considerable time and effort necessary to learn the system.

In this course, we will study five aspects of the Japanese writing system. First, we will look at writing systems in general, to discover how such systems are characterized. We will then study the principles that underlie the Japanese system, comparing it to the closely related systems used in China and Korea. We will see how the local demands of the Japanese language gave rise to the modifications of the transplanted Chinese system.

We will then study how this system is used in real time by Japanese users, and what this tells us about the neurolinguistics of Japanese writing. Finally, observing that it is quite possible to express Japanese completely without the use of kanji at all, we will examine the factors that support its use. We will ask if the intense effort to learn kanji required of Japanese children is defensible, and look at how the Japanese are responding to various pressures on the system.

 

The History of Kyoto

Professor David Boggett, Seika University

This course will trace the history of Kyoto through successive Japanese historical periods, including such topics as the transfer of the capital from Nara to Kyoto, Muromachi and Momoyama era trade with China and South-East Asia, and cultural exchanges with Korea. The colonial era and Pacific War will be illustrated through the life of the poet Yun Dong-ju, a former Korean student at Doshisha. Making use of an extensive slide collection accumulated over years of research in Kyoto, course lectures will focus on a selected place (shrine, temple, city, area etc.), literary work, important event or historical figure from each period of history, and will also tend to emphasize "foreign" influences on the development of Japanese society. In addition, Kyoto's famous festivals, both grand and small, will be investigated through slides, historical documents, and field excursions to actual sites and events in order to understand how the Japanese past is being "re-imagined." We will also try to include various literary, religious and political sites on these local field excursions. The course will likely make connections with related material presented in other courses, as well as various homestay experiences, to enhance the students' understanding of Kyoto and its past.

 

Japanese Antiquity and Its Political Uses in the Modern Era

Professor Walter Edwards, Tenri University

The arbitrary nature of tradition, and its attendant susceptibility to political manipulation, have been increasingly recognized since the 1980s. The Japanese case is no exception in this regard, and considerable attention has indeed been paid to the political uses of the imperial house – as a uniquely ancient institution, marshaled in support of claims for Japan’s moral superiority among nations of the world – from the start of the Meiji era through the end of the Pacific War. But political uses of the past constitute a broader topic of inquiry, both in terms of what has been taken from the realm of antiquity, and when and how it has been utilized.
The purpose of this course is to explore the full range of such political re-definition and re-presentation of Japanese heritage. To this end, our inquiries will have a dual focus. We will examine on the one hand the materials of antiquity themselves, including the archaeological and historical records, and the body of ancient Japanese myth, and evaluate on the other how these materials have been mobilized, since the end of the Tokugawa period up to the present day, to project specific images of Japan and its traditions. Observations made outside the classroom will constitute an integral part of the course, with three day-long field trips to Nara and Osaka planned.
Lectures rely heavily on PowerPoint presentations, profusely illustrated with slides, as students are likely to be unfamiliar with much of the course material (archaeological artifacts, sites, monuments). We will also devote considerable time in class to reading and discussing English translations of textual materials, both ancient and modern, to examine how Japanese traditions have been created and reinterpreted over time.

 

Masterpieces: 20th Century Japanese Fiction

Professor Tamae Prindle, Colby College, AKP Resident Director

"Masterpieces: 20th Century Japanese Novels" studies the works of twelve luminous Japanese novelists who made their mark in Japanese cultural history. The list includes Kawabata Yasunari's Snow Country (1937) and Ooe Kenzaburô's A Personal Matter (1964), each of which received the Nobel Prize in Literature. Viewing through various critical "theories," the course will examine the ideas, feelings, and values expressed in and through twelve Japanese novels.

Your grades will be based on one five-page paper, three peer critiques, three questions and answers on each of ten novels, one discussion leading, and daily discussion participation.

 

The Meiji Revolution

Professor Jonathan Lipman, Mount Holyoke College

This course will focus on the epochal transformation of Japan from an early modern shogunate to a modern nation-state between 1853 and 1912. From a ruling class of hereditary warrior-bureaucrats emerged a modernizing elite, which created a cabinet, legislature, highly centralized government, and the symbolic sovereignty of a sacred monarch. A turning point in East Asia’s modern history, this revolution shaped the following century throughout the region and remains a subject of intense scholarly and popular interest.

 

Perspectives on War

Professor Jacques Hymans, Smith College

In this course we analyze war by asking the following general questions: What is war? What causes it to break out, escalate, and terminate? What is the wartime experience like for political leaders, military officers, foot soldiers, and civilians? And what are war’s long-range political and social consequences? We search for answers to these questions primarily in the martial history of Japan, including the feudal era, World War II, and the present day. Special events will include a field trip to Himeji Castle and guest lecturers from Japanese universities

 

Immigration, Citizenship and Identity in Japan

Professor Terry MacDougall, Kyoto Center for Japanese Studies

Massive waves of immigration in the past half century have touched, even transformed, every region and nearly every country of the world. A result of many factors, this "global migration crisis" has linked developed and developing countries, challenged the ability of nations to control their borders, activated international organizations, NGOs and other advocates of human rights, and brought into question many of the premises and policies of the modern nation-state and liberal democracy. Today, formerly "homogeneous" countries find themselves with significant minorities of diverse national, ethnic and religious origin. The new, or newly recognized, reality of diversity has resulted in a questioning of prevailing notions of citizenship based on ethnicity or a community of closely held values. Liberal democracies (including Japan) in particular discuss and debate, often in highly contentious terms, how to respond to these challenges.

This course examines the Japanese immigration case in the context of broader changes in the world, especially in North America and Europe, and examines both immigration and immigrant (integration) policy. This broad perspective on the Japanese case is essential because shaping forces are not confined within Japanese borders; and the experiences of other nations inform the debate within Japan. In addition to introducing some critical questions regarding immigration and immigrant policy more generally, this course seeks to inform the students of the specific challenges facing Japan, issues as perceived by various institutional and group actors, the obstacles and opportunities for change, what progress has already been made, and what factors most critically affect the policy options and choices for Japanese authorities, national and local.

The course will include several field trips and guest speakers. Among places we might visit are a major human rights center, Korea Town, other communities of both Japanese and foreign minorities, and a NGO that assist migrant laborers, trafficked persons, etc. Osaka is home to the largest concentration of Koreans in Japan, the largest concentration of Okinawans outside of Okinawa, and the largest number day laborers and burakumin. Hence, nearby Osaka provides particularly useful opportunities for group observation and individual research.

 

Temples, Icons, and Buddhist Visual Culture in Ancient Japan

Professor Cynthea J. Bogel (University of Washington, Seattle and Kyoto University)

This course considers the history of “Buddhist visual culture” in pre-modern Japan. It features temple icons such as paintings and statues, ritual implements and altar furnishings, gardens, architecture, and monastic layouts. The course highlights Buddhist visual culture of the Kansai region. Class time will be spent studying images and discussing the readings so that students are prepared to view the sites and icons during field trips. We will approach the material chronologically and by artistic medium, Buddhist sect, and region. We will also examine common themes and subjects in Chinese and Korean Buddhist temples. Visual culture should be understood as part of monastic life, society, culture, and cosmology. The course will observe the particular ways by which visual meaning and visual efficacy are conveyed by a religious object or place, including symbolism, representational strategies, and material techniques. By the end of the course you will understand both how and why Buddhist visual culture was critical to the vitality of Buddhism in ancient Japan.