FALL 2012
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Visual Investigations: Kyoto Professor Nancy Campbell, Mount Holyoke College This introductory visual arts course is designed to expose AKP students to the art making practice as they examine the intimate connection between art and life in Japan. Japanese art history will frame and guide the progression of the course. Structured class assignments, presented through an historical lens, will allow students to explore and document traditional and contemporary Japan using various drawing methods and materials. Sketchbooks and visual/text-based journals will become concrete records of each student’s AKP experience and will reflect their knowledge of traditional/modern Kyoto/Japan and their developing, personal, visual identity. Previous art experience is not necessary. The class will meet in a standard classroom as well as on location in nearby temples, gardens, and museums. Homework assignments will not require classroom access. |
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Japanese Religion Professor Catherine Ludvik, Kyoto Sangyo University Filled with over two thousand temples and shrines, Kyoto provides the ideal setting for the study of Japanese religions. This introductory course will survey the development of Shinto, Buddhism and the New Religions of Japan in historical as well as contemporary context. Topics discussed will include Shinto mythology, the transmission of Buddhism to Japan, the teachings, rituals, and practices of the Japanese schools of Buddhism, mountain asceticism, popular forms of religion such as pilgrimage, funerary and memorial rites, and the emergence of New Religions. Drawing on the religious landscape of Kyoto and nearby sites, classes will be supplemented with organized fieldtrips, and student assignments will be based both on readings as well as on temple/shrine visits and first-hand observance of rituals, festivals, and other religious activities. |
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AKP-Doshisha Joint Seminar Professor Susan Pavloska, Doshisha University, and Professor Erik Lofgren, RD, Bucknell 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. 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. |
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The History of Pre-modern Japan Professor Neil L. Waters, Middlebury College, 2012-13 Ray Moore Visiting Faculty Fellow This course deals with the social, intellectual and institutional history of Japan from the earliest times through the establishment of the Tokugawa shogunate. Major themes include adaptation and “Japanification” of Chinese institutions, evolution and limitations of the concept of imperial legitimacy, warrior ethics and other concepts and processes that either set Japan apart from other civilizations or situate Japan in an East Asian context. |
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SPRING 2013
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Word and Image in Japanese Poetry Professor Sayumi Harb, Connecticut College From the choka (long poems) of the Manyoshu, the tanka of the great Imperial anthologies of Heian and Medieval Japan, the practice of linked verse and the subsequent evolution of the haiku form, to contemporary lyrical experimentation, this course will explore the intersections of word and image in Japanese poetry. We will focus on the materialities and geographical/historical contexts that enliven Japanese verse by examining written poetry's interconnections with orality, calligraphic writing, paper-making, manuscript culture and painting, as well as making site visits to famous locales (meisho) in the Kansai area that recur frequently in the poetic tradition. Students will learn how to conduct close readings and interpretations of select poems, in addition to exercising their creativity in collaboration with other students through a linked verse (renku) assignment. |
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Minorities and Immigrants in Contemporary Japan Emeritus Prof. Terry MacDougall, Stanford University, 2012-13 Robert Wood Memorial RD The tenacity of the image of Japan as a homogeneous nation stands in contrast to a nation-building process that perpetuated and racialized an underclass of segregated people (burakumin), incorporated peoples of different languages and cultures on its northern (Ainu) and western (Okinawans) “frontiers,” and brought large numbers of colonial or semi-colonial subjects from Korea, Taiwan, and China to the Japanese islands. While postwar social change seemed to “homogenize” Japanese society or hide its underlying diversity, by the 1980s new waves of foreign workers transformed Japan into a “new country of immigration.” At the same time, Japan's population has begun to decline and age. These changes raise critical issues of labor markets and economic vitality, citizenship, identity, and human rights. A study of minorities and immigrants in contemporary Japan unveils much about Japanese society, its historical development, social transformation and challenges in an age of globalization. The living conditions, life chances, and identities of Japan’s minorities and immigrants in Japan have changed significantly in recent years, as has Japanese society itself. In this period, while national authorities barely began debating critical issues raised by the multi-ethnic dimensions of the nation, local governments, NGOs, lawyers, and minority group activists pioneered ameliorative policies. Globalization, demographic changes and an historic alternation of political power nationally have put human rights issues and immigration and integration policies on the front burner of Japanese politics. This class combines lectures and discussions with visits to minority communities and individual and group field research on the lives of Japan's domestic and foreign minorities, policy initiatives, and issues of individual, group and national identity. Site visits, film and discussions with Japanese and foreign residents are used to provide a tangible sense of the people and issues involved. |
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Comparative Linguistic Studies in English and Japanese Professor Naoko Nemoto, Mount Holyoke College, 2012-13 Bardwell Smith Visiting Faculty Fellow This course introduces basic theories and methods of analyzing the language, including lexicon, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics with a special emphasis with the comparative studies of English and Japanese. The students will learn theories and methods for gathering and analyzing data and apply their knowledge and skills to conduct a project, using authentic Japanese discourse, such as novels, newspaper articles, T.V. programs, and conversations. For instance, in the section of lexicon, the students will examine how differently wago (native Japanese words) behave from sino-Japanese words and other foreign words. In the section of semantics, the student will investigate how number is marked in Japanese, which does not have a generic plural marker. |
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Performing Kyoto Professor Thomas O'Connor, Managing Director, Theatre Nohgaku A peculiar characteristic of the Kansai region, and of Kyoto in particular, is the coexistence of the traditional and contemporary, alive and side-by-side. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the variety of performance offerings on display. Performances happen all around us: in theatres and concert halls, yes, but also in shrines, temples, athletic fields, public parks and the myriad public and private spaces of our daily lives. In this course, we explore principles of performance that are widely applicable; then we delve into specific esthetic reference points for interpreting contemporary theatrical performances; lastly, we will touch on issues of performance training, translation and mediation. Performance will be defined rather broadly to include both theatrical and non-theatrical events, but course discussions will use the theatre form "noh" as a recurring point of reference. During the term, we will see two live theatrical performances, and students will be encouraged to seek out festivals and other types of performance on their own. |
