Program Overview

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On our Rethinking Japan: Introduction to Modern Japanese Society and Culture short course, you will gain a critical understanding of crucial aspects of Japan's modern cultural and social history, and learn some of the main ways of exploring Japanese history and culture, especially its cultural products. You will be introduced to key texts - historical, literary, visual, cinematic and theoretical - which represent and chart two central developments:

Japan's emergence as a modern, 'Westernised', powerful and imperialistic nation-state (in the early twentieth century)

Japan's post-war transformation into a high-tech consumer society (1945-present).

We will consider notions of 'Japaneseness' and changing ideas about national and cultural identity, with which Japan has sought to position itself in relation to the West and Asia. We will also scrutinise Western images of Japan and the 'Far East'.

Some of the topics we cover include:

Japan as a nation and community

identity in modern Japan

Japan in Asia

Western images of Japan

multicultural Japan

gender in Japan.

Assessment is via a 500-word essay (10%), 2000-word essay (45%), in-class test (35%) and class participation (10%).

This can be taken as a standalone short course or as a part of:

Culture and Language (French, German, Italian, Japanese, Spanish) (Certificate of Higher Education)

30 credits at level 4