Course

“Introduction to Japan” is the largest module taught in the Department of Japanese Studies at the National University of Singapore. It provides a foundation in the history, geography, and society of Japan. It also offers exposure to the discipline of Japanese Studies and is thus required for majors.

JS 1101E Syllabus 2020-21 (pdf)

JS1101E – Introduction to Japan
National University of Singapore
Lecturers: Chris McMorran & Yuen Shu Min
Tutors : Itsuko Tanaka & Tan Jia Min Sarah

Course description

This module provides a broad introduction to Japan through the theme of diversity. To many outsiders (and even some insiders) Japan may not seem very diverse. We will upset this impression by exploring different forms of diversity found throughout Japan’s history and in the present. We will address questions like:

  • Why is gender-bending acceptable in theatrical performances but frowned upon in society?
  • Why did the selection of Miss Universe Japan 2015 upset some people?
  • Why is Tokyo’s mayor trying to build a “City of Diversity” and what does she mean?
  • Why did a country with a long history of religious diversity force Christians to hide their faith upon pain of death?
  • Who are the underground idols, and why are they so popular among Japanese men?

Japan is a complex idea that cannot easily be mapped, imagined, and understood. It boasts one of the world’s largest economies, yet has tens of thousands of homeless people. It has a long history of borrowing and adapting ideas and technologies from abroad, yet is considered by many to be insular and isolated. Leaders concerned about its declining population continually resist both immigration and work/life balance reforms that might ease the trend. Given its fascinating history and culture, its present economic and cultural power, and its diversity – gender, economic, religious, ethnic, cultural, and spatial – Japan is worth learning about today and will continue to be relevant in the future.

We hope that this module will serve as the start of your journey in learning about Japan. We also hope what you learn will be applicable in your future life — helping you plan a wonderful holiday to Japan or break the ice with future Japanese friends and colleagues. Overall, we hope to stimulate your curiosity about Japan, and provide guidance on how to satisfy that curiosity for yourself in the future.

Learning outcomes

By the end of the semester you should:

  • be able to explain how diversity is expressed, negotiated, ignored, and celebrated in Japan, past and present
  • understand the general contours of Japan’s history
  • recognize several disciplinary components of Japanese Studies
  • understand and be able to use several key terms that relate to diversity in Japan
  • improve your academic research and writing ability
  • improve your interpersonal communication skills through group discussion and exercises, as well as a group project
  • appraise the quality of different historical and contemporary accounts of Japan (primary, secondary, academic, journalistic, etc.)

Expectations

  • Attend weekly lectures and tutorials.
  • Be respectful of your lecturers, tutors, and peers.
  • Be prepared for class (lecture/tutorial) by completing readings and assignments on time.
  • Listen to and respect the opinions of others.
  • Participate actively in tutorial.
  • Regularly check your official student email account. If you email your lecturers or tutors from an alternate account (e.g. gmail), we will not reply. If your mailbox becomes full or experiences technical issues, contact your administrator immediately.
  • Produce an official MC if you miss tutorial due to illness.

What you can expect of your instructors and tutors:

  • We will reply to emails within 2-3 days.
  • We will be available for consultation via Zoom by appointment. Ask your tutor for their office hours.
  • We will do our best to provide you with a safe and comfortable learning environment.

Marks

15% E-tutorial Participation: tutorials provide an opportunity to discuss the readings and lecture material in a small group setting. We will post Tutorial Questions in LumiNUS each week. Marks will be based on both attendance and participation.

10% Individual essay: a 500-word essay on a topic related to the module theme.

20% Quizzes: four short quizzes (4 x 5% each) completed through the semester.

30% Group Research Project: In a group of 4-5 members, you will write a 2500-word paper related to the module theme, and give a presentation during tutorial. You will be assessed on writing style and structure, content and references, academic quality, relevance, and presentation. Your tutor will guide you through the process. The paper is due on 13 Nov, 5pm, and the presentation will be done via Zoom in weeks 12 and 13 tutorials.

25% Final Assignment: this will consist of two short (150 words each) and two long (700 words each) essays based on questions asked to all students. The questions will be based on content from lectures, readings, videos, and tutorials from throughout the semester.  The final assignment is due on Nov 27, 5pm.

About the readings

There is no textbook for this module. Each week has one or more Required Readings, from book chapters and journal articles, to primary source documents, films, and podcasts. Some weeks we also suggest Optional Readings if you want to know more about that topic. For those really interested in Japanese history and society, we recommend the following books:

De Bary, Wm Theodore, and Yoshiko Kurata Dykstra. 2001. Sources of Japanese Tradition. Vol 1. New York: Columbia University Press.

Gordon, Andrew. 2014. A Modern History of Japan: from Tokugawa times to the present. 3rd ed. New York: Oxford University Press.

Sugimoto, Yoshio. 2009. The Cambridge Companion to Modern Japanese Culture. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press.

Sugimoto, Yoshio. 2014. An Introduction to Japanese Society. 4th ed. Melbourne: Cambridge University Press.

Tsunoda, Ryūsaku, William Theodore De Bary, and Donald Keene. 1964. Sources of Japanese Tradition. New York ; London: Columbia University Press

Varley, H. Paul. 2000. Japanese Culture. 4th ed. Honolulu: University of Hawaiʻi Press.

Walker, Brett L. 2015. A Concise History of Japan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Schedule

Week 1  

  • Lecture:  Diversity in Japan? – McMorran and Yuen

Week 2

  • Lecture: Gender, Arts and Culture in History I – Yuen

Required Reading

  1. Bowring, Richard and Peter Kornicki. 1993.The Cambridge Encyclopaedia of Japan. New York: Cambridge University Press, 42-59. (Early History)
  2. Walker, Brett L. 2015. A Concise History of Japan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 44-65.

Week 3

  • Tutorials: Introductions, create project groups.
  • Lecture: Gender, Arts and Culture in History II – Yuen

Required Reading

  1. Hane, Mikiso. 2000. Japan: A Short History. Oxford: Oneworld, 20-37.
  2. Pyle, Kenneth. 1996. The Making of Modern Japan. Lexington MA: D.C. Heath and Company, 11-28.
  3. Duus, Peter. 1998. Modern Japan. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 73-90.

Quiz #1

Week 4

  • Tutorials: Gender, arts and culture
  • Guest Lecture: Kyogen performance

Required Reading

  1. Yuriko Doi with Theatre of Yugen. 2007. “Theatre of Yugen’s Direction of Kygoen in English and Kyogen Fusion Plays.” Asian Theatre Journal, 24(1): 247–261.

Optional Reading

  1. Brazell, Karen. 1997.Traditional Japanese Theater: an anthology of plays.New York: Columbia University Press, 3-43.
  2. Ueda, Makoto. 1965. “Toraaki and His Theory of Comedy.” The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 24(1): 19-25.
  3. Berberich, Junko. 1989. “The Idea of Rapture as an Approach to Kyōgen”. Asian Theatre Journal, 6(1): 31-46.

Week 5

  • Tutorials: Performance
  • Lecture:  Popular Culture – McMorran

Required Reading

  1. Tsutsui, William M. 2010. Japanese Popular Culture and Globalization. Ann Arbor, MI: Association for Asian Studies, 5-22.
  2. Katō Norihiro. 2006. “Goodbye Godzilla, Hello Kitty.” The American Interest 2(1): 1-8 (translated by Michael Emmerich).

Optional Reading

  1. Tsutsui, William M. 2010. Japanese Popular Culture and Globalization. Ann Arbor, MI: Association for Asian Studies, 23-34.
  2. Kelts, Roland. 2007. Japanamerica: how Japanese pop culture has invaded the U.S. New York; Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 35-65 and 145-77.
  3. Sugimoto, Yoshio. 2009. The Cambridge Companion to Modern Japanese Culture. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press. (Chapters on Music, Literacy, Manga, Sports – find it in the NUS library)

Week 6

  • Tutorials: Popular Culture
  • Lecture: Subculture – Yuen

Required Reading

  1. Gagné, I. (2008), Urban Princesses: Performance and “Women’s Language” in Japan’s Gothic/Lolita Subculture. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, 18: 130-150.
  2. Kinsella, Sharon. 1998. “Japanese Subcultures in the 1990s: Otaku and the Amateur Manga Movement”, Journal of Japanese Studies 24(2): 289-316.

Quiz #2

Semester Break

Week 7

  • Tutorials: Sub-cultures
  • Lecture: Non-Japanese – Yuen

Required Reading

  1. Sugimoto, Yoshio. 2014. An Introduction to Japanese Society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 189-218.
  2. Iwabuchi, Koichi. 2008. “Dialogue with the Korean wave: Japan and its postcolonial discontents”. In Youna Lim (ed.), Media Consumption and Everyday Life in Asia, New York and London: Routledge, 127–144.

Optional Reading

  1. Weiner, Michael. 2009. Japan’s minorities: the illusion of homogeneity. 2nd ed. London: Routledge.

Week 8

  • Tutorials: Ethnicity, Race, Nationality
  • Lecture: Numbers: Economic Miracles – McMorran

Required Reading

  1. Duus, Peter. Modern Japan. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1998, 291-311.
  2. De Bary, Wm. Theodore, Donald Keene, George Tanabe, and Paul Varley, eds. Sources of Japanese Tradition. Vol. 2. 1600 to 2000. New York: Columbia University Press, 2005, 1100-1112.
  3. Yamakawa, Masao, “The Talisman,” trans. Edward Seidensticker, Life, 57: 2-3 (September 11, 1964), 94-97. (This version from Minear, Richard H., Through Japanese Eyes, New York: CITE, 2008, 201-208)

Week 9

  • Tutorials: Project group consultations
  • Lecture: Class and status – McMorran

Required Reading

  1. Walker, Brett L. 2015. A Concise History of Japan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 124-142.
  2. Horikiri Tatsuichi. 2016. The Stories Clothes Tell: Voices of Working-Class Japan. Boulder: Roman & Littlefield, 53-68.
  3. Slater, David H. 2010. “The ‘New Working Class’ of Urban Japan: Socialization and Contradiction From Middle School to the Labor Market.” In Hiroshi Ishida and David H. Slater (eds.), Social Class in Contemporary Japan. Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon; New York: Routledge, 137-169. *Expanded article is available online for those who want to read more: http://japanfocus.org/-David_H_-Slater/3279

Optional Reading

  1. Roberts, Glenda. 2008. “Shifting Contours of Class and Status.” In Jennifer Robertson (ed.). A Companion to the Anthropology of Japan. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 104-124.
  2. Gordon, Andrew. 2017. “New and Enduring Dual Structures of Employment in Japan: The Rise of Non-Regular Labor, 1980s–2010s.” Social Science Japan Journal. 20(1): 9-36.
  3. Grunow, Tristan. 2018. Interview with Timothy Amos (ep 42). The Meiji at 150 Podcast. Podcast audio. July 13, 2018. https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-8mcj3-951b61

Quiz #3

Week 10

  • Tutorials: Class and status
  • Lecture: Protest – McMorran

Required Reading

  1. Jansen, Marius B. 2000. The Making of Modern Japan. Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 232-237.
  2.  Vaporis, Constantine N. 2012. Voices of Early Modern Japan: contemporary accounts of daily life during the age of the shoguns. Santa Barbara: Greenwood, 149-150.
  3. Grunow, Tristan. 2018. Interview with Anne Walthall. The Meiji at 150 Podcast. Podcast audio. July 11, 2018. https://player.fm/series/the-meiji-at-150-podcast-2375094/episode-41-dr-anne-walthall-irvine – Listen to the first 7 minutes.
  4. Gordon, Andrew. 2014. A Modern History of Japan: from Tokugawa times to the present. 3rd ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 268-288.

Optional Reading

  1. Grunow, Tristan. 2018. Interview with Anne Walthall. The Meiji at 150 Podcast. Podcast audio. July 11, 2018. https://player.fm/series/the-meiji-at-150-podcast-2375094/episode-41-dr-anne-walthall-irvine – entire episode
  2. Manabe, Noriko. 2017. “Monju-kun: Children’s culture as protest.” In Sabine Frühstück and Anne Walthall (eds.). Child’s Play: multi-sensory histories of children and childhood in Japan, Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 264-285.

Week 11

  • Tutorials: Protest
  • Guest Lecture: Akira and the art of anime: A/P Deborah Shamoon

Required Viewing

  1. Otomo Katsuhiro (Director) 1988. Akira.

Week 12

  • Tutorials: Group Presentations
  • Lecture: Population Problems – McMorran

Required Reading

  1. Shirahase, S. 2015. Demography as destiny: falling birthrates and the allure of a blended society. In F. Baldwin & A. Allison (eds.) Japan: the precarious future, New York: New York University Press, 11-35.
  2. Sugimoto, Yoshio. 2014. An Introduction to Japanese Society. 4th ed. Melbourne: Cambridge University Press, 64-90.

Optional Reading

  1. Matanle, Peter and Yasuyuki Sato. 2010. “Coming Soon to a City near You! Learning to Live ‘Beyond Growth’ in Japan’s Shrinking Regions.” Social Science Japan Journal 13(2): 187-210.

Quiz #4

Week 13

  • Tutorials: Group Presentations
  • Lecture:  Conclusions and Looking to Japan’s Futures – Yuen and McMorran

Final Group Project due 5:00pm on Friday, 13 November.