Rethinking Japan: Introduction to Modern Japanese Society and Culture (Level 4)

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 book review (25%), 2000-word essay (60%) and continuous assessment of post-sessional short essays and class participation (15%).

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