Effective:  Fall 2001

Course Number:    740-434

Cross Listed Number:

Course Title: Social History of Japan   (limit 65 characters)

15 Character Abbreviation: Soc Hist Japan
25 Character Abbreviation: Social History of Japan
 
 

Sponsor:   Richard Yasko		E-mail Address:   None
Department:   History		College: Letters & Sciences
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Number of credits:	__3_____		Total contact hours:	48

 

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Course justification:This course in Japanese social history was prepared with the aid of a U.S. Department of Education Title 6 grant. The grant was designed to expand the offerings in East Asian Studies. My course "20^th Century Japan" deals primarily with Japanese politics, economics, and foreign relations. Topics such as the intrusion of the West, the adoption of Western style constitutional government, rapid industrialization, the emergence of Japanese imperialism and militarism, the Great Pacific War, the impact of the occupation, and the rise of Japan as a world economic power cannot be neglected. Recognizing the need for a more expansive and incisive treatment of the consequences of those events on the Japanese people, I have taught Japanese social history twice under a special studies number. I would like to move this course on Japanese Social History into the regular course offering rotation of the History Department.

Relationship to program assessment objectives: Relationship to program assessment objectives:    Course will provide another option for students who need non-western credits to fulfill their degree requirements.  Students will also gain in-depth knowledge of either a chronologically and/or thematically limited historical topic or period in order to develop an awareness of the complexity of historical study and that historical events and developments are subject to varied interpretation.  They will also gain a basic knowledge of the history of at least one or more regions of Africa, Asia, Latin America, or the Middle East in order to understand the culture and development of civilization other than Europe or the United States.  History majors should also have a knowledge of historical method, the evolution of the discipline of history, theories of historical inquiry, and major historiographical debates.  Students completing this course will have developed the ability to apply abstractions to historical particulars, analyze and evaluate historical sources, including inferences that can be drawn from these sources, and synthesize historical evidence.

Budgetary impact:  I have taught this course on Japanese Social History twice in the past under a Special Studies number.  It will be moved into the regular course offering rotation of the History Department and become part of my regular course load.  This will be possible due to other department faculty teaching Senior Seminar, a course that was taught by me in the past.  There seems to be enough current library offerings to support this course.

Course description: Course traces the changes in the lives of Japanese people from earliest recorded times to the present day. Emphasis is on the period from 1868 to the 1990’s.

Course requisites: Junior standing; 6 credits of History or consent of instructor.

Course objectives and tentative course syllabus:

Course objective:

1. The objective of this course is to give the student an insight into Japanese society and the way it operates. The student should come away with the idea that not all societies are constructed the same way as those in Waukesha, nor do they all hold the same values as those in Janesville or Kenosha.
2. Students will access Japanese primary sources, in English, on the internet.
3. Students will sharpen their writing skills by writing an analytical paper of some length.

Week One

1. Change from Uji clan organization to "modern" Chinese style nobility (644 AD), shifts in status of religious leaders.
2. Heian Society – Chinese cultural imports rendered more Japanese primarily by noble women.
3. Samurai Ascendance 1185 – Warriors replace the Heian nobles as ruling class.

1. Static Society in Edo Period Japan 1600-1868

Social classes: Samurai-elite
Peasant
Artisan
Merchant
 
2. Socio-economic disquiet on the static world of Tokugawa Japan

Merchant frustrations
Samurai impoverishment
 
3. Bakamatsu Turmoil – The intrusion of the West

1. Social dislocation in the new Japan
2. Peasants bear the burden of modernization
3. Samurai elite disappear
4. The "New generation"

1. Residual Confucian values in a modernizing industrializing society
2. Women rebels

1. "Dual Economy", Organizing "Organized Labor"

1. Public support for imperialism
2. Education
3. Military Reserve Associations

1. Occupation directed reforms
2. Equality of women
3. Japanese attitudes toward the "Americanization" of Japan

1. Marxism and labor organizations
2. Compromises between labor and the corporations

1. Student ideology
2. Student demonstrations
3. The Establishment Reaction

1. Vertical structured society and how to move up
2. Glass ceiling
3. Japan as "number one"

1. Kabuki-cho society, bars, prostitutes and Yakuza
2. Pachinko – the common man (and woman’s) Las Vegas
3. Manga – Comics for the Adult Reader
4. Horse Racing – Japan outspends the U.S. and Europe
5. Sumo – traditional sport
6. Yakyu – (baseball) "You gotta have ‘wa’"
7. The finer arts: Kabuki and NÇ
8. Japanese Film – From "Rashomon" to "Taxing Woman"

What’s new, what’s old, what’s the relation between the two?

Week Fourteen – Summary and discussion

Have we learned anything about Japanese people? Their family structure? Their outlook on life; their ambitions?

Week Fifteen – Continue discussion of lectures and readings of Hane, Gordon, and Field.

Textbooks for Purchase:

Andrew Gordon, Labor and Imperial Democracy in Prewar Japan. Univ. Calif., 1991.
Norma Field, From my Grandmothers Bedside. Univ. Calif., 1997.
M. Hane, Peasants, Rebels and Outcasts, the Underside of Modern Japan. Pantheon, 1982.

Rental: Duus, P. Modern Japan.

Exams: Two Essay Exams – a midterm on selected topics and a final.

Papers: A 10-15 page paper on Gordon Labor is due on final exam day. The paper must be properly annotated, with normal font, one inch margins, double-spaced; the pages must be numbered.

Grades are determined by Exam results, the quality of your paper, attendance and participation in class discussion.

Bibliography:

Books of Special Interest:
*Hane, M. Reflections on The Way to the Gallows. Rebel Women in Prewar Japan. U. Calif., 1988.
*Gordon, A. The Evolution of Labor Relations in Japan. Heavy Industry 1853-1955, Harvard, 1988.
*Dower, J. Embracing Defeat, Norton, 1999.
Field, N. In The Realm of the Dying Emperor. Vintage, 1993.
*Sansom, G. Japan: A Short Cultural History. Appelton Century Crofts, 1943.
Vogel, E. Japan as Number One. Harvard, 1979.
*Pyle, K. The New Generation Meiji Japan. Stanford, 1969.
Duus, P. Feudalism in Japan. McGraw Hill, 1993.
*Dore, R. P. Aspects of Social Change in Modern Japan. Princeton, 1967.
*Garon, S. Molding Japanese Minds. Princeton, 1997.
Harootunian, H. Overcome by Modernity. Princeton, 2000.
*Benedict, R. The Chrysanthemum are the Sword, Patterns of Japanese Culture. Houghton Mifflin, 1946.
*Nakane, C. Japanese Society. U. Calif., 1970.
*Bestor, T. Neighborhood Tokyo. Stanford, 1989.
*Seidensticker, E. Low City High City. Harvard, 1991.
*Allison, A. Nightwork: Sexuality, Pleasure and Corporate Masculinity in a Tokyo Hostess Club. U. Calif.,       1994.
*Iwao, S. The Japanese Woman, Tradition Image Changing Reality. Harvard, 1993.
Whiting, R. Tokyo Underworld. Kodansha, 1999.
*Whiting, R. You Gotta Have ‘Wa’. Vintage, 1989.
Lebra, T. Above the Clouds: Status Culture of the Modern Japanese Nobility. U. Calif., 1993.
*Mitchell, R. The Korean Minority in Japan. U. Calif., 1967.
Dore, R. City Life in Japan. U. Calif., 1958.
Cole, R. Japanese Blue Collar. U. Calif., 1973.
Varley, H. Samurai. Dell, 1970.
Fmbree, J. Suye Mura – A Japanese Village. U. of Chicago, 1964.
Fukutake. Japanese Rural Society. Oxford, 1967.
Smethurst, R. A Social Basis for Prewar Japanese Militarism. U. of Calif., 1974.
Moore, J. The Other Japan, Conflict, Compromise and Resistance Since 1945. Sharpe, 1997.

* = Currently held in the UW-Whitewater Library