授業案内

2023  年度の授業 (開講は10 月から12 月)

Courses for 2023 (October through December, 10 classes each)

Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri
10:30-12:00

Japanese History in the World 

Professor Shoya Unoda

13:30-15:00  

Language, Society and Culture in Contemporary Japan 

Professor Matthew Burdelski

European Literature from the Japanese Perspective

Dr. Paul Harvey



15:10-16:40

European History from the Japanese Perspective

Professor Nadin Heé 

Introductory Japanese Language Course (non-credited) 

Professor Matthew Burdelski

European Philosophy from the Japanese Perspective 

Professor Taro Mochizuki

16:50-18:20

European History from the Japanese Perspective

This course aims at discussing three overarching topics currently debated both in European countries and in Japan: mobility, migration, and minorities. Using a historical perspective that looks beyond Europe and includes comparative and relational approaches from a Japanese and East Asian point of view will help to understand some of today’s migration of minority politics that cross nation state’s borders. By so doing we will trace historical trajectories and investigate imperial legacies that sustain both in post-war Japan and in European countries and how memory politics interfere with migration and minority issues. When it comes to mobility we will finally discuss environmental aspects as a driving force for human or non-human movements as well as ruptures.

Language, Society and Culture in Contemporary Japan

This course will take up language as a resource in constituting socio-cultural meanings (identity, emotion, social acts such as apologies). While the object of our study will focus a good deal on Japanese and English, we will also use the themes developed in the class to discuss European and other Asian languages, particularly those relevant to the students enrolled. Topics include language socialization, youth and sub/pop cultures, gender and sexuality, and storytelling (narrative). Students will be expected to: 1) lead group discussions, 2) write two essays (about 1000 words), 3) write two reflections: a. fieldtrip experience, b. in-class documentary (about 1000 words each), 4) participate in a group presentation, 5) and construct a group project such as video or installation (similar to IP conference).

Japanese History in the World

Japanese society experienced a drastic transformation after Japan’s defeat in World War II. This course outlines the social, political, and economic changes that have taken place in post-war Japan, comparing these with the cases of European countries. It also examines post-war Japanese society from the standpoints of gender, minorities, and war memory. In preparation for a field trip to Hiroshima, special emphasis will be placed on literary and artistic representations of the atomic bomb experience. The goal of the course is to employ both historical and comparative approaches to elucidate the similarities and differences between contemporary Japanese and European societies.

European Literature from the Japanese Perspective

This course continues from before reading poetry of nineteenth century to twentieth century United Kingdom (and USA and elsewhere). We will be reading selected poems from a variety of poets focusing on the theme of trees, plants and flowers. How did poets respond to specific trees? Can we compare this to Japanese examples? What about classical literature or medieval European examples? How does poetic treatment of such topics change over time? There is an ecological theme running through the poetry. What kind of poetry is being written today?

European Philosophy from the Japanese Perspective

This course is intended, primarily, to introduce the three major Japanese philosophers who founded and developed the Kyoto School in philosophy, ethics and aesthetics in 1930s, namely, Nishida Kitaro, Watsuji Tetsuro and Kuki Shuzo. We will read the essential parts of such works of theirs as Nishida’s An Inquiry into the Good, Watsuji’s Climate and Culture, and Kuki’s The Structure of Detachment, to understand how they interpreted European thoughts from Japanese perspective and created their original modern view of space and time; and, secondly, to elucidate what ethics was for these three philosophers and how they illustrated it. We will see the alternative articulation of logos, ethos and pathos they made in the midst of lived experience of the people who had grown in different intellectual surroundings from Europe.