Japan
Contemporary and Popular Japanese Cultures and Societies
June 21-29, 2008
Itinerary
This 9-day seminar begins and ends in Tokyo and includes a daytrip to the ancient Samurai capital of Kamakura.
Seminar Fee
CIEE Member: $2,800 Non-Member: $3,000
Academic Content (please note this is tentative and subject to change)
Lectures
- Multicultural Japan: From Ainu Yukar to Korean Rap
- Yasukuni Shrine and Neo-Nationalism in Contemporary Japan
- Pop Culture of the Edo Period and the Legacy of the Edo Period Culture on the Present Day
- Women and their Protean Bodies in Japanese Literature
- Media Representations of Japan: Internal and External Views
- Anime and Manga: Globalization of Japanese Pop Culture
- Metroethnicity and the Principle of Cool
- What A City Might Be: Public Spaces and Symbolic Consumption in Tokyo
- Science, Technology and Society: Societal Decision-Making in Contemporary Japan
Co-curricular Site Visits & Field Trips
- Guided Field trips to Omotesando, Ginza, and Ueno coordinated with corresponding lectures
- Yasukuni Shrine
- Ghibili Museum
- Kabuki Theatre
- Kamakura, Ancient Samurai Capital
Rationale
For many people around the world, Japan and the Japanese remain an enigma. It is a nation and a people long viewed primarily through stereotypes: kimono'd geisha, samurai swordsmen, cloistered housewives, Zen Masters, and economic animals. Today, while some of the images are changing—women are out in force, Pokemon is cool in the U.S., Korean pop culture is "in" in Japan—other issues refuse to go away. Treatment of the Pacific War in Japanese textbooks raises hackles from Singapore to Shanghai to Seoul; disputed islands dot the Japan Sea (or is it the East Sea?); and Japanese politicians' visits to Yasukuni Shrine to honor the war dead lead to protests in the streets of China.
The general outline of Japan's recent history is well-known. Devastated by its ill-fated militaristic ambitions in the first half of the twentieth century, Japan had assumed a place at the forefront of the world economy by the 1980s. The economic "bubble" then burst, and Japan went, in the minds of many, from economic miracle to economic has-been. But what is the real nature of contemporary Japan? This seminar aims to go beyond the stereotypical views of this country and its people to examine the nature of Japan's place in the evolving geopolitical landscape of Asia, and to explore the current allure of Japanese popular culture abroad. By some counts, anime and manga are named by over ninety percent of Americans currently studying Japanese in school. What are the roots of these popular cultural phenomena? What is their significance? With Tokyo as its classroom, this seminar will invite participants to explore these and other questions with people who have devoted their lives to understanding them.
Host Institution
International Christian University (ICU), a small, bilingual, liberal arts university located in Tokyo, Japan, began as an experiment in international education in 1953, when Japanese leaders sought more democratic and humanistic approaches to addressing domestic and international problems. ICU was envisaged as a “University of Tomorrow,” a place where Japanese and international students would live together and learn to serve the needs of an emerging, more interconnected world. Over the past 50 years, the university has graduated students who carry with them a pioneering spirit of openness to constructive change and alternative points of view. Today, ICU is recognized as a leader in international education in Japan.
Seminar Leadership
Dr. Peter McCagg is Dean of International Affairs at International Christian University in Tokyo. He received his BA from Princeton University in East Asian Studies; his MS and Ph.D. are from Georgetown University in Linguistics and Applied Linguistics, respectively. A sabbatical year spent at UC Berkeley turned his academic interests toward cognitive linguistics and, in particular, conceptual metaphor. A long-time resident of Japan, Peter has taught English and various language and linguistics courses at ICU since 1975. His newest course at ICU is Windows, Doors, and Shoji Screens: An Introduction to Language and Culture in Japan.
Steven Houghton is the Resident Director of the CIEE Study Center in Tokyo. After two years in Honduras in the U.S. Peace Corps, Steven taught English for three years in Nagano, Japan through the JET Program. Later he returned to Japan as a Rotary World Peace Study Fellow and earned a graduate degree in Peace Studies at International Christian University.
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