From Round to Square (and back)

For The Emperor's Teacher, scroll down (↓) to "Topics." It's the management book that will rock the world (and break the vase, as you will see). Click or paste the following link for a recent profile of the project: http://magazine.beloit.edu/?story_id=240813&issue_id=240610

A new post appears every day at 12:05* (CDT). There's more, though. Take a look at the right-hand side of the page for over four years of material (2,000 posts and growing) from Seinfeld and country music to every single day of the Chinese lunar calendar...translated. Look here ↓ and explore a little. It will take you all the way down the page...from round to square (and back again).
*Occasionally I will leave a long post up for thirty-six hours, and post a shorter entry at noon the next day.

Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Syllabic Cycles (1b)—Japanese History and Culture

One year ago on Round and Square (28 November 2011)—Fieldnotes From History: Transportation
Click here for the introduction to the Round and Square series "Syllabic Cycles"
[a] Golden RF
 Japanese History and Culture
History 210 & Anthropology 275
Autumn 2012
TTh 12:00-2:00
Robert André LaFleur                                                             Office Hours:
Morse Ingersoll 111                                                                 Tuesday           4:00-5:30
363-2005                                                                                   Thursday         4:00-5:30 lafleur@beloit.edu                                                                    …or by appointment 

Required Books         
Benedict, Ruth. The Chrysanthemum and the Sword
Berry, Mary Elizabeth. Japan in Print
Bestor, Theodore. Neighborhood Tokyo
Bestor, Theodore. Tsukiji: The Fish Market at the Center of the World
Bix, Herbert. Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan
Dower, John. Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II
Keene, Donald. Emperor of Japan: Meiji and His World, 1852-1912
Lu, David, Japan: A Documentary History
McCullough, Helen. Classical Japanese Prose: An Anthology
Ohnuki-Tierney, Emiko. Rice as Self: Japanese Identities Through Time
Rupp, Katherine. Gift-Giving in Japan
Souyri, Pierre François. The World Turned Upside Down
Varley, Paul. Japanese Culture
Hacker, Diana. A Pocket Style Manual.
All books are on library reserve

Course Description
This course will examine Japanese history and culture in the context of the wider East Asian world.  We will begin with early Japanese history and the influence of both Korea and China on early Japanese institutions.  We will then examine the development of Japan’s indigenous traditions during the Heian (794-1185), Kamakura (1185-1333), and Ashikaga (1336-1568) periods.  The second half of the course will deal with modern Japanese history and culture, paying equal attention to historical and ethnographic materials, and taking a careful look at the development of the Kanto and Kansai regions in modern Japanese history and culture.  Throughout the course we will use examples from the Japanese language—spoken phrases, the two major syllabaries (hiragana and katakana), and kanji, or Chinese characters—to analyze Japanese history and culture in linguistic context.

Evaluation
Language exercises                    5%    
Quizzes/attendance                   10%
Source Essay                             15%    
Midterm assignment                   25%
Final Exam                                 15%                            
Paper                                          30%    

Daily attendance and class participation are expected; absences during the semester will affect your grade. Late assignments will be penalized. 

History 210 & Anthropology 275
Japanese History and Culture
Autumn 2012
Second Module: Weeks 9-16
[b] History RF

Week IX          
Contemporary Japanese Culture II
Rice, Self, and Samurai
Tuesday, October 23 (Film in Class)
            Kurosawa, The Seven Samurai (七人の侍)
                Part One
                    Part Two
Thursday, October 25
            Ohnuki-Tierney, Rice as Self
                 Food as a Metaphor of Self: An Exercise in Historical Anthropology
                     Rice and Rice Agriculture Today
                     Rice as a Staple Food?
                     Rice in Cosmogony and Cosmology
                     Rice as Self, Rice Paddies as Our Land
                     Rice in the Discourse of Selves and Others
                     Foods as Selves and Others in Cross-cultural Perspective
                     Symbolic Practice through Time: Self, Ethnicity, and Nationalism
Midterm Assignment Due in my Office (MI 111)
By 5:00 p.m. on Monday, October 31st
Click Here for the Midterm Assignment 

Week X           
Late Tokugawa and Early Meiji Japan (c. 1800- c. 1900)
Tuesday, October 30
Keene, Emperor of Japan: 1-209
Thursday, November 1
Keene, Emperor of Japan: 210-415
            Language Exercises Due by 5:00 p.m. on Friday, November 2nd

Week XI          
The Late Meiji, Taisho, and Showa Eras (c. 1900-1945)
Tuesday, November 6
Bix, Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan: 21-232
                 Part I: The Prince’s Education, 1901-1921
            The Boy, the Family, and the Meiji Legacies
            Cultivating an Emperor                                       
            Confronting the Real World                                 
                 Part II: The Politics of Good Intentions
            The Regency and the Crisis of Taisho Democracy    
            The New Monarchy and the New Nationalism         
            A Political Monarch Emerges                               
Thursday, November 8
Bix, Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan: 233-530
                 Part III: His Majesty’s Wars, 1931-1945
            The Manchurian Transformation
            Restoration and Repression
            Holy War
            Stalemate and Escalation
            Prologue to Pearl Harbor
            The Ordeal of Supreme Command
            Delayed Surrender           
            Language Exercises Due by 5:00 p.m. on Friday, November 9th


[c] Era RF
Week XII        The Postwar Era
Tuesday, November 13
Dower, Embracing Defeat: 19-275
     Part I: Victor and Vanquished
Shattered Lives                                                  
Gifts from Heaven                                               
     Part II: Transcending Despair
Kyodatsu: Exhaustion and Despair                         
Cultures of Defeat                                               
Bridges of Language                                            
     Part III: Revolutions
Neocolonial Revolution
Embracing Revolution
Making Revolution

Thursday, November 15
Dower, Embracing Defeat: 277-564
                 Part IV: Democracies
                        Imperial Democracy: Driving the Wedge
                        Imperial Democracy: Descending Partway from Heaven
                        Imperial Democracy: Evading Responsibility
                        Constitutional Democracy: GHQ Writes a New National Charter
                        Constitutional Democracy: Japanizing the American Draft
                        Censoring Democracy: Policing the New Taboos
                 Part V: Guilts
            Victor’s Justice, Loser’s Justice                            
            What Do You Tell the Dead When You Lose?        
                 Part VI: Reconstructions
            Engineering Growth                                            
            Epilogue: Legacies/Fantasies/Dreams                                 
            Language Exercises Due by 5:00 p.m. on Friday, November 16th

Week XIII       
Contemporary Japanese Culture III—Early Postwar Reflections from America
Tuesday, November 20
Benedict, The Chrysanthemum and the Sword
            Assignment: Japan
            The Japanese in the War
            Taking One’s Proper Station
            The Meiji Reform
            Debtor to the Ages and the World
            Repaying One-Ten-Thousandth
            The Repayment ‘Hardest to Bear’
            Clearing One’s Name
            The Circle of Human Feelings
            The Dilemma of Virtue
            Self-Discipline
            The Child Learns
            The Japanese Since VJ-Day 

Week XIV       
Contemporary Japanese Culture IV— Urban Anthropology
Tuesday, November 27
Bestor, Neighborhood Tokyo: 1-161
            Introduction                                           
            Miyamoto-cho, a Portrait                         
            The Development of a Neighborhood                     
            Local Politics and Administration             
            Community Services and Neighborhood Events                   
Thursday, November 29
Bestor, Neighborhood Tokyo: 162-268
            Formal Hierarchies of Participation and Power         
            Friends and Neighbors
            The Festival and the Local Social Order
            Conclusion
            Language Exercises Due by 5:00 p.m. on Friday. November 30th
[d] Circle RF

Week XV        
Contemporary Japanese Culture V—Market, Nation, World
Tuesday, December 5
Bestor, Tsukiji: 1-176
            Tokyo’s Pantry                                      
            Grooved Channels                                  
            From Landfill to Marketplace        
            The Raw and the Cooked
Thursday, December 7
Bestor, Tsukiji: 177-313
            Visible Hands                                                    
            Family/Firm                                                      
            Trading Places                                                   
            Full Circle                                                        
            Language Exercises Due by 5:00 p.m. on Friday, December 8th 

Week XVI       
Contemporary Japanese Culture VI—Review
Tuesday, December 12
                        In-class final exam (ninety minutes).

Final Paper Due Wednesday, December 13th by 5:00 p.m.

All Late Work Due by Wednesday, December 13th by 10:00 p.m.
[e] Centered RF
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