JAPN 1001 Elementary Japanese (4 Credits)

The Elementary Japanese sequence helps students develop communicative competence in basic spoken and written Japanese and explore Japanese cultural practices and perspectives to enrich cultural competence and reflect on their own. First quarter of a three-quarter sequence. Japanese 1001 is designed for students with no prior knowledge of Japanese. Students who have experience with the Japanese language should complete the placement test to determine the appropriate course level for their background.

JAPN 1002 Elementary Japanese (4 Credits)

The Elementary Japanese sequence helps students develop communicative competence in basic spoken and written Japanese and explore Japanese cultural practices and perspectives to enrich cultural competence and reflect on their own. Second quarter of a three-quarter sequence. Prerequisite: JAPN 1001 or equivalent.

JAPN 1003 Elementary Japanese (4 Credits)

The Elementary Japanese sequence helps students develop communicative competence in basic spoken and written Japanese and explore Japanese cultural practices and perspectives to enrich cultural competence and reflect on their own. Third quarter of a three-quarter sequence. Prerequisite: JAPN 1002 or equivalent.

JAPN 1005 Japanese for the Real World (4 Credits)

This fun and challenging intermediate-level, task-based language course develops Japanese language & cultural competency for students preparing to study abroad in Japan or travel to Japan independently. In this course students synthesize and build on their reading, writing, speaking, listening and cultural skills prior to departure in order to maximize their study/travel abroad experience. The task-based curriculum will help students improve their communicative skills in the Japanese language through authentic materials and concrete, task-based language learning. Students also deepen their knowledge about Japanese culture and have online and face-to-face discussions when possible with Japanese native speakers to enhance their cultural competence. Prerequisite: JAPN 1003 or instructor permission.

JAPN 1216 Popular Culture of Japan (4 Credits)

In this course we examine and analyze the emergence of particular forms of mass-produced culture, or culture for mass consumption, in Japan from the early modern period to the present. Using a variety of cultural materials enjoyed from the early modern period (1600-1868,) during which Japanese society underwent extensive urbanization, secularization, and cultural commodification, through to the present, the course focuses on overarching themes: media and information technology (woodblock printing, newspapers, and the internet); entertainment and gender (the all-male kabuki theatre and all-female Takarazuka revue); commodified romance; fiction (illustrated fiction, manga, and novels); anime and television fandom; healer-bots and cyborgs. No knowledge of Japanese required. This course counts toward the Analytical Inquiry: Society and Culture requirement.

JAPN 1416 Postwar Japan: Changing Perspectives in Literature and Culture (4 Credits)

This course explores a range of Japanese cultural perspectives from the end of the Second World War to the present. The main focus is on the analysis and interpretation of Japanese literary texts, but during the course students also examine film, visual art, and other cultural products within a historical framework, to lead to a deeper understanding of the influences and events that have shaped both contemporary Japan and the wider world. Prerequisites: JAPN 1001.

JAPN 1616 Samurai and Merchants: Cultures of Tokugawa Japan (4 Credits)

Introduction to the cultures of Tokugawa, Japan, focusing on the tension between the samurai and merchant classes, the images they construct of self and other, and the morals and mores of their respective worlds. As well as examining Tokugawa fiction, drama, and other cultural artifacts, this course also considers later representation of the period and of its people in twenty- and twenty-first-century text, cinema, and television to understand the importance of contemporary influences on historical representation. This course counts toward the Analytical Inquiry: Society and Culture requirement.

JAPN 1988 Study Abroad Resident Credit (0-18 Credits)

JAPN 2001 Intermediate Japanese (4 Credits)

Continuing study of complex grammatical structures, vocabulary expansion and reading skills. First quarter of three quarter sequence. Prerequisite: JAPN 1003 or equivalent.

JAPN 2002 Intermediate Japanese (4 Credits)

Continuing study of complex grammatical structures, vocabulary expansion and reading skills. Second quarter of three quarter sequence. Prerequisite: JAPN 2001 or equivalent.

JAPN 2003 Intermediate Japanese (4 Credits)

Continuing study of complex grammatical structures, vocabulary expansion and reading skills. Third quarter of three quarter sequence. Prerequisite: JAPN 2002 or equivalent.

JAPN 2101 Conversation and Composition I (4 Credits)

Intensive practice in oral skills, grammar review, reading and writing. Prerequisite: JAPN 2003 and JAPN 1416.

JAPN 2102 Conversation & Composition II (4 Credits)

Intermediate training in speaking, reading and writing. Prerequisite: JAPN 2101 or equivalent and JAPN 1416.

JAPN 2103 Conversation & Composition III (4 Credits)

Advanced-intermediate training in speaking, reading and writing. Prerequisite: JAPN 2102 or equivalent and JAPN 1416.

JAPN 2400 Hey, Girl, Hey: Japanese Girlhood from the Moga to Shôjo (4 Credits)

This course explores the figure of Japanese girlhood from the Moga "modern girl" of the early twentieth century to the contemporary figure of the shôjo . Japanese cultural production has had a significant impact on East Asian girl's media in the pre-war period and again in the post-war to contemporary period. The course will explore the "modern girl" in all her iterations, from European modernism to East Asia, Africa, and the Americas, especially in the contexts of colonialism and nationalism. The course also considers the roles of girls and women in the formation of the modern state(s) and contemporary societies across East Asia, and juxtapose those roles to how girls and women are depicted in fiction and media. Students will trace the transition from the comparative modernisms legible in the figure of the moga to the transnationally circulated figure of the shôjo.

JAPN 2500 Cultures of the Floating World (4 Credits)

During the Edo period (1600-1868), the literature and visual culture of Japan flourished after centuries of devastating warfare. The floating world of kabuki theaters, woodblock print culture, and the pleasure quarters arrested the imagination of the populace and attracted the unwanted attention of governmental authorities. Over the course of the Edo period, the shogunal government expelled Christians from Japan, the city of Edo became the largest in the world, and woodblock print culture spread throughout the Japanese archipelago. Through reading various genres of literary and cultural production, students will explore how society shapes culture and culture shapes societies. Topics include: premodern literary representations of love and eros, the emergence of the “floating world print” (ukiyo-e), Christians as Others, representing landscapes and the past in haikai poetry and prose, early modern comic books, and vendetta stories. This course counts toward the Analytical Inquiry: Society and Culture requirement.

JAPN 2700 Classical Japanese Women Writers: The Poets, Priestesses & Princesses in their Literary Golden Age (4 Credits)

The course explores the extraordinary female-centered belles-lettres of classical Japanese literature, including a myth-history detailing the origins of Japan, the development of the rich poetic tradition, female diaries, zuihitsu and personal essays, the classic Tale of Genji, and literature of religious hermetic and travel diaries. The course will critically consider how women writers were able to flourish in this period and interpret their literary output through a consideration of the cultural and historical context for the texts. This course will also deploy principles of literary analysis and interpretation.

JAPN 2988 Study Abroad Resident Credit (0-18 Credits)

JAPN 3050 Language and Culture of Japan (4 Credits)

JAPN 3701 Topics in Japanese Culture (4 Credits)

Selected topics in Japanese culture. Texts and films in both Japanese and English, with a focus on modern and contemporary Japanese culture. May be repeated for credit. Prerequisite: JAPN 3100 or equivalent.

JAPN 3800 Robots and Posthumanism in Japanese Visual Culture (4 Credits)

Automata and robots lumber, glide, rampage and ambulate their way through Japanese visual culture. Robots, cyborgs and other posthuman bodies and subjectivities have offered visions of new future worlds and have critiqued past and present social conditions. In this course, students will investigate representations of robots and posthumans in Japanese visual culture of the 20th and 21st centuries. Completion of JAPN 2003 or equivalent required.

JAPN 3810 Sexuality and Gender in Japanese Culture (4 Credits)

Sexuality and Gender in Japanese Culture is designed for students who have completed JAPN 2001-2003 or the equivalent. In this class, we will focus on developing reading, discussion, speaking, and critical thinking skills centered around representations of gender and sexuality in Japanese culture. Students will read texts by poets, critics, manga artists, and bloggers. In doing so, students will not only expand their critical vocabulary in Japanese, but also critically contend with representations of gender and sexuality in the Japanese context. Prerequisite: JAPN 2003 or equivalent.

JAPN 3820 Frogs in a Pond: Japanese Translation Theory and Practice (4 Credits)

This course takes a multi-pronged approach to literature and translation, considering aspects of translation theory, methodology, and practice; literature in translation; and the function of translation in global dynamics of canon, colonization, power, and literary stylistics. With a language like Japanese, which shares no linguistic roots with European languages, questions of translation are magnified and problematized by linguistic difference, histories of Orientalism and colonization, and fundamentally different literary aesthetics, especially in literatures of premodern Japan and early modern Europe. Questions this course considers include: with what modes of translation practice might we approach Japanese literature? How has the translation of European literature into Japanese impacted Japanese literary aesthetics and vice versa? How might we more equitably represent Japanese literature to a global Anglo audience? By what processes does the business of translation occur and how do those processes impact the actual production of literary canon and study? This class requires Japanese language ability of intermediate and higher. Prerequisites: JAPN 1416 and JAPN 2003 or equivalent required.

JAPN 3988 Study Abroad Resident Credit (0-18 Credits)

JAPN 3991 Independent Study (1-5 Credits)

JAPN 3995 Independent Research (1-10 Credits)