JAPN 215: Cool Japan Today
Description:
This course examines contemporary media culture and products as a conceptual lens to focus on Japanese pop culture and soft power in the 21st Century. Manga, Anime, Cinema, literature, performance art, music, and fine arts will all be surveyed with an eye to understanding what exactly is cool and different about Japanese creative work and whether these kinds of cultural exports could become the foundation of a new post-industrial Japanese economy.
Units: 4
Course Reflective Narrative:
This course examines contemporary media culture and products as a conceptual lens to focus on Japanese pop culture and soft power in the 21st Century. Manga, Anime, Cinema, literature, performance art, music, and fine arts will all be surveyed with an eye to understanding what exactly is cool and different about Japanese creative work and whether these kinds of cultural exports could become the foundation of a new post-industrial Japanese economy.
Units: 4
Course Reflective Narrative:
Throughout this semester, the class had talked about many different aspects of Japanese traditional culture and pop culture. We had even looked at the connection between the two and saw how in some cases traditional things evolved into today’s pop culture in Japan. Since this course also fills in the GE requirement for the Art section, we had talked about the many arts Japan has to offer, from ukiyo-e to manga to T.V. dramas to anime. This class taught us the basics of Japanese culture. Our daily homework assignments were readings that would be related to the next class’s lectures or would be extra cultural information to expand our idea of Japanese culture and history. We also had several essays and short papers that allowed us to analyzes the topics (for example an anime or film) and form our own opinions about it and compare it to our own cultural standards (see Essay 1).
This course further reinforced my knowledge about Japanese history and culture. I was also able to learn new things, such as Japanese architecture and specific regions in Japan (see Final Group Presentation). As a Japanese major, this has allowed to move another step forward in understanding Japanese culture and being able to tell the different between the stereotypes and also comparing it to my own culture. Learning about the different regions and what they offer and what makes them unique was very interesting and I would like to know more about it. Since I will be going to Japan soon as an exchange student, it would be nice to have the background knowledge about an area when visiting there.
At this point my next step will be applying the things have learned into first-hand learning experiences. It is one thing to learn about a culture from a book or classroom, but experiencing and living in it allows a person to take on a whole new view and see how things really are. It can disprove previous knowledge that someone had or affirm it as real. So next semester I will be experiencing the culture first-hand and hopefully will see things in new light.
Work Completed:
~Essay 1
~ Final Group Presentation: