Course 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. Taught in English.
Units: 4
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Reflective Narrative:
In JAPN 215, we explored all the different aspects of media that makes Japanese culture distinctive and so different than any other countries. Through weekly reading assignments and in-class quizzes on said readings, this class fulfilled the MLO 2 requirement because it enabled us to further our knowledge on various cultural topics such as the influence of anime outside of Japan and the globalization of manga. For an assignment, I wrote a paper about Akihabara, a city in Japan famously known around the world as a mecca of anime and technology (see here). Through research, I became more familiar with modern facets of Japanese culture which is not known to the general public. Aside from contemporary aspects of culture, we also examined more general topics such as the characteristics and significance of nature in Japan (see slide below).
In JAPN 215, we explored all the different aspects of media that makes Japanese culture distinctive and so different than any other countries. Through weekly reading assignments and in-class quizzes on said readings, this class fulfilled the MLO 2 requirement because it enabled us to further our knowledge on various cultural topics such as the influence of anime outside of Japan and the globalization of manga. For an assignment, I wrote a paper about Akihabara, a city in Japan famously known around the world as a mecca of anime and technology (see here). Through research, I became more familiar with modern facets of Japanese culture which is not known to the general public. Aside from contemporary aspects of culture, we also examined more general topics such as the characteristics and significance of nature in Japan (see slide below).