This course offers students an in-depth look at the history and historiography of Modern Japan (1868-Present), with a special emphasis on the relationship between empire and everyday life in Japan's modern experience. The course is divided into four chronological units spanning the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and students will have the opportunity to crowdsource their reading materials from a list of recommended and representative books within each unit. Class discussions will provide an overview of the latest English-language scholarship on Japan's modernity to familiarize advanced undergraduates and graduate students with the styles of research and interpretation that inform our understanding of history today.

This course offers students an in-depth look at the history and historiography of Edo Japan (1600-1868). Each week explores a different key theme in the social and cultural atmosphere of Japan under Tokugawa rule to provide a holistic view of life during the "Great Peace." Topics include the emergence of order from a time of instability and upheaval, exchange and tensions with the outside world and between social groups, and the political stakes of Edo's flowering popular culture. Class discussions will also provide an overview of the latest English-language scholarship on the Edo period to familiarize advanced undergraduates and graduate students with the styles of research and interpretation that inform our understanding of Japanese history today. We will pay particular attention to the major epochs in historiography and how their unique concerns influenced the diverse meanings attributed to Edo Japan over the last half century.

Survey of modern Japanese literature with readings in English translation: Postwar and Contemporary Literature. Graduate-level requirements include additional readings and a research paper.

This discussion-centered, research seminar examines strange and ambiguous bodies prominently featured in premodern Japanese literature. Reading literary works in translation from the 8th to the 19th century, we will engage with a variety of rich depictions of ambiguous and mysterious bodies, including mythical creatures, vengeful spirits, shape-shifting foxes, strange apparitions, and incorporeal or invisible figures. Our topics of investigation include how ambiguous bodies challenge and reinforce social boundaries; the significance of gender dynamics in premodern sexuality; how the trauma of war is inscribed onto bodies; political authority over corporeal and incorporeal bodies; and the transformation of sacred spirits into the everyday grotesque. We will read a wide range of primary materials in translation, including mythologies, official historical records, literary tales, Buddhist didactic stories, women's diaries, and war-tales. We will also engage with scholarship on the cultural history of the body, religious beliefs, and theories of the monstrous, in addition to various theoretical frameworks related to post-colonial thought and gender studies.

Survey of pre-modern Japanese literature, with readings in English Translation: 14th to 19th centuries. Graduate-level requirements include use of Japanese as well as English sources, higher level readings, leading classroom activities, presentations and a research paper.

Survey of pre-modern Japanese literature, with readings in English translation: Court literature, to 1330. Graduate-level requirements include an extra seminar meeting a week, additional readings, and a research paper.

Survey of modern Japanese literature with readings in English translation: Meiji to World War Two. Graduate-level requirements include additional readings and a research paper.

Introduction to Japanese sociolinguistics: questionnaire studies, variation analysis, ethnography of communication, conversation analysis, interactional sociolinguistics, and language and social interaction. Graduate-level requirements include a substantial term paper and may include extra readings and an additional weekly meeting when the class is convened with JPN 436.

This course focuses on the work of Haruki Murakami (1949-), the most popular and widely read novelist working in Japan today, and a major literary figure worldwide. We will read a substantial amount of Murakami's writings, all in English translation, beginning with his short stories, and covering his major novels. We will explore the major themes of Murakami's writings and develop a comprehensive view of his development as a writer. At the same time we will locate Murakami in the context of modern Japanese and world literature, and discuss his relationship with modern American literature, and his work as a translator and writer of non-fiction. Graduate-level requirements include: weekly oral reports to the class on English and Japanese articles/essays on Murakami, as well as published interviews with the author; leading class discussion as a group on two assigned class days; writing a 20-page research paper using sources in English and Japanese (where appropriate) and reporting orally to the class on the results of their research.

This course explores Japanese society employing anthropological methods. Topics include politics, social structure, gender, sociolinguistics, education, religion, and popular culture. The main theme of this course is to learn how to distinguish between images and realities. Graduate-level requirements include fulfilling the assignments in the syllabus and writing longer papers. Graduate students meet with the instructor six times for additional instruction and may be asked to conduct a lecture.