HIST381	MODERN JAPAN	Fall 2011
email: rloftus		voice mail: 6275
web page: http://www.willamette.edu/~rloftus/	MWF 1:50-2:50	office: Walton Hall 144

Student Learning Objectives (SLOs):

1. To learn how human consciousness, action and agency are historically embedded;

2. To gain an appreciation for how change and continuity, past and present, interact in historical experience;

3. To experience how the study of the past helps us make sense of the present.  

Course Descrition:

This course will explore the principal themes and issues in modern Japanese history, and will encourage thought and reflection on Japan's position in the modern world. The story of Japan's development as a modern nation is a fascinating one that revolves around four main questions that we will explore in this course: 1) What is the legacy of Japan's long, stable pre-modern period, especially the Tokugawa Era? 2) What is the nature of Japan's political and economic transformation known as the Meiji Restoration--what kind of historical moment or event was it? 3) What kind of socio-political conditions were responsible for Japan's turn to the ultra-nationalism, militarism and particularism of the1930s? 4) What are some of the ways in which ordinary Japanese people reflected on the war and interpreted their society's turn towards unilateralism and militarism—in postwar novels and films?

In each of three writing assignments for this course, students will offer insights into the Japanese mindset and its societal context for the periods/topics described above.

Requirements

1. Regular class attendance (no more than 3-4 absences) and participation in discussion

2. Careful preparation of assigned readings

3. Participation in in-class discussions and make presentations with other students on books by Wilson and Loftus

4. Completion of three (3) analytical papers (6-8 pp.) based on assigned readings in which the students will reflect on how the past may help us understand the present and how change and continuity affect historical experience

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Texts

James L. McClain, JAPAN: A MODERN HISTORY
George Wilson, PATRIOTS AND REDEEMERS: MOTIVES IN THE MEIJI RESTORATION
Ronald Loftus, TELLING LIVES: WOMEN'S SELF-WRITING IN MODERN JAPAN
Michio Takeyama, HARP OF BURMA

Handouts on a regular basis

Useful Web Links:

For general online resources and chronologies click here. See, also, for modern Japan, here.

Weekly Schedule of Class

Lecture/Discussion Topics

Week 1

August 31	Introductions/Expectations for Course The Pattern of Japan's Past	Web Link for Japan's Ancient Past: The Asuka Period
September 2	Discussion: Short reading from Tetsuo Najita in a PDF. Establishment of the Tokugawa Regime Map of Japan at time of Meiji Restoration	McClain, Ch. 1, pp. 5-47

Week 2

5	Labor Day--No class
7	Tokugawa Political and Social Order Click here for Daimyo Classification See WISE PDF for Tokugawa Military Hoouse Codes See screens of Edo c.1650s and Woodblock Prints	McClainCh. 2, pp. 48-75 See Link on Tokugawa Neo-Confucianism Neo-Cconfucian 4-tiered class system General Overview of the Samurai class General Overview of Merchant class
9	Social, Economic Changes See some data and images here See also the Bushido Page and Samurai Archives

Week 3

12	Factors in Japan's Pre-Industrial Growth Look at the Osaka Tonya PDF on WISE Edo Life and Culture Prints of Ando Hiroshige and Hokusai See the Virtual Tour of Edo site Link to images of Edo merchants	McClain,Ch.3, pp. 76-112 What does it mean to be modern?   See info on merchant culture
14	Urbanization and Cultural Change
16	Crisis in Late Tokugawa/ Coming of the West The Tempo Reforms and other Interpretive Questions See the Shinron--New Theses PDF on WISE	George Wilson, Patriots and Redeemers, Preface, ix-xii and Ch.1,1-11 Link: Coming of Perry Online material on Perry. And here. Images of Perry Perry Journal Treaty of Kanagawa The Harris Treaty of 1858

Week 4

19	Toward Restoration Pivotal Moments	Click here for chronology, Read Wilson, Chs. 2-4, pp. 13-75 McClain, Ch. 4, pp.113-154
21	The Meiji Restoration Meiji Restoration and McClain's Take Useful vocabulary	Conrad Totman's "take," handout The Charter Oath
23	The E.H. "Norman Thesis" and Marxist Interpretion of the Meiji Restoration Detailed chronology	PDF: Thomas Smith, "Japan's Aristocratic Revolution" McClain, Ch. 5, pp. 155-182 Wilson, chs.5-7, 77-131 What constitutes a Revolution? See also, Colin Barker on Marxism and the Restoration, sections starting with "The Social Character of the Meiji Restoration"

Week 5

26	The Meiji Restoration and Millenarianism: Begin Student Panels on Patriots and Redeemers George Wilson, Patriots and Redeemers Chs. 1-4 On the "Eijanaika" Movement	What does "Eejanaika" mean?
28	Continue Student Panels on Patriots and Redeemers Chs 5-7	Class Presentations/Discussion on Wilson
30	The Meiji Revolution Two Japanese Views on the Meiji Ishin (also available on WISE)	For another "take" on the Meiji Restoration, see the PDF "H381 MR Conservative" under Resources on WISE

Week 6

First Paper Topic

October 3	The Meiji Revolution (I)	McClain Ch. 6-7, pp. 183-245
5	The Meiji Revolution (II)- On Industrialization and the Zaibatsu, click here	The Last Samurai
7	The Popular Rights Movement and the Origins of the Political Parties Imperial Rescript on Education	Read PDF on "Fukuzawa" found on WISE

Week 7

10	Living the Meiji Dream	McClain Ch. 8-9, 246-315
12	The Meiji Constitution/End of Meiji and the Taisho Political Crisis Power Point on Taisho Political Crisis Link to the Meiji Constitution of 1889	FIRST PAPER DUE Telling Lives , Ch. 1and 2
14	How "Democratic" Was Taisho Democracy? Read the PDF: "The Non-Liberal Roots of Taisho Democracy" by Henry Smith	McClain Ch. 10, pp. 316-356

Week 8

17	Japan's First Industrial Revolution   Modern Economic Growth	Telling Lives, Ch. 3 Yosano Akiko's poem to her brotherNew Awakenings, New Modernities --See article by Vera Mackie on "Women and Pacificism"
19	The Political Context for the Interwar Years:"Imperial Democracy" and The Tumultuous Twenties More on "Taisho Demokurashii" Politics and Culture 1918-1932: Taisho Liberalism and Illiberalism	McClain, Ch. 11, 357-97
21	Mid Semester Day No Class	Telling Lives Chs 4-6

The Great Kanto Earthquake, Sept. 1, 1923

Week 9

24	First Student Panels on Telling Lives: Chs. 1-3	McClain, Ch. 11, 357-397
26	Second Student Panel Presentations: Telling Lives Chs. 4-5
28	Finish Telling Lives, Ch. 6, Fukunaga Misao

Week 10

31	Taisho and the Interwar Years: Women in Late Meiji and Early Taisho Women Discussion of Second Paper Topic   See the details on Japan's first major pollution incident, the Ashio Mine Incident See also this article on Tanaka Shozo	Telling Lives, Ch. 6 PDF on Hiratsuka Raicho, 80-118 and Seito (Bluestockings)
Nov 2	Parliamentary Politics 1912-1918 Prewar Chronology	Links to Marxism
4	The Interwar Years Entering a "Period of National Eemergency" Kita Ikki's Plan for Reconstruction Chronology	McClain, Ch. 12, pp. 405-440     Article on Café Waitresses in Taisho Japan or And also, PDF by Elise Tipton, "The Cafe: Contested Space of Modernity in Interwar Japan," pp. 119-36

 See Leftist Posters Exhibition at:

See fascinating Dentsu Adverstising Museum Pages

Photos from Prewar Japan

Week 11

7	The Washington Naval Conference v. Unilateralism in the World Order
9	Militarism and The Road to War 1931-1941 (I) Fundamental Principles of National Policy 1936 Excellent site on Japan's Aggression	McClain, Ch. 13, pp. 441-481   Read Michio Takeyama, Harp of Burma
11	The Manchurian Incident	Slide show

See web sites on the Controversy over the Rape of Nanking/

Iris Chang on the Rape Nanjing

Nanjing Massacre

Comprehensive site for Nanjing Massacre

See Web Links on Carrier Battles in the Pacific

Japan Imperial Navy Page

Week 12

14	The Road to War 1931-1941 (II) "Know Your Enemy: Japan" Chronology Key Dates Some important documents Hull's Four Points A good gateway site on PH attack Pearl Harbor Site with lots of video, including FDR's "Day of Infamy" speech See also an aerial photo of ships on Battleship Row Another Pearl Harbor Site More on Pearl Harbor	McClain, Ch. 14, 482-515 Read Michio Takeyama, Harp of Burma Comprehensive site on Pearl Harbor Attack
16	The Pacific War 1941-1945	Battle of Midway Site
18	The End of the War and the Imperial Broadcast Some Notes on Ending the Pacific War	Read Michio Takeyama, Harp of Burma SECOND Paper Due

Week 13

21	The War in Japanese Eyes: The Harp of Burma (1956, 116 mins)--Begin watching film   On the" Divine Wind": the kamikaze special attack units More pilot letters, and stories
23	The War in Japanese Eyes: Continue with The Harp of Burma

Thanksgiving Break

Week 14

28	Finish Harp of Burma, Begin discussion The Harp of Burma, novel and film Begin wtching : Twenty-four Eyes (total 158 minutes)
30	View Second part, Twenty-four Eyes)	Read chapter by James Orr, "'Sentimental Humanism': The Victim in Novels and Films." Also available on WISE under OrrVuictim pdf.
Dec. 2	Finish viewing Twenty-four Eyes	Links on Burma Campaign

Third/Final Paper Due Monday, Dec. 12, 3:00 pm