Japanese Studies 499W	Japanese/Asian Studies Senior Seminar	Spring 2008
R. Loftus Walton 144		Email: rloftus; voice mail 6275

Course Description and Requirements

This course is the combined senior year experience for majors in Japanese and Asian Studies. The objective of the Senior Seminar is "to develop a research project" that will "consolidate and integrate the student's knowledge of Japan (or China or Asian Studies) and the field of Japanese/Chinese/Asian Studies." Accordingly, each member of the seminar will design a senior project, most likely a research paper, on a subject of their own choosing that will contribute to or offer a critique of our understanding of modern Japan or China. The length of your senior paper should be be approximately 25-30 pages. Longer is fine. Since this is a writing-centered class, we will spend time in conferences about your work in process, as well as in reading and revising drafts of your work with peers and with your instructor as well.

The overall structure of the class will entail some intitial work on library resources and then some short readings or videos in common to stimulate our thinking about issues and approaches to understanding modern Japan. Following this, students will be given some time to work independently on their projects by reading and gathering information on potential research topics. Sometime around the third week in February, students will make an initial presentation on their research designs. After Spring Break, we will have a second round of presentations accompanied by a first rough draft of 8-10 pages and a bibliography. During the course of the semester, there will be a total of 8 weeks--or more than half of the semester--without regularly scheduled class time (though one of those weeks will be dedicated to conferences with students on their progress). Having these kinds of significant blocks of time for reading, reflection, research, and writing is what should make the Senior Seminar different from all the courses you have taken up until now. If somehow, you do not use your time well and wind up devoting only the same amount of time you would devote to a large paper in another class, then you have robbed yourself of a valuable experience. It is time you will never get back!! Therefore, it is critical that you do not procrastinate and squander this valuable time. Consider what the great Japanese writer Natsume Soseki had to say about senior thesis writing in his novel Kokoro.

Do you want your thesis to hang over you "like a curse?" Of course not!

If you can adhere to the following key dates, you should not encounter any problems that you cannot overcome.

Key Dates:

1. Feb. 12-19 Student Presentations of Preliminary Research Designs

2. April 1-3 First Rough Draft due--8-10 pp.

3. April 17 Complete Rough Draft Due

4. April 22 and 24 15-20 minute Power Point Presentations of Final Research Project

4. April 29, Final Paper due by class time, 12:50 pm, noon. We will gather in the classroom. Please send the final draft of your senior thesis WITH A COVER PAGE to Pamela Smith <pasmith> as a Word Attachment by 12:50 Tuesday April 29

To recap, your preliminary rough drafts will be due immediately after Spring Break.

Your final, complete, but still "rough" draft will be due April 17.

The revised, final version of the paper will be due in class on Tuesday, April 29.

On April 22 and 24, the week before the final class, will be student public presentations of their research to be delivered in Power Point format. Students will need to either burn their Power Point Presentation on a CD-ROM, put it on a jump drive, or have it available online to download to the desktop.

Schedule

Jan. 15 Initial Meeting: Read "Japan the Ambiguous and Myself" Oe Kenzaburo's Nobel Prize acceptance speech,

a PDF available on Blackboard under "Course marterials"

See Kawabata's Nobel Speech, "Japan, the Beautiful, and Myself"

Jan. 17 Library Session with Doreen Simonsen <dsimonse> feel free to email her your tentative topic ideas

Jan. 22 Read and Discuss a Second essay by Oe, "Japan's Dual Identity: A Writer's Dilemma" a PDF available on Blackboard under "Course Materials"

Jan 24 Open discussion...Brainstorm Ideas?

Watch short excerpt from a video? "Virgin Road" Long Vacation "Long Vacation"??

SPRING BREAK MARCH 24-28

April 1 Student Presentations of Work in Progress -- first 4 students

Please bring 3 copies of your 8-10 pp. draft to class, one for me and one each for two of your peers. After the presentations, we will use remaining class time to readdrafts and return them to you with comments as soon as possible.

Peer Review of First Rough Drafts, 8-10 pp.

April 3 Student Presentations of Work in Progress -- second 4 students

Please bring 3 copies of your draft to class. One for me and one each for two of your peers. After the presentations, we will use the remaining class time to read drafts and return them to you with comments as soon as possible.

 

********************************************* For the next two weeks, develop your preliminary drafts into a complete rough draft, NO CLASS Apr. 8 Write Apr. 10 Write Apr. 15 Write   April 17 Write and hand in Draft; bring it to class at 12:50 ********************************************

 

Apr. 17 Complete Rough Drafts Due

April 22-24 Final Presentations--4 students each day

April 29 Last Class/Final Paper Due/Course Evals

"I was free at last."
Soseki, Kokoro

Please send your final draft of your senior thesis WITH A COVER PAGE to Pamela Smith <pasmith> as a Word Attachment by 12:50 Tuesday April 29. The department will bind each thesis and retain one of these bound, clean copy for our files. We will provide you with one bound copy. If you wish extra copies for yourself, please take it to the Copy Center with the copy request form signed by Pam and arrange to pay for the extra copies yourself.

"My professors apparently did not have as high an opinion of my thesis as I did.

I was, however, allowed to graduate that year." [Yaaaay!]

Soseki, Kokoro