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Outline for March 27 and April 1 sessions

The new strangers: Japan beyond “the modern myth of homogeneity”

I. Modernity and the predicted demise of ethnicity

II. Wareware Nipponjin (“We Japanese”)

A. Did Japan exist before the 1860s?

B. Imperializing a nation-state

C. Japanese-ness as the civil religion of mainstream Japan

D. Minorities and other marginals: Conceptualizing the stigmatized in Japanese society

 III. Hisabetsu Burakumin: Inside “outcastes”

IV. Resident Koreans in Japan: In limbo between host country and homeland

V. Ainu: Japan’s aboriginal ethnic minority

VI. Okinawans: Caught between two occupations, Japanese and American

VII. Day laborers and foreign workers: Doing the dirty work

VIII. Brazilian-Japanese or Japanese-Brazilians? Returning ethnics and transnational migrants

A. “On the line at Yusumi Motors” (Joshua Roth)

B. The Shimura family between Brazil and Japan (Sarah LeBaron von Baeyer)

IX. Is post-mainstream Japan turning ethnically pluralist?