One of the reasons I have enjoyed teaching this course over my years at Yale is that absolutely no one has to take it. It is a requirement for no major or program; students take it only by choice. As a result, each year’s class varies widely, from seniors to freshmen, from classics majors to chemistry majors. There are some East Asian Studies majors and some anthropology majors, but the course presumes a background in neither. For most of you, this is probably your first and last course on Japan and in cultural anthropology.
This course has been put together with great deal of thought — both mine and that of student feedback over the years. You’re committing valuable time to taking it, and you and your parents (or others) are spending a great deal of money, and I’m not going to waste either. Neither should you. The topics are not random, the readings are neither repetitive nor gratuitous, and the videos are not frivolous. On the contrary, the lectures, the readings, and the films are quite deliberately articulated so they talk to each other–they are meant to reinforce, amplify, argue with, illustrate one another. But try as I might (and will), you are the ones who must get into and keep that conversation going.
Frankly, I know that most of you, in any course, can probably come to only some of the lectures and do some occasional readings, and still get by with an adequate grade. Yale students are bright, agile, and tactical. But if you actually want to learn from this course, you will find that regular class attendance and reading of the assignments are essential. If the course is to make any meaningful contribution to your education here, commitment and timing is of the essence. The choice is yours.
Given the broad aims of this course, the reading program must be quite varied. The course does not lend itself to a small number of books. Rather, readings are drawn from diverse scholarly and popular books, journals, and other materials. This has the advantage of variety, but does complicate the logistics of reading the materials promptly (though see below). I have also found, over the years, that some students take a look at the number of separate items and panic: “all those titles!”. That is a miscalculation. In fact, you will find that the total number of pages is quite average for Yale courses, and the readability is very high. There may be good reasons for you not to take the course, but this is seldom one of them.
Finally, although our explicit topic is Japan and we will be reading and talking history, literature, economics, and other fields of inquiry, in its most fundamental sense, this remains an anthropology course. That is, its fundamental aim is to teach you how to think critically about another culture-indeed, about “culture” itself as a concept. You don’t even have to care much about Japan in order to get this message. It is a message well expressed some time ago by Henry Louis Gates, Jr.:
Ours is a late-twentieth century world profoundly fissured by nationality, ethnicity, race, class, and gender. And the only way to transcend those divisions–to forge, for once, a civic culture that respects both differences and commonalities–is through education that seeks to comprehend the diversity of human culture. Beyond the hype and the high-flown rhetoric is a pretty homely truth: There is no tolerance without respect–and no respect without knowledge. Any human being sufficiently curious and motivated can fully possess another culture, no matter how “alien” it may appear to be. [on page xv of his Loose Cannons: Notes on the Culture Wars, (1992)]
There are many things a Yale education can and should provide, and insufficient time for anyone to take advantage of them all. I don’t presume to claim that critical thinking about culture is the most important priority. But it is hard for me to imagine a liberal arts education that does not, in some way, cultivate this perspective of inquiry and understanding.