11/17 Tuesday | New humanoids: Robots and pets
Reading assignment: Paul Hansen (2013) “Urban Japan’s “Fuzzy” New Families: Affect and Embodiment in Dog–Human Relationships.” Asian Anthropology 12(2): 83-103.
Reading assignment: Kubo Akinori (2010) “Technology as Mediation: On the Process of Engineering and Living with the AIBO Robot.” Japanese Review of Cultural Anthropology 11: 103-123.
11/19 Thursday | Japan after “3.11”
In-class screening of “Nuclear Nation: The Fukushima Refugees Story” (director, Funahashi Atsushi; 2012) [This documentary follows residents of Futaba, a town 2 miles from the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, in the 9-months after March 11, 2011, when they were forced to evacuate and relocate in temporary shelters. We will read and discuss Tom Gill’s account of Nagadoro village in Iitate, a neighboring township, after the Thanksgiving break.]
12/1 Tuesday | New realms: Digital worlds and social media [Outline]
Please note that I have replaced the originally assigned readings with these two chapters from a more recent volume by two very creative researchers of digital technologies and worlds in Asia. Chapter 2 is a Japan case and Chapter 2 is their case from South Korea, so it is an opportunity to see what such comparisons can bring out.
Reading assignment: Larissa Hjorth and Michael Arnold (2013), “Locating Intimacies of Place and Gender (Seoul),” Chapter 2 of their Online@Asiapacific: Mobile, Social and Locative Media in the Asia-Pacific, pages 23-37. Milton Park and New York: Routledge.
Reading assignment: Larissa Hjorth and Michael Arnold (2013), “Spectres of Mobile Intimacy: Mobile Media in Crisis Management of 3/11 (Tokyo),” Chapter 3 of their Online@Asiapacific: Mobile, Social and Locative Media in the Asia-Pacific, pages 38-51. Milton Park and New York: Routledge.
For further reading: dana boyd (2014) “Introduction” to her It’s Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens. New Haven: Yale University Press, pages 1-28.
12/3 Thursday | Is ramen Japanese? [Outline]
Reading assignment: George Sekine Solt (2014) “Introduction” to his The Untold History of Ramen: How Political Crisis in Japan Spawned a Global Food Craze, pages 1-29. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.
For some fun, view this famous scene from the satirical feature film “Tampopo” (Dandelion Seeds, 1985, directed by Itami Jūzō), available on the third page of our Media Gallery or HERE. For you ramen fanatics, take a look at the recent episode on ramen is in the series “Begin Japanology,” available on the third page of our Media Gallery or HERE. It’s 29 munutes of ramen-ology, including a visit to the Ramen Museum that Solt mentions.
For further reading: Theodore C. Bestor (2014) “Most F(L)Avored Nation Status: The Gastro-Diplomacy of Japan’s Global Promotion of Cuisine.” Public Diplomacy 11: 57-62. [There is a rather self-serving promotional video about Japanese “washoku” on the UNESCO site.]
12/8 Tuesday | New sports: From baseball to soccer [Outline]
Reading assignment: William W. Kelly (2013) “Japan’s Embrace of Soccer: Mutable Ethnic Players and Flexible Soccer Citizenship in the New East Asian Sports Order.” International Journal of the History of Sport 30(11): 1235-1246.
Media viewing assignment: “Kōkōyakyū: High School Baseball”, directed by Kenneth Eng. Projectile Arts, Inc., 2006. [Available on second page of Media Gallery @ v-2 course site. See also my reading notes]
For further reading: William W. Kelly (2011) “Kōshien Stadium: Performing National Virtues and Regional Rivalries in a ‘Theatre of Sport,’” Sport in Society 14(4): 481-493.
For further reading: William W. Kelly (2006) “Japan: The Hanshin Tigers and Japanese Professional Baseball.” In Baseball without Borders: The International Pastime, edited by George Gmelch. Albany: State University of New York Press, pages 22-42. SML GV867 .B36X 2006
12/10 Thursday | Can regional Japan survive? [Outline]
Reading assignment: Tom Gill (2013) “This Spoiled Soil: Place, People and Community in an Irradiated Village in Fukushima Prefecture.” In Japan Copes With Calamity: Ethnographies Of The Earthquake, Tsunami And Nuclear Disasters Of March 2011, edited by Tom Gill, Brigitte Steger and David H. Slater. Oxford and Berne: Peter Lang, pages 201-233. SML HV600 2011.J3 J36 2013 (LC)
For further reading: Oguma Eiji (2011) “The Hidden Face of Disaster: 3.11, the Historical Structure and Future of Japan’s Northeast” Japan Focus: The Asia Pacific E-Journal 9-31-6. Posted August 1, 2011.
12/15 Tuesday | 3.11, the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, and Japan’s future [Outline]
No reading assignment, but for further reading:
Sakanaka Hidenori (2007) A New Framework for Japan’s Immigration Policies. Translated with an Introduction by Eric Johnston. Reproduced at www.debito.org.