ASIAN 4428 - [The Formation of the Field: Japan as Area]

(crosslisted) HIST 4428
(GB) (HA-AS)

Fall. Next offered 2018-2019. 4 credits. Student option grading.

Permission of instructor required.

N. Sakai.

This course will provide both a historical introduction to and critical analysis of the constitution of Japanese Studies as a “field” of postwar academic inquiry. While reading texts particularly influential in the early and contemporary formation of the field, we will consider such questions as the domestic and international contexts in which Japanese studies has been institutionalized and maintained, and the relationship between “Japan” as an object of area studies discourse and “Japan” as represented in American journalism, popular culture, and politics. The course will examine the historical origins of area studies and various critiques conducted about area studies as a model of academic discipline. Possibilities for cross-disciplinary research (along lines recently undertaken in fields such as feminist criticism and cultural studies) will also be explored. (SC)