English

This course provides an overview of the field of clinical psychology. It focuses on the profession, science, and practice of clinical psychology through lectures, readings, and video clips. Lectures highlight major aspects of clinical psychology, including historical background and current controversies; professional activities of clinical psychologists, such as assessment, diagnosis, and intervention of mental illnesses, and  methods of clinical science.

This course explores central philosophical questions about the nature of science knowledge, its methodology, and the objects it studies. The course is split into two parts. In the first, the course traces the co-development of science from proto-science in Ancient Greece through to the Scientific Revolution and beyond, and associated accounts of scientific methodology in philosophy, from Aristotle’s theory of demonstration to Karl Popper’s falsificationism and Thomas Kuhn’s paradigm shifts. Here the course encounters questions such as: What constitutes scientific progress? Can scientific theories ever be proved correct? And, how is science different from non-sciences? In the second part, the course looks at four important questions within contemporary philosophy of science: (i) Are scientists committed to the actual truth of their theories? (ii) What are scientific models, and how important are they? (iii) What is the replication crisis within science, and what’s causing it? (iv) What challenge is posed by science denialism in society?

This course introduces students to consumer psychology, an area of psychology that examines how our thoughts, beliefs, feelings, and perceptions affect how and what we purchase. Why do consumers select certain products over others? What makes one partake in impulsive purchasing? Is there any cultural difference in consumer behavior? 

As society becomes global, marketers need to consider global as well as glocal (globally local) strategies. To succeed in globalizing markets, how consumers perceive standardized or customized products and services must be studied. In this course, students are expected to learn about consumers' needs and/or motivations as well as effective approaches to cater to these needs/motivations. 

Two group presentations will be required in this course. 

Note: The courses provided in Spring and Fall are identical and hence students are allowed to register only for the Spring or Fall course, not both. 

Sumi-e is the Japanese traditional art of ink painting.  The art of Sumi-e captures the essence of the subject and expresses emotions on a sheet of paper. Although the subject is the same, emotions are not; thus, everyone can paint the same subject but none of the paintings would look the same.  Students are expected to paint subjects according to a theme given in each class. As a final project, students will choose their subject and showcase their art in a weeklong class exhibition at the end of the semester. The course aims to instruct various ways of expressing different points of view through Sumi-e. 

This course must be taken together with Environmental Economics B. 

Environmental economics is a branch of modern economics that studies economic behaviors of agents that have environmental consequences and thus attempts to help guide future environmental and resource policies. This course is designed to acquaint students with an intermediate level knowledge of the field. 

The course aims to:

1. Establish an understanding of economic principles that guide us in the study of environmental and resource problems --- i.e., Why do environmental and resource issues occur? Do economic incentives matter?
2. Discuss how different policy instruments, such as emissions taxes, green subsidies, and cap-and-trade programs, work differently under different situations.
3. Provide key topics, tools, and models of interest to environmental practitioners.

This course deals with fundamental issues of constitutional law in postwar Japan. Japan has had two written constitutions so far. One was the Constitution of the Empire of Japan, or the Meiji Constitution, which was promulgated on February 11, 1889, and put into effect on November 29, 1890. The other is the Constitution of Japan, the current Constitution, which was promulgated on November 3, 1946, and became effective on May 3, 1947.  

The goal is to understand the basic constitutional framework in modern Japan and the constitutional practices of postwar Japan, and to attain insight into the challenges current Japanese society is facing. The course covers the following topics: a comparison between the two constitutional frameworks; judicial review and protecting rights, equality, religious freedom and separation of religion and state; voting rights and the electoral process; freedom of expression, family law, and Article 9 and the peace state. 

The purpose of the course is to improve students' professional and creative writing abilities through the monthly publication of an online journal. Our website is: taidajournal.weebly.com. Students work together as a team to publish each issue, not only writing stories but editing the stories of other students in the class. The course accepts news stories and creative writing. 

This course focuses on twenty-first century U.S. fiction. It includes reading works from five to six authors for each section of the course. One half of the course focuses on twenty-first century transnational American fiction: texts that situate the United States at global scales (hemispheric, transatlantic, and transpacific), often with an emphasis on migration. The other half of the course focuses on twenty-first century U.S. fiction that raises and explores questions of selfhood, identity, and gender. Both parts of the course examine how the themes and forms of twenty-first century U.S. fiction relate to the changing identity of the nation, the state, and the self in today’s globalized world. 

This course is a hands-on activity that teaches the skills necessary for playing Ghanaian/African drums. It also examines the uses of African drums and other percussion instruments as it relates to the life and culture of Ghanaian and African societies. The course is largely practical but also touches on the origins and roles of African drums and other percussion instruments and explores the position of drumming within the larger context of African music. Students are required to play all of the basic rhythms of a particular musical ensemble at the end of the course.

The course gives an introduction to the subject of Sociology of Law, its history, and its position in the knowledge field between Law and society. The structure, contents, and organization of the Legal System are presented at a general level. The subject Sociology of Law introduces legal questions of relevance to understand the subject Sociology of Law as well as basic scientific theoretical and methodological perspectives. This course provides the history and knowledge field of Sociology of Law and Law and society. The theory of Science, Social theory, structure, contents, and organization of the Legal System are reviewed.