Japan

This course examines the history of Japanese film and television animation, or what the English-speaking world refers to as “anime.” It proceeds chronologically through Japanese animation history to see how the industry, culture, and various styles of Japanese animation developed and crystallized, particularly in the postwar era. Students view and discuss a range of animated works from a variety of angles and contexts germane to the particular work at hand. The course topics examine anime as 1) expressive of particular artistic merit, techniques, and themes relating to the components of the animated medium, and 2) relating to the business, management, and promotion of animation in the Japanese contents industries. Style and production are not separate categories within animation development, but mutually reinforce one another. 

This course is designed for students who have some experience learning Japanese, enhancing their listening and speaking skills.  The course design is based on sentence structures and grammatical patterns learned in the course, ESSENTIAL JAPANESE 2M, which is recommended to take simultaneously with this course. 

This course aims to help students gain a foundation in spoken and written Japanese for academic purposes through topics on society and culture. The target level is CEFR B1.2. Prerequisite: “J4:Japanese” or equivalent. Ten class hours/week. 

By the end of the course, students will be able to:
express, understand, or interact with others on a variety of familiar social subjects or slightly abstract contents if the argument is not delivered in complex structure and the development of the argument is clear, and
speak and write appropriately according to the situation.

This course is designed for students at the intermediate level. The course provides opportunities to increase vocabulary and grammar through reading newspaper articles as well as developing speech techniques necessary to state one's opinions about the articles. Through this course, students also gain a deeper understanding of Japanese society. 

Textbook: Instructor-created materials. 

This course explores how the current global framework of sustainable development, particularly within the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and Russian Aggression in Ukraine as well as other conflicts in the world, play on the implementation of SDGs. It also studies how sustainable development has evolved in the global development discussion. The course aims to instruct students on various aspects of sustainable development and key global environmental issues, including how to work towards a more sustainable society.

During 2022 last year, Japanese economy recovered from the Pandemic Shock. But almost simultaneously it faced many uncertainties. Global wave of inflation made Japanese Consumer Price Index rise by 4% compared to the previous year in December 2022, the highest pace for four decades. As many economists have seen long-lasting low inflation or even deflation in Japan as a signal of its stagnated economy, an emerging interesting question is what can result from this external price shock? After all, do firms and working people in Japan change their static mindset of many years and move towards surge of wages, ultimately leading to higher spending and hence, higher growth? On the other extreme, we cannot rule out the concerns of stagflation. 
Higher inflation has triggered rapid interest rate hikes by central banks globally. While this makes economic slowdown inevitable in 2023, how much it will be is still unpredictable. Looking at China, its sudden loosening of corona restrictions from the end of 2022 is likely to mean higher growth for the world. At the same time though, faster demand expansion of China may offset the impact of anti-inflation measures by other countries and force their central banks to tighten even more. Also, no one is sure which way yen’s exchange rate goes. 
These are just examples of the uncertainties for Japanese economy at the time of this writing (January 2023). However, underlying structural problems for Japan do not go away, either. Japanese population leads the world in terms of aging while its size continues to shrink. This poses strains on social security such as pension and healthcare. Geopolitical tension does not seem to subside as well, continuously making firms to rethink and restructure their cross-border supply chains. 
Many industries are under pressure for transformation. Digital innovations such as AI are the source of business creation by many startups, while they disrupt established business models everywhere. Recently the shockwave is reaching finance and automobile industries, bastion of the modern economy as we know it. In addition, environmental concerns require the whole economy to shift towards carbon-free. While this generates many business chances, it can become another source of industrial disruption. 
Observations mentioned above force us to ask a lot of questions for Japanese economy. What is the impact of monetary policy under a new governor of BOJ? Do we have reliable economic-fiscal scenario to deal with fiscal burden increased by the massive spending to respond to the pandemic as well as the need to sustain social security? 
What policies can improve the prospect of economic growth for Japan? What are reforms most urgently needed? Are they labor market reforms, immigration reforms, or strengthening assistance for families to have more kids? How can Japanese private sector grow more vigorously – more risk-taking by corporations or more fast-growing startups, for example? Can we upgrade Japanese manufacturing sector? Is export-oriented agriculture sector possible? 
These are urgent and crucial issues of our day. Drawing on lecturer's experiences at government, international organization as well as in business, the course tries to deepen our understanding of today's economic problems with the help of economics and through interactive discussion based on data. 

This course discusses the key concepts of human resource management in an Asia Pacific environment (HRM AP). It discusses how HRM is a key function of organizations, especially within the context of HRM AP. The course also examines the nature of HRM inter-relationships and principles for HRM AP, as well as the significant differences in HRM AP external and internal environments for various economies and cultures.