Japan

This is a seminar course focusing on developing future leaders of domestic and international business. Through seminar-style dialogue with alumni association members, the course is designed for students to deepen their practical understanding of the work and the industry while helping students form their own career views. By interacting with alumni association members, students also have better understanding of Japanese business culture, ethic, and challenges that Japanese companies are facing.  The class is divided into a group of 10-15 people depending on topics discussed. 

This course covers the minimum, basic abilities in conversation and reading/writing necessary for everyday life in Japan. 

Eligibility: Students who have studied no Japanese. Students who will be eligible for C250b/c after taking C150.  

Learning Objectives: A1 level in the CEFR/JF Standard for Japanese-Language Education. 

By the end of this course, students are expected to: 

 ・ Understand and correctly use basic greetings and set phrases.

 ・ Speak about things around you and interact with others using combinations of simple phrases.

 ・ Understand simple informative texts and brief passages about familiar topics.

This course introduces some major theories of international relations, providing students with a better understanding of world events and opportunities to critically engage with theories to assess their usefulness and limits. The course aims to equip students with intellectual tools with which they can better navigate themselves in the world as broadly informed and critically minded global citizens.  

In the Heian period, stories such as "The Tale of Genji" are often set in the harem, deep within the Heian-kyo Imperial Palace, and often feature the empresses and the crown prince who lived there. Knowing the life of the women who lived in the harem is very useful for interpreting Heian period stories. 

This course aims to deepen one's understanding of works depicting the harem of the Heian period, such as "The Tale of Utsubo" and "The Tale of Genji," after learning basic knowledge about the harem of the Heian period. This course focuses the life of the princess after entering the palace and compares historical examples found in "The Tale of Eiga" and "Okagami" as well as descriptions of stories mainly in "The Tale of Genji."  Furthermore, the course focuses not only on the women but also on the parental affections and political intentions of the aristocratic male fathers who acted as their guardians.

This course surveys the basic content and methodology of contemporary psychology. While psychology as a scientific and humanistic enterprise is the underlying theme of the course, the field of psychology is approached from the perspective of its contribution to solving many problems facing society at large.  

This course focuses on disaster risk as the key element of international environmental studies and elaborates with case studies on disaster risk reduction frameworks, climate change adaptation and sustainable development. Examples from developing countries in Asia are presented. 

This course aims to  understand issues in global health and to utilize econometric methodologies to improve health policies in one's own countries. The first half of this course discusses global health/health systems reforms in the Asia-Pacific Region while the second half introduces impact evaluation by presenting a detailed analysis of quantitative research underlying recent program evaluations and case studies. This course works extensively with Stata.

Students are required to have basic knowledge on statistics and econometrics.

"I want to make people laugh, but it's too difficult." "Everyone else is laughing, but I don't find it funny."... Are these difficulties related to "humor" due to personal preference, language ability, or socio-cultural background? This course explores thinking about the Japanese language and culture using funny stories, learning about the differences and commonalities between Japan's and other countries' senses of humor through comparing with other cultures and translation activities. (This course is conducted in Japanese.) 

Eligibility A2.1 level in the CEFR/JF Standard for Japanese-Language Education (N3 in the JLPT). 

Learning Objectives 

-Deepen understanding of the Japanese language, culture, and values. 

-Deepen understanding of the language, culture, and values of the students' home countries and regions. 

-Cooperate with Japanese and international students in group work and group presentations. 

-Improve communication skills in Japanese. 

This course covers the basics of “traditional” microeconomics, the so-called “price theory:” the analysis of the perfect competition and its application. This course covers: market, demand, supply and the equilibrium; consumer behavior and utility maximization; firm behavior and profit maximization; market failure (imperfect competition, imperfect information, externality, and public goals) and economic policy; taxes and subsidies, income distribution, etc. 

This course studies economists' way of viewing, explaining, and predicting the world, focusing on microeconomics principles that demonstrate the decision making of individuals, including consumer, firm and individual industry. It emphasizes applications and polices rather than formal economic theory. 

Our conceptions of Japan are, like those of any country, shaped not only by our firsthand experiences but also by the images we see in the media, talk about with our friends, and hold in our thoughts. This course focuses on common images of Japanese culture and society—including artistic tropes, pervasive ideologies, and stereotypes—from the Meiji Period until contemporary times. Through contextual analysis of historical and contemporary media representations of Japanese culture or society (for example, advertisements and works of art), the course aims to build students’ critical engagement with the images they encounter in their daily lives. Each course positions these images in the context of global exchange, focusing on the interactions between understandings of Japan domestically and abroad. Students will be encouraged to apply the ideas discussed in class to familiar cultural texts, culminating in the production of a video or photo essay that examines a common idea about Japan today.