Japan

This course covers Japanese Constitutional Law from political and social perspectives. It comprises four parts: 

1) “Invitation to Japanese Constitutional Law” introduces the basics of Japanese Constitutional Law and constitutional law in general; 

2) “Basic Principles of Japanese Constitutional Law” covers basic principles of Japanese Constitutional Law such as pacifism, popular/national sovereignty and fundamental human rights; 

3) “Human Rights and Governance” explores some crucial provisions in human rights and governance; and 

4) “Current Topics in the Japanese Constitutional Law” covers recent topics to discuss the role of Japanese Constitutional Law today and in the future.

Each class is composed of student presentations, lectures and discussion. 

This course aims to introduce students to the reading of both primary and secondary historical materials in Medieval Japanese history, thus deepening their knowledge of historical issues in this period. Topics of the classes and the related readings are different every year.

The course involves careful reading of various sources in English and Japanese (both primary and secondary sources, depending on the requests and ability of the participants), and discussions of their content in historical context. For each session students are expected to read the materials in advance and summarize the content of the text(s) in the form of a detailed handout (approx. 2-3 pages). All participants will be required to ask two questions or comment on the presentation of others.

As a neighbor, China is geographically close but politically distant. At a glance, Chinese society seems similar to Japanese society; however, China has a large territory and various ethnic groups and thus cannot be understood easily as a “nation of the same race and same script.”

This course offers lectures on the Historical Change of Chinese society in the 17-19th centuries, in South China (Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi provinces and Taiwan). It focuses on migration, ethnic minorities, unification of society, and secret sects.  The course explores the following three problems: the migration that kept the population explosion in China; the relationships and conflicts between ethnic minorities and Han Chinese as the result of exploitation in the frontier area, and the unification of society that resulted as a process of migrant settlement.

Music is a fundamental activity found in all human societies and at all periods of history. This course introduces different methods of studying music as an academic subject, and considers the many ways that music intersects with other aspects of society. The course is recommended for potential music majors and any other students interested in music.

The course covers the following topics:

• Why study music?
• Histories of music
• Music theory and analysis
• The Sociology of music
• The musical mind – music and psychology
• The new ‘musicologies’
• Decolonization of music studies
• The economics and business of music 

This is a Japanese language course for non-JLP students. It is designed for students who have completed elementary-level courses and aims to facilitate a mastery of the oral communication and listening skills that are necessary in daily conversation. Students learn expressions used in various daily situations and practice speaking and listening skills to communicate smoothly in Japanese. 

This course helps students consider the various international perspectives to be incorporated in the field of education. Examining literature and case studies, it attempts to tackle imminent issues such as poverty, demographic change, environment, war, and gender imbalance in the globalizing world. The course provides the opportunity to propose a plan for incorporating international perspectives to a country's education system using collaborative online international learning (COIL) as one of the formats.  

The course addresses the following topics: 

- Education as a means of national development
- Internationalization of education
- Literacy
- Gender equality
- Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
- Environmental education
- Intercultural competence
- Multicultural education
- ICT and education
- Collaborative online international learning (COIL)
- Education and development
- Education and peace

This course is designed to survey 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 so that is serves as the solution to many problems facing society at large.

The course addresses the following topics:

• Psychology as a discipline 
• Knowing the world: Sensation and perception 1 (Morishima)
• Learning - classical conditioning, operant conditioning (Morishima)
• Making sense of the world: Basic cognitive processes - memory (Morishima)
• Making sense of the world: Higher-level cognitive processes concept formation, categorization, knowledge representation, decision making, reasoning, creativity, etc. (Chan)
•  Biological bases of behavior: Basic structure and function of the human nervous system, mind/body problem, etc. (Chan)
• Motivation & Emotion (Smith)
• Development (Smith)
• Social Psychology (Smith)
• Health & Clinical psychology (Chan)

This course introduces basic concepts in linguistics from the perspective of language documentation. Based on data from less-studied languages, the course explore subfields of linguistics, including but not limited to phonetics, phonology, morphology, and syntax. Most data will come from fieldwork conducted by the instructor using authentic data. Target languages are Xitsonga and Tshivenda (South Africa), Kiribati (Kiribati), Drenjongke (India), Burmese (Myanmar), Zhuang and Yi (China) as well as Japanese dialects spoken in Tohoku and Okinawa.

The course covers the following topics:

-Introduction to language documentation
-Issues concerning endangered languages
-Phonetic and phonological documentation
-Documenting cultural materials (Mid-term presentation)
-Morphological documentation
-Syntactic and prosodic documentation

This course is an introduction to the most important texts in English Literature written between the Middle Ages and the end of the eighteenth century. The course begins with the Anglo-Saxon ('Old English') epic poem Beowulf (a tale of heroes and monsters) and ends with the lyrical poetry of the early Romantic period. The course studies a wide range of poets, including Marie de France, Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare, Donne, Herrick, Milton, Marvell, and Pope; as well as the letters and political speeches of England's first modern queen, Elizabeth I.

The course includes reading scenes from Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night and Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus, and parts of Jonathan Swift’s satirical adventure novel, Gulliver’s Travels. 

The course emphasizes themes of the medieval and early modern worlds; the importance of religion in shaping English literature; comic and tragic heroes; women and gender in society, and English poetic language.
This Foundation Course has no prerequisite courses.

This course covers foundational bio-psycho-social theories of adjustment process and reaction patterns to stressors, with a focus on mental health outcomes. It discusses methods of preventing mental disorders and promoting mental health in individual, group and community settings while emphasizing cultural, spiritual, and local perspectives.

Prerequisite: Introduction to Contemporary Psychology.