Japan

This course provides an overview of the basic themes essential to properly interpret Japanese classical literature. Understanding Japanese classical literature requires multiple perspectives, including various aspects of society, politics, religion, environment, education, architecture, lifestyle, fine arts, and performing arts. The course instructs on literary works (both poetry and prose) dating from the Nara period to the Kamakura period, but the focus is on the Heian period. This course expects to enable students to rediscover the pleasure of reading classical literary works.
 

How are words used to change people’s minds? What makes us pay attention to someone’s words, sung, spoken, or written? Does the spoken (or sung) word have more impact than the written one? What makes someone click on the headline of an online publication? Is an image more powerful with or without a linguistic frame? Can language be more persuasive than an image? Is persuasion, like humor, culture-specific? These are questions that will be explored in this course about how rhetoric, the art of verbal persuasion, operates in contemporary society. 
 

The course aims to: 

(1) To develop an awareness of how language is used to persuade and manipulate by looking at rhetoric, the art of verbal persuasion, and recognizing how a range of rhetorical devices, including repetition and metaphor, are employed in popular songs, and memorable advertisements, headlines and tweets, political speeches, and film titles; and 

(2) To practice the use of rhetorical devices in making language more persuasive.

This course aims to give a broad outline of several Japanese musical genres, along with an understanding of the way in which the musical styles exist within Japanese culture. Emphasis will also be placed on the cultural and geographical position of Japan within the larger context of East Asia. The course takes a practical approach, with frequent demonstrations, providing an opportunity to try out several Japanese instruments. No musical or linguistic skills are needed to take the course.

Learning goals:  

1) To obtain an overview of musical traditions in Japan; 
2) To develop ways of describing these musical traditions and understanding them in their cultural context, and
3) To relate these traditions to Western European and other Asian musical traditions.

This course is part of the "Japanese as a Foreign Language Program." It provides an opportunity to learn reading, writing, and usage of vocabulary and kanji in the latter half of intermediate-level Japanese. The course includes lectures on reading, writing, vocabulary usage, research, as well as individual and group presentations. There will be weekly check assignments on vocabulary and kanji. Prerequisite: “J4: JAPANESE” or equivalent.

This course focuses on the roles of the UN and NGOs in major subjects of global concern, including those pertaining to war and peace, human rights, development, and sustainability, all of which are interrelated. In each of these themes, students examine challenges, opportunities, and prospects facing international organizations and civil society partners, as well as other actors in public and private sectors. Part I of the course addresses the evolution of the international system, focusing on the concept of state sovereignty and collective peace and security.  Part II explores UN-NGO relations in thematic issues ranging from gender to displacement, climate change, and counterterrorism. This course will be highly interactive, featuring guest speakers, simulation exercises, and group presentations.

This course teaches basic knowledge of the programming language python, as well as data analysis skill via empirical application. 

This course aims to provide:

1. An understanding of the basic knowledge of the programming language python
2. An understanding of the basic machine learning methods, i.e., regression analysis.
3. An understanding of the data analysis process including data pre-processing, analysis, and the interpretation for the results based on real data.

This course explores past and present wars of the United States, especially the relationship of the news media to those wars. Through the illustrated textbook "Addicted to War" and documentary films, the course takes a critical view of how the US has become a military superpower and why it cannot "kick" its war addiction today.　

This lecture focuses on the development of Japan's economy and financial market. No particular prerequisites are required although basic knowledge of economic theory and policy, including Microeconomic Theory, Macroeconomic Theory, Economic Policies, and International Economics, is desirable.

The course aims to instruct on basic knowledge of the postwar development of Japan's economy and financial system as well as an understanding of its challenges. 

This course introduces classic and new topics in international trade from theoretical and empirical perspectives. It covers standard and academic materials commonly studied by economists in academia as well as international organizations such as the World Trade Organization (WTO), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the World Bank. Students will be able to demonstrate their knowledge of academic studies on international trade after completing this course.

Ideally, students should have already taken "INTERNATIONAL TRADE A" offered in the Fall semester prior to enrollment in this course. However, it is not a prerequisite.

Given the increasing prevalence of empirical approaches in academic studies on international trade, this course covers basic methods of econometrics and their application to data.