Japan

This course begins from the recent developments in city making that have emerged with the aim of creating more convivial places through pluralistic, democratic practices. The course examines the historical, cultural, economic, political, environmental, and other influences that determine how places form and how planners sought to control their development.  This course explores the dynamic and contingent nature of place making practices and theories from four perspectives:

a) The specific activities associated with planning, place-making, and urban governance,

b) the different, often competing perspectives of people who plan, control, manage, and make our cities; 

c) the relationship between state agencies, place-makers & civil society; and,

d) plans, policies and projects as historical artifacts.

Graph theory provides a basis for computational sciences, financial engineering, chemistry, and epidemiology, among many others. This course covers graph theory including graphs, paths, cycles, trees, connectivity, Eulerian and Hamiltonian graphs, and planar graphs, as well as some important algorithms. 

This course is for Upper-intermediate Japanese students to obtain fundamental Japanese listening skills needed for attending university classes and daily life. 

Eligibility: B1 level in the CEFR/JF Standard for Japanese-Language Education (N2 in the JLPT).
By the end of the course, students are expected to:
- understand lectures and conversations that are complex in terms of both content and language.
- take more effective notes.
- summarize the heard information and discuss the topics with classmates.

From brand campaigns to social issues, digital marketing has played a vital role in generating brand and message proliferation around the world. This course looks at marketing strategies used to build and grow brands and messages, with a heavy emphasis on how to drive brand awareness, preference and loyalty through digital marketing. A large part of this course is case-based. 

Anthropological studies on China emerged from various directions in the last century. This course is designed to gain a deeper understanding of China through various anthropological lenses, including studies on the Han nationality, which focuses on ancient poetry; village community and economic life; familism; clan; folk religion; private life, and also studies on ethnic minorities conducted by multiple anthropological methods. The works of these anthropologists also mirror the evolution of the anthropology discipline and its changing paradigms during the 20th century. Through reading and discussing these anthropological works with different focuses, students are expected to form a comprehensive understanding of both China and anthropology. 

This class seeks to understand public opinion: how Japanese and Americans think -- about themselves, their politics and the world -- and how those attitudes, collectively expressed, influence electoral and policy outcomes. It is organized into three parts. The first poses four questions about the concept and meaning of “public opinion", examined from Euro-American and Confucian-Japanese perspectives, and looks at theories that seek to explain how the public processes information; arrives at judgments and expresses themselves. The second part examines how public opinion is measured, emphasizing how individuals respond (and do not) to surveys as well as discussing how to critically evaluate poll-related information in the media. The final part examines public opinion on domestic and international affairs, allowing the class to compare Japanese and American self- and other-images: patriotism, nationalism and immigration; postures toward security policy and China; social values and trust; and attitudes toward democracy.

Taking Political Sociology as the main approach, this course explores the relevance of international organizations (intergovernmental and non-governmental), and how political and social forces interact and shape each other. The course provides a general introduction to international institutions, as well as their origins, priorities, structure, and means of action. The course places a special emphasis on the role of international organizations after World War II; globalization, and its impact on transnational governance and management of global threats or social movements. The course reflects on how ideologies and beliefs relate to the formation, management and responsibility of international organizations towards social problems, as well as underlying power structures.

This course is intended for beginning students to acquire daily survival level of Japanese comprehension and speaking skills. The course does not cover hiragana or katakana. 

Eligibility: Students who have studied no Japanese. 

The objectives of this course are as follows: A1 level in the CEFR/JF Standard for Japanese-Language Education.

• Understand and correctly use basic greetings and set phrases.
• Speak about things around oneself and interact with others using combinations of simple phrases. 
• Understand simple informative texts and brief passages about familiar topics.

This course examines Japanese phonetics and phonology, dealing with segmental and prosodic aspects of the language. Lectures focus on the typical characteristics of the sound systems of Japanese in relation to phonetic and phonological theories. The course focuses mainly on theory, but practical pronunciation training is included to aid understanding of the theories. 

This course provides a comprehensive introduction to the modern study of computer algorithms. The course uses Python language as a tool to learn various algorithms in depth. Knowledge in mathematics, especially algebra, is expected and having basic knowledge and experience in Python helps to better understand class content.