Japan

The course examines how different religions adapt to a world of consumer capitalism, mass migrations and new technologies. Religious participation has gained new speed in recent years, but not in ways we associate with traditional institutions like temples, pilgrimages and rituals. In today's world, religions spread through transnational migration, social media and consumer practices. Focusing on ethnographies conducted mainly (but not exclusively) in Asia, the course explores how these emerging practices shape contemporary religion.

<Level VII>
Target Students: Those who have completed and mastered intermediate level studies.
Course Goals: To master the 200 important intermediate sentence patterns and develop understanding and command of the 100 important advanced sentence patterns for further improvement of the four skills of reading, listening, speaking, and writing. To master the 10,000 basic words and 2,000 basic Chinese characters.

<Oral Expression B>
Goal: To develop oral expression skills for dialogues such as discussion or debates.
Contents: Conducting discussions and debates on various themes.

This course teaches basketball as a team sport, providing an overview of the communication skills, teamwork, leadership, followership, self-understanding, understanding others, and awareness of one's own body and its movements to play a successful game. Furthermore, this course aims at learning the enjoyment of the sports culture of basketball itself.

This course examines "Eugenics," using the Holocaust under the Nazi regime as a reference. The course traces the history of the end of the 19th century in England, when eugenics was born as an academic discipline, and then examines the history and development of the eugenics movement in the United States. In addition, the course also covers unique eugenics philosophy in Japan and current problems in reproductive medicine.

This Japanese language course is designed for students who have completed Japanese III at ICU and have mastered basic skills. It is comparable to third and beginning fourth year at UC. The course continues the development of skills in listening, reading, and writing. By the end of the course, students should be able to communicate in intermediate Japanese incorporating fundamental knowledge of Japanese culture.

Japanese art has not been cultivated purely within the country of Japan. As a member of the East Asian cultural sphere, Japan has nurtured art through rich exchanges with China and South Korea from ancient times and the Middle Ages to the early modern period. In modern times, we cannot help but think about the influence of Europe and the United States. What art has Japan selected from the foreign cultures of China, South Korea, and the West, and how has Japan accepted these and transformed them to create its own art? The goal is to understand this while looking at the slides of paintings and designs. Each week the class will write impressions (interpretation, description, evaluation) after viewing artwork.

This course explores the origins of cinema in Japan and its development up to the present day. It investigates cultural influences that shaped approaches to filmmaking as well as narrative conventions and genres. The course also investigates how Japanese films have shaped foreign views of Japan and Japanese culture. Particular attention will be paid to issues and problems of film study in relation to cinema from Japan, including the construction of the “Japaneseness” of Japanese films.

This course is designed for students at the advanced levels to acquire comprehensive Japanese language proficiency. The purpose of the course is to increase student knowledge of grammar, vocabulary, and kanji and to improve their reading and writing ability through close-reading of textbooks. In addition, students will develop speech techniques necessary to participate in discussions and to explain content that they have understood.

This course is designed to understand post-WWII Japanese foreign policy shaped by history and domestic and international politics. International systemic changes affect Japan's domestic socio-economic and political contexts that, in turn, influence its foreign policy options within the scope of the constitutional framework (“pacifism”). The defeat of Japan in WWII and the US occupation had generated the Japan-US alliance as the cornerstone of Japanese foreign policy (“bilateralism”); at the same time, Japan has become the ardent supporter of the international liberal order (“multilateralism”) led by the United States. The relative decline of the US economy and the rise of Japan as an economic power in the 1980s impacted both regional and international order; Japanese foreign policy then began to seek affirmative diplomacy in search of becoming a “normal” state. China's rise in the 2000s and the surge of nationalism and populism have eroded regional and international order.  Thus, this course examines Japan's major foreign policies from the end of WWII to the present.

This course provides an overview of the academic field of international security. It is designed to provide students with a foundation in security studies with the aim of helping them develop their understanding of what international security is and think critically about explanations of international security. The course emphasizes peace and war among states, beginning with examining the realist paradigm (as a baseline argument) which has significantly influenced the discipline and policymakers. Reviewing key concepts and analytical perspectives, the course considers state behavior and security policy in the complex reality with reference to the Japanese case (and the Ukraine war as well).