Japan

What do companies have to deal with when crossing national borders? This workshop takes a broad approach to learning about and discussing different aspects, challenges, and opportunities of global strategy. As globalization is expanding, all countries are host to foreign firms; thus, large multinational companies are not the only ones taking part in global strategy. This workshop is valuable not only for students who wish to work in an international setting, but for any student that wants to have a grasp of the modern business environment.
The course focuses on questions of strategy and organization, rather than issues or activities related to leadership, psychology, operations management, or finance/accounting.

This course examines important historical, cultural, and social influences on language in the United States. We begin with an historical introduction to the English language in the United States, and then turn to other language varieties, such as Native American languages and languages of major immigrant communities (e.g., Spanish, Asian languages). We will also survey major forms of language variation, including regional dialects (e.g., Southern American English), social dialects, and other forms of socially patterned variation (e.g., youth language and slang). Furthermore, we will examine important controversies such as bilingual education and African American Vernacular English, as well as discuss topics such as language policy, language rights, and recent efforts to restrict and revitalize minority languages. Throughout the course, we will try to not only study language in the United States, but will also explore what this particular setting can reveal about issues of language and society in other contexts around the world.

This course will require students to engage in critical thinking, synthesizing information from a wide range of sources (e.g., textbook, academic journals, videos) on a wide range of topics pertaining to the language situation in the United States and participate actively in class activities (e.g., discussions, debates). Students will also engage in an independent research project, the results of which they will present both orally and in written form.

Why do we need social security? Will the private sector be able to provide them? This course emphasizes the criteria of efficiency and equity, as government plays an important role in performing the function of income redistribution through the social securities. The course also studies the theories and practices of social securities related to income distribution and redistribution. Hence, this course also tries to analyze social security from the viewpoints of welfare economics. In Japan, social security is composed of social insurance and social welfare. There was a huge increase of social security expenditures in Japan with the aging of society following the drastic increase of issuances of national bonds in the early 1990s. We discuss Japanese current systems of social securities, including annuity pensions, health care, and other social welfare programs.

This course is for international students who have passed the Japanese Placement Test I-II level. It reviews elementary Japanese necessary for business and teaches honorifics and manners as a member of society in Japan. The course provides conversation practice, role-play, and email writing; students can expect to work together in pairs.

This course provides an overview of the Japanese legal system, enabling students to research, analyze and understand the basic structure of Japanese law. Students will examine various legal problems, expanding their critical thinking skills.

Target Students: Those who have partially completed elementary level studies.

Course Goals: To master the grammatical expressions learnt at the elementary level, as well as to develop understanding and command of upper elementary and intermediate level grammar and to improve the four skills of reading, listening, speaking and writing. To master the 2,000 basic words and 500 basic Chinese characters.

Contents: Mastering the elementary level grammar and developing understanding and command of grammar using an upper elementary level textbook, followed by introduction of basic sentence patterns of the intermediate level using an intermediate level textbook. Improving the four skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing through various class activities designed for developing each skill. Mastering the 2,000 basic words and 500 basic Chinese characters.

This course explores feminist and queer methodologies, which have been attracting attention in the social sciences in recent years. This course is divided into the following four sections to understand the distinct but overlapping nature of feminist and queer methodologies: (1) feminist epistemology/methodology; (2) qualitative and quantitative feminist methods; (3) queer epistemology/methodology, and (4) qualitative and quantitative queer methods. Given the instructor’s expertise, a substantial amount of class time will be spent on queer quantitative sociology (queer demography). Through this course, students will learn that any social research method can be used from a feminist and queer perspective and articulate the interrelationship between theory, methods, and practice. 

"Global Writing" are influential texts that are read by people around the world, bridging different cultures and languages. The older term "World Literature" includes some of the writers that the course will cover, but "Global Writing" is a broader concept. This course examines the key role of writers, translators, editors, and readers, looking at many key issues involving language and cultural identity. It also critically examines the selection process for the Nobel Prize in Literature.

This course aims to broaden knowledge in Medieval Japanese history. This is not a course that surveys the whole Medieval period in chronological order, based on a textbook with information that students should memorize. Rather, the course aims to think about the history of Medieval Japan from different perspectives; to think about the reasons of important historical developments, and to understand their context and mechanism. The topics of the course and the readings will change every year according to the focus of the class.

This course is an introductory study of contemporary Sino-Japanese relations, covering the historical period from 1972 to the present day. It examines the prominent issue in the bilateral relations and explores several major factors that shape the change and continuity of the relationship from the perspective of international relations theory (IRT) in the discipline of political science. It aims at training students to understand Sino-Japanese relations with both basic historical knowledge and analytical capability.