Japan

This course explores ideas and practices of creating more convivial places through participatory, democratic practices that have a positive impact on streets, neighborhoods, communities, and cities. It examines the historical, cultural, economic, political, environmental, and other influences on places that determine what a place has become and how. Furthermore, it explores the role of design and the process of implementing a design idea into a realized project. At the end of course, students undertake original research and analysis on a topic of public interest and demonstrate how to use history, inputs and influences of places to understand what makes places successful or not.

This course focuses on British poetry written in traditional forms from 1770 - 1850, as well as some modern and contemporary poetry. It introduces the major writers of the Romantic period: William Blake, William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, George Gordon (Lord Byron), Percy Bysshe Shelley and Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, and John Keats.  Works from other Romantic period authors including Charles Lamb, William Hazlitt, Thomas De Quincey, and Jane Austen will also be covered. 

Students will be expected to read poetry from the British Romantic period and show their understanding of the text and contexts by writing their own translations/imitations. The course covers traditional English poetic forms such as quatrains, the sonnet, the Spenserian stanza, ottava rima, the English ode, and others. 

Officially, there are no prerequisites for this course; however, History of English Literature I (LIT106) (Anglo-Saxon - 1800) and History of English Literature II (LIT107) (1800 - Contemporary) are *strongly* recommended. GEH024 World of English Literature ('Lyric to Lyrics') is also recommended for a basic understanding of English poetic form. (For visiting students, the course requires some background knowledge of English poetry and the Romantic period, for example a 100-level survey literature course.) In the past, students who have not taken LIT106 and LIT107 first sometimes struggled with LIT226. 

Why are social media platforms such as YouTube and Instagram popular globally? How have these platforms increasingly become part of the material basis of our daily experiences, and what are the consequences of such developments? This course introduces key theories and research in media studies. It examines a range of issues concerning the changing media landscape in which we live in at the local and global levels. Special emphasis is placed on the implications of social media for contemporary society; the emergence and consequence of celebrity culture, and the reinvention and reposition of “traditional” media in post-network context. 

Utilizing behavioral economics, this course aims to deepen the understanding of economic policies and international comparisons of economies. It focuses on social preferences such as altruistic and inequality aversion preferences; international differences in norms, culture, religion, and worldview, and their effects on economic behavior and outcome. 

Course enrollees are also encouraged to register for the course, International Economy and Behavioral Economics A, at the same time.