Doshisha University

This course examines the complex relationships between media and multiple varieties of communities, including national, local, ethnic, and subcultural groups. Through readings from multiple academic fields, the course addresses the media’s potential to change one’s understanding of cultures and how one relates to cultures they see as ‘other,’ as well complicating the divisions between the two. 　 
　 
The first half of the course discusses the role of nations and national cultures in the production, transmission, and consumption of media texts. Then, the course examines the complexities of community in the digital age, focusing on the spread of ideas across national and cultural borders through online participation. 

This course provides fundamental knowledge on microeconomics with policy applications and implications considered. Some rudimentary mathematics (basic mathematical graphs/diagrams) are used, and students are required to understand theories by drawing relevant graphs/diagrams.　
　
Course lectures provide essential notions and theories followed by practical sessions follow. The course also includes several topics on behavioral economics. 
 

This course introduces the well-known natural disasters that occur in Japan: earthquakes, hurricanes, thunderstorms, tornadoes, and floods. The course analyzes how they occur and how governments, organizations and individuals are working together to minimize the harmful impacts on society. 　 

The world faces a variety of identity-based politics that are considered a cause of social divisions today. Ongoing globalization—the process of human movements, networking, and intensifying interconnectivity—has facilitated various interactions, often causing disparities, conflicts, and injustices. At globalization hubs, racially and culturally diversifying populations experienced geographically uneven social transformation. Sometimes, people form “identity” to create “others” as an enemy, and other times, they do so to become “we” to achieve a common goal.  

This course pays special attention to women’s experiences in the United States, a nation known for the diversity of its population. Hoisting the banner of freedom, democracy, and capitalism, the United States engaged in settler colonialism and imperialism through the nineteenth century to lead in shaping the world order and globalization process. The course examines major historical events in their respective socio-historical contexts. By taking local, national, and transnational perspectives, the course explores the complex workings of gender, class, race/ethnicity, ideology, sex, age, etc., in women’s collective power-building and analyze how they affected their identities and society. The course discusses similarities and differences among American, Japanese, and/or societies of class interest, pursuing lessons to be learned from American examples and how this knowledge can better communities today. 

Modern Japanese society is said to have emerged during the Edo period, in the 17th to 19th centuries. This course introduces Japanese society in the Edo period, chronologically, categorically (politics, economy, society, culture, etc.), and historically. Finally, the course touches on the transition from the Edo period to modern times in the 19th to 20th centuries.  

This course explores the dynamic interaction between human sciences and globalization. The course investigates the impact of global interconnectedness on human behavior, culture, and society, while gaining interdisciplinary perspectives on historical, ethical, philosophical, and political dimensions.  

Mathematics underpins virtually everything that we take for granted in our daily lives, and it is sometimes referred to as the “Queen of Science” due to its demands of logical rigor and cold calculations. However, despite its intimidating veneer, mathematics is the culmination of millennia of human endeavor. The purpose of this course is to give an accessible overview of some of the key developments in mathematics, covering the period from the time of the ancients, up to the early modern period. The course also provides an opportunity to apply historical mathematical methods to solve problems. While covering the well-known Greek, Chinese, Islamic, and European mathematicians, the course also addresses Japanese mathematics during the Edo period.　
 

While the course includes written assignments, to properly understand and follow the thinking of the mathematicians, the course covers problem solving using historical mathematical methods. While a background in high-school level math is useful, an enthusiasm for critical thinking and problem solving could replace that prerequisite, since the mathematical concepts will be introduced as they were historically considered.

In Japan, Ikebana is appreciated with Japanese sophisticated sense of nature, admiring not only the beautiful colors of flowers but also the leaf - its green, beauty of bark, seasonal fruits, or even it withering. The whole of them are named generically "hana," which means "flower" in Japanese Ikebana. Japanese Ikebana is respected as "the way of hana" which is the best way to learn spiritual, philosophical, and aesthetic sense.

This course covers plant features, seasonal changes, and Ikebana techniques. The course aims to understand flower arrangement but also to acquire the skills for communicating and feeling the sense of beauty between a flower arranger (master) and observers (guests). 

Our conceptions of Japan are, like those of any country, shaped not only by our firsthand experiences but also by the images we see in the media, talk about with our friends, and hold in our thoughts. This course focuses on common images of Japanese culture and society—including artistic tropes, pervasive ideologies, and stereotypes—from the Meiji Period until contemporary times. Through contextual analysis of historical and contemporary media representations of Japanese culture or society (for example, advertisements and works of art), the course aims to build students’ critical engagement with the images they encounter in their daily lives. Each course positions these images in the context of global exchange, focusing on the interactions between understandings of Japan domestically and abroad. Students will be encouraged to apply the ideas discussed in class to familiar cultural texts, culminating in the production of a video or photo essay that examines a common idea about Japan today.