Keio University

This course introduces contemporary Sino-Japanese relations, enhancing one's understanding of the dynamics between the two countries over the decades. The course first presents the broad view of bilateral relations and its structure within the historical perspective, and then examines more thoroughly the key issues in China-Japan relations. The course wraps up with a view at China-Japan relations in the regional perspective. 

Classes are organized as interactive lectures. One or two sessions in the course are dedicated to a debate simulation on a territorial dispute between China and Japan.

Since ancient times, people have traveled to sacred places in search of sacred power, listened to the legends of these places and the miraculous experiences of the gods and Buddha. Particularly in the Middle Ages, engi-e, paintings of the origins and history of a temple or shrine, which glorified miraculous experiences and visualized the stories of the gods and Buddha; and pilgrimage mandalas, which skillfully depicted the past and present of sacred places, were actively produced, and were sometimes displayed in front of people. This course discusses religious paintings such as engi-e and pilgrimage mandalas, as well as related stories and legends, to decipher the beliefs in sacred places and the stories that support them. The course aims to acquire the ability to read narrative pictures while exploring the origins of power spots that attract even modern people and the spiritual culture of the Japanese people, and examining methods of picturing sacred places and the specific aspects of faith.

This course examines how prominent modern Western thinkers addressed philosophical issues within their historical and intellectual context. It traces the intellectual trajectory from Hobbes' social contract theory, through Mandeville, to the French and Scottish Enlightenment, culminating in the development of political economy by Adam Smith.

This course examines the nexus between literature and intercultural communication and analyzes fundamental concepts and principles in the academic field of intercultural communication. The course features excerpts from various books, short stories, and social science articles that treat themes most broadly addressed in intercultural communication research such as identity; the benefits and pitfalls of intercultural contact; personal transformation; discrimination, and cultural change. 

This course explores how culture shapes cognition and mind. By learning how culture shapes one's mental processes, sense of self, worldview, and behavior in daily life, one can develop a more "intercultural mind". This course is good for anyone interested in travel, cultural identity, cultural difference or living abroad.

This course aims to provide introductory knowledge of competition law, which is a basic rule for business activities and the competition policy in Japan. The course covers the history of competition policy in Japan; the principles, structure, and terminology of the Anti-Monopoly Act;  unreasonable restraint of trade; private monopolization; unfair trade practices; merger regulation, and enforcement/procedure of Anti-Monopoly Act. 

This class focuses on travel writing from English and German speaking countries after 1945.  From the 1970s onwards, travel writing has displayed a strong tendency towards hybridity. The course covers works such as Bruce Chatwin's "In Patagonia;" The Middle Passage" by V. S. Naipaul, and W. G. Sebald's "The Rings of Saturn." 

The course also deals with some eminent representatives of German-speaking travel writing like Roger Willemsen and Christoph Ransmayr, whose works will be read against the background of the aforementioned classics. Last but not the least, this course will give a short overview of the history of travel writing, discussing the role of ethnology and topics like orientalism, primitivism and postcolonialism.

This course examines the way Japan was, and continues to be, perceived in Europe and North America. The course analyzes a series of historical documents from European and North American sources and investigates how the view of Japan has developed in these countries over time.  Three questions are at the core of this investigation:
- Which images and stereotypes about Japan can be found in these documents?
- How much did these images and stereotypes change with time?
- How much did they stay the same?

In addition, the class entails group presentations about certain key periods in the history of Japan's encounter with Euroamerica.

Programs written in programming languages ​​such as C or Java are translated into assembly language or machine language programs by a special software called a compiler. This course explains the basic concepts and formalization of programming languages, explaining how the programs we usually write are executed inside a computer and how the compiler is configured for that purpose. Compilers can generally be divided into two parts: a front end and a back end. This course focuses on the front end, which comprises of three parts: lexical analysis, syntactic analysis, and semantic analysis.  

This course increases knowledge of concepts and theories in consumer behavior, and of methods for analyzing consumer behavior. The goal of this course is to understand how these concepts and approaches relate to marketing decision making. A set of important topics on consumer behavior is selected for discussion.