CONTEMPORARY JAPANESE SOCIETY

This is one of the interdisciplinary courses within the "Japan" curriculum of the Bachelor's Degree Programme "Language, Culture and Society of Asia and Mediterranean Africa".
The course contributes to attain the teaching goals of the Bachelor's Degree Programme in the field of cultural and humanistic skills.
The main goals of the course are: to offer interpretative tools for an introductory comprehension of cultural and social studies; to provide knowledge on issues of identity and alterity in modern and contemporary Japan in relation to notions of civilization (the 'West', the 'East'), nation (Japan) and 'race' (whiteness); to develop judgement faculty and skills to produce and communicate a piece of interpretative discourse on the topics of the course within a comparative and global perspective..

Knowledge and understanding:
- to know and understand main aspects of issues related to collective alterity and identity in modern and contemporary Japan (1868-today).
- to know and understand concepts and tools from the fields of cultural and social studies within an inter-disciplinary perspective (cultural anthropology, socioogy of culture, intellectual history, postcolonial studies)
- to critically link the topics of the course to knowledge and understanding of Japanese contexts, that may have already been studied in other teachings from different points of view (e.g. historical, artistic, religious, etc.)

Applying knowledge and understanding:
- to analyze and interpret literary topics of the course by employing concepts from the fields of cultural and social studies
- to apply concepts of critical theory within an interdisciplinary perspective

Making judgements:
- to produce critical judgments on cultural and social issues that are part of the program by using informed and solid arguments
- to subject various types of sources (statistic, academic, alternative) to critical examination within a comparative, trans-cultural and global prespective
- to refine the capacity to criticize essentialist and stereotypical discourses on "Japanese culture" or "Japanese society"

Communication:
- to express and elaborate the contents of the program in written form, in a synthetic and effective way, without depending on automatic, schematic and mnemonic study.

Lifelong learning skills:
- to know how to take notes in an effective way
- to know how to critically integrate the study of different materials (notes, slides, manuals, academic articles, alternative sources)
- to be able to independently study materials and topics not covered during the lectures
- to refine the ability to study materials in English
- to refine the ability to use the online teaching platform

It is recommended that students possess an intermediate level of English language (B2) in order to be able to integrate and deepen issues presented during classes, by resorting to the bibliography/reference texts.
Moreover, a basic knowledge of modern and contemporary history of Japan is advisable, acquired through (however not exclusively) attending the "Japanese History 1/2" classes.

I. Introduction to a critical examination of Japanese society: how to think about identity and otherness?
- occidentalism, orientalism, self-orientalism, essentialism, culture, 'Japan' and 'the Japanese', nihonjinron (theories about the Japanese)

II. Introduction to strategical concepts to understand modern and contemporary society of Japan:
- modernity, invention of tradition, nation-state, ethnicity/race, society, social stratification, race/ethnicity

All slides of the lessons will be available on the Moodle platform dedicated to the course.

Reference texts will be provided during classe and will be available in pdf by accessing the didactic material on the Moodle platform.

Attendees:
- 3 intermediate written tests (lessons 4°, 7°, 10°)
- 1 group presentation (lessons 11°-15°)
- brief written comment to each presentation (lessons 11°-15°)

The overall grade is given by the average of the intermediate tests (50%) and group presentations (50%).

Non attendees:
written test (180 mins):
- part I: 6 multiple-choice questions
- part II: 4 open-ended questions
- part III: 1 extended open-ended question

Part I is aimed at verifying knowledge and understanding. It doesn't assign a score, but requires that students provide at least 4 correct answers in order to be evaluated in part II and III.
Part II is aimed at verifying ability to apply knowledge and understanding of interpretative tools to the issues of the course, ability to learn in autonomy and the ability to comunicate in an argued, rigorous and concise way.
Part III is aimed at verifying the ability to apply understanding in order to critically discuss and formulate self-directed judgments in relation to the issues of the course, and to comunicate in an argued, rigorous and concise way.
All open-ended questions each receive a score in 30/30. The overall grade is given by the average of part II and III.
In case of enduring Covid-19 emergency, the written test will be replaced by an oral test done remotely (Google Meet).

Frontal lessons.
Bibliography, presentations/slides and further readings are available on the Moodle platform.

Italian

See: Moodle for slides of the lessons and further materials.
This exam (with this syllabus) will be available only for the 4 "appelli" of the 2020-21 academic year. Starting from 2021-22 a new syllabus will be in use.

written and oral

This subject deals with topics related to the macro-area "Poverty and inequalities" and contributes to the achievement of one or more goals of U. N. Agenda for Sustainable Development