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, humanistic and social studies.
The main goals of the course are: to offer interpretative tools for a critical comprehension of cultural and social studies; to provide knowledge on issues of collective identity and alterity in relation to modern and contemporary Japanese society; to develop judgement faculty and skills to produce and communicate a piece of interpretative discourse on the topics of the course within an intercultural, transnational 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 perspective: how to think about identity and otherness?
- essentialism, occidentalism/orientalism/self-orientalism, language/culture/nation, modernity/tradition.

II. Introduction to contemporary Japanese society:
- national identity and nihonjinron (theories about the Japanese), society, social stratification, gender, minorities, whiteness, Italians in Japan, etc.

All slides of the lessons will be available on the Moodle platform dedicated to the course (https://moodle.unive.it/course/view.php?id=20404 ).

Rots, Aike P., (2023), “Beyond Methodological Nationalism: Three Directions for Japanese Studies”, The Copenhagen Journal of Asian Studies 41(1), pp-9-35.
Miyake, Toshio (2014), “Occidentalismo, orientalismo, auto-orientalismo, doppio orientalismo del Giappone”, in T. Miyake, Mostri del Giappone. Narrative, figure, egemonie della dis-locazione identitaria, Venezia: Edizioni Ca' Foscari, pp. 31-37, 120-130.
Kubota, Ryuko (2003), “Critical Teaching of Japanese Culture”, Japanese Language and Literature, vol. 37, no. 1, Special Issue: Sociocultural Issues in Teaching Japanese: Critical Approaches, Apr., 2003, pp. 67-87.
Tai, Eika (2003), “Rethinking Culture, National Culture, and Japanese Culture”, Japanese Language and Literature, vol. 37, no. 1, Special Issue: Sociocultural Issues in Teaching Japanese: Critical Approaches, Apr., 2003, pp. 1-26.
Burgess, Chris (2010), "The 'Illusion' of Homogeneous Japan and National Character: Discourse as a Tool to Transcend the 'Myth' vs. 'Reality' Binary", pp. 1-23.
Sugimoto,Yoshio (2021), Introduction to Japanese Society, capp. 2, 3, 7, 8, New York: Cambridge University Press (V° ed.).
Miyake,Toshio (2013), "Italian Transnational Spaces: Doing Racialised, Gendered and Sexualised Occidentalism", Cultural Studies Review, vol. 19, no. 1, pp. 99-124.
I riferimenti bibliografici verranno aggiornati e integrati durante il corso delle lezioni e saranno consultabili assieme alle slide delle lezioni su Moodle.

Further reference texts will be provided during classes and will be available in pdf by accessing the didactic material on the Moodle platform.

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.

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 2024-25 academic year. Starting from 2025-26 a new syllabus will be in use.

written

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