JAPN 216 Cool Japan Today
Description
This course examines contemporary media culture and products as a conceptual lens to focus on Japanese pop culture and soft power in the 21st Century. Manga, Anime, Cinema, literature, performance art, music, and fine arts will all be surveyed with an eye to understanding what exactly is cool and different about Japanese creative work and whether these kinds of cultural exports could become the foundation of a new post-industrial Japanese economy. Taught in English.
Narrative
In this class we studied Japanese pop culture. This included Japanese culture that is seen as "cool" from an outsider's prospective. Many homework assignments included reading academic writings on Japanese manga, cinema, music and so on. Most of our in class time dealt with group discussion on certain topics about our reading assignments. Our final assignment was a four to six page essay about why Japanese pop culture has spread so well around the world.
JAPN 310 Japanese Cinema
Description
An introductory scrutiny of major Japanese directors and genres with attention to film composition, choices of subject and character, ideas of the cinematic, and the relationship of cinema to Japanese culture and society. Students will analyze and critique films. Discussion of films will deal with the production of their historical, social, and cultural context, as well as issues dealing with popular culture and equity. Taught in English.
Narrative
In Japanese Cinema we watched many movies that are prominent to Japanese culture. We watched a mix of classic and modern movies. We also covered a wide variety of genres including comedy, drama, animated, and action. Each week we were tasked with writing our thoughts and views about each movie that we watched the week before. These essays were to be at least 2 pages long and give our opinions and analysis on the movie we watched the previous week. The required textbook introduced us to scholarly thinking on Japanese cinema.
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