G369 Modern Japan

Diana Lin
Fall 2022

Office: Arts & HUmanities #2051
(O)219 980 6981
Web page: https://dchenlin.pages.iu.edu
Email: dchenlin@iun.edu
Office hours: by appointment

Purpose of Course

This course gives a survey of modern Japan, from the 1860s to the present. Focusing on the 20th century, it aims at an understanding of both continuity and change in Japanese society and culture. It covers the modernizing reforms of the 19th century, 20th century Japanese imperialism, post World War II American occupation and the consequences on Japanese society, and post World War II Japanese society and culture.

This course deals with both content and methodological issues of modern Japan. Our readings offer us different approaches at understanding modern Japanese society. We examine these approaches and develop our own in our take-home papers. For course requirements please refer to the requirement part below.

Goals for the course include:

• Familiarity with the important themes and trends in modern Japanese history.
• Ability to make informed judgments about historical and current events about Japan by situating these events in proper historical frameworks of interpretation.
• Ability to write interpretive research essays on modern Japanese history.

G369 meets the requirements for:

• A COAS cultures course (Group IV, for both majors and non-majors in history), or

• A COAS Humanities (Group IIIC) course (for non-history majors), or
• For the campus (non-history majors), Gen Ed Principle II: Breadth of Learning: Cultural and Historical Studies, and
• Fulfilling one of the twelve 300 level courses COAS students need for graduation.
• A non-Western history course for the history major.

Learning Materials Available via Canvas:

• Syllabus via Canvas Syllabus with links to external learning resources, with online notes for many readings from links on the syllabus.
• Required online readings available under Canvas Lessons arranged by the week.
• PowerPoint slide outline notes for each reading assignment under Canvas Lessons arranged by the week.

Course Requirements

The following required readings are available from the campus Bookstore, with the exception of the Gordon textbook, which is available through IUN library Ebsco ebooks.

Gordon, Andrew. A History of Modern Japan. Oxford University Press, 2003. (Requires IUN username and password login)

Dower, John. Embracing Defeat:Japan in the Wake of World War II. W.W.Norton, 1999.

Some other required readings are directly online and/or avaiable on Oncourse Lessons.

Requirements include

• Weekly discussion questions:

  • Each Discussion question should be answered in TWO ways: by posting your answer and posting TWO critique/commentaries on two other people's posting.

    Your grade for each question is based on both your posting and your comments.

    Your weekly answers and two responses to others' postings are due by 10:59 pm central time on the following Sunday night, e.g. your answers to Discussion Question 1 for week 1 is due at 10:59 pm on Sunday Aug.29. The length of your essay should be 500 words each. Each response should be 50-75 words.

•  Two take-home papers. The first take-home paper is 10-12 pages and goes through a draft phase, and the second paper 5-7 pages, double spaced.  The papers need citations. 

  •  Your papers may incorporate parts of your weekly essays, with reorganization, synthesis, a broader theme and a more in-depth discussion than your weekly essays. Please refer to the rubric for papers for grading criteria.
  • All sources you use must be cited (MLA style or APA style). Failure to cite your sources may result in charges of plagiarism. All three papers will run through Turnitin when they are submitted on Canvas. Identical content with external sources without citations will be treated as plagiarism, which will result in at least one grade deduction if not more, depending on the extent of plagiarism. 
• VoiceThread: VoiceThread assignments are online class participation: comments or questions about the weekly content through recorded or written messages.

Method of grading: all grades are assigned in percentages, which will be tabulated at the end of the semester and converted to letter grades. The averages of your take-home papers and of your weekly writing assignments will be taken to represent the grades for your take-home paper and weekly writing assignment. The conversion is as follows: 93-100: A; 90-92.9: A-; 85-89.9: B+; 80-  84.9: B; 75-79.9: B-; 70-74.9: C+; 65-69.9: C; 60-64.9: C-; 55-59.9: D+; 50-54.9: D; 45-49.9: D-; 44 and below: F.

Late work:

• Work within a week late: 10% grade deduction.
• Work two weeks late: 20% grade deduction.
• Work three weeks late: 30% grade deduction.
• Work four weeks late: 40% grade deduction.
• Work five weeks late: 50% grade deduction.
• Work six weeks late: 60% grade deduction.
• Work seven weeks late: 70% grade deduction.
• Work eight weeks late: 80% grade deduction.
• Work over nine weeks late will not be accepted. 
• For legitimate excuses (e.g. sickness) late work will be penalized less, but will still receive at least 10% grade deduction.

The grade distribution is as follows: 

Weekly assignments: 35 percent
Take-home papers: 40 percent 
VoiceThread: 15 percent
First paper draft: 10 percent

All grades will be shown in your Canvas Gradebook.

Useful links:

The following are Japanese newspapers or websites about Japan.
Asahi Shimbun.
Japan Today.
Japanese language and culture.
Japan Focus
(Columbia University) Asia for Educators
Electronic Journal of Contemporary Japanese Studies
MIT Visualizing Cultures
Red Haired barbarians:Japanese paintings of foreigners 1800-1865

Accommodations for Students with Disabilities
Every attempt will be made to accommodate qualified students with disabilities (e.g. mental health, learning, chronic health, physical hearing, vision neurological, etc.).  You must have established your eligibility for support services through the Student Support Services Disability Services office, located in Hawthorn Hall, Rm. 237. You may call 219-980-6941 for information or e-mail nwsss@iun.edu. Note that services are confidential, may take time to put into place and are not retroactive; captions and alternate media for print materials may take three or more weeks to get produced.  Please contact your campus office as soon as possible if accommodations are needed.

Class schedule

Map of Japan
Map of East Asia
Imperialism in China

Week 1 (Aug.22-28) Japan's opening to America

Introduction: Modern Japan.  ModernJapan outline.  Commodore Perry and Japan. Principal Japanese Daimyo to 1868. Black ships and samurai by John DowerNotes. Optional reading: Gordon, Part 1.