courses
2025 Courses Coming Soon!
2024 Courses
First Period: 9:00 - 10:30 am
HUMS 2090 Deciphering Manga and Anime
ENG 2091/4391 Samurai and Geisha: Japanese Gender Roles in Literature
WGS 4090 Samurai and Geisha: Japanese Gender Roles in Literature
Second Period: 10:45 am - 12:15 pm
HIST 3992 Godzilla and the World: The History of Postwar Japan
ENG 2091/4391 When Yokai Attack: Monsters, Spirits and Fantastical Creatures in Japanese Folklore and Culture
Tomodachi Program (during lunch) 12:15 - 1:10 pm
Third Period: 1:10 - 2:40 pm
JAPN 2001 Intermediate Japanese I
Remember: Pre-departure Online Intro Session is from May 17-24 and Four-Day Class Weeks in Kyoto!
Course descriptions below.
Each student is required to enroll in exactly 2 courses.
Each student should choose the level most appropriate for his/her academic career. Questions? Contact us now.
Each student should choose 2 courses NOT taught by the same professor (for example, you should not sign up for both courses with Dr. Rands). Please contact us if you have reason to do so.
One Japanese language course will be offered based upon expected student enrollment. If you wish to sign up for Japanese language and are not sure if this level is right for you, email us.
You will be expected to indicate your course preference when you fill out the online application, including alternate choices.
Some courses will include an online intro session from May 17-24. Therefore, all students must obtain a syllabus from the instructor for each course, and be able to log into ǿմý Canvas PRIOR TO May 17, 2025.
All classes meet Monday through Thursday unless a special program event is scheduled. Our schedule follows the Doshisha University class schedule, as their academic term is in session. Therefore our students are going to and coming from classes at the same time as the "regular" Doshisha students.
Godzilla and the World: The History of Postwar Japan HIST 3992 Instructor: Dr. David Rands, Ph.D Course Description: (Special Topics in History) Through the lens of the Godzilla movies, this course is a survey of postwar and contemporary Japan in global contexts from 1945 to the present. 3 credit hours. TEXTBOOKS (required): All other required readings will be available on Canvas. |
HUMS 2090 Instructor: Dr. David Rands, Ph.D Course Description: This course is designed to develop students' understanding of Japan through materials, such as anime and manga. Anime and manga are extremely popular and can be used to approach a number of historical, cultural, and traditional aspects of Japan. This course will explore Japanese language and society through the use of these media. Students will gain a better understanding of the different genre, historically significant, and current uses of manga, culminating in students visiting the Kyoto International Manga Museum. Students will also utilize anime as a lens through which to view Japanese society. They will evaluate several styles of anime and discuss the implications of different anime as a reflection of Japanese values. The inspection of anime will also provide an opportunity for students to evaluate the linguistic components of anime and the ways in which the Japanese language interacts with the visual presentation. 3 credit hours. TEXTBOOKS (required): The Soul of Anime: Collaborative Creativity and Japan's Media Success Story by Ian Condry (ISBN 978-0822353942) Duke University Press. E-book also available through Kindle Books. A Brief History of Manga by Helen McCarthy (ISBN 978-1781570982) Ilex Press. E-book also available through Kindle Books. Admission to the Kyoto International Manga Museum - 800 yen, approx. $8.00. |
Samurai and Geisha: Japanese Gender Roles in Literature ENG 2091/4391 (cross-listed as WGS 4090) Instructor: Dr. Lisa Verner, Ph.D Course Description: This course will examine the source, evolution, and cultural iconography of two images of Japanese culture, the samurai and the geisha. Each, in its own way, has come to represent, especially for the West, the “essence” of masculinity and femininity in Japan, and a mythology has grown up around each identity. These mythologies often present themselves as fixed, timeless phenomena, unshaped by changing historical circumstances and representing a set of transcendent Japanese values. This course will interrogate such assumptions through close reading of a variety of texts that make use of the legends of the samurai and the geisha. WGS 4090 Prerequisite: Junior standing or consent of the instructor. TEXTBOOKS (required):
All other required readings will be available as PDFs on Canvas. |
JAPN 2001 Instructor: Dr. Noriko Ito Krenn, Ph.D. Course Description: A continuation of the development of all four language skills: speaking, understanding, reading, and writing. The course includes the study of approximately 100 Japanese characters, and the presentation and discussion of Japanese culture. This is a third semester Japanese language course. Prerequisites: JAPN 1001, 1002 or consent of the department. 3 credit hours. Textbooks (required): Genki II: An integrated course in elementary Japanese Genki II Workbook 3rd Edition The Japan Times, 2020. (ISBN 9784789017336) |
When Yokai Attack: Monsters, Spirits and Fantastical Creatures in Japanese Folklore and Culture ENG 2091/4391 Instructor: Dr. Lisa Verner, Ph.D Course Description: This course will take as its subject the Japanese phenomenon known as the yokai, a word loosely translated as “monster,” but that also has meanings closer to “spirit” or “ghost” or “fantastical creature.” Yokai began their lives as localized, rural phenomenon associated with stories we would classify as folklore, but after centuries as the subjects of folklore and oral tradition, the yokai began to be documented by writers in urban areas, a move that normally fixes the depiction and meaning of folkloric creatures. However, in the case of the yokai, they evolved and adapted to their new urban settings, acquiring new behaviors and characteristics commensurate with their new locales. New yokai continue to materialize, even into the twenty-first century. This course will investigate yokai and their evolution as markers of Japanese culture through literature. TEXTBOOKS (required): Toriyama Sekien (author), Hiroko Yoda (editor), and Matt Alt (translator). Japandemonium Illustrated: The Yokai Encyclopedias of Toriyama Sekien. Dover Publications, 2017. ISBN 978-0486800356; Amazon Kindle edition($19.22)
All other required readings will be available as PDFs on Canvas. |