ASST 218
Modern Japan Spring 2010
Division II
Cross-listed HIST 218 / JAPN 218
This is not the current course catalog

A modernizing revolution, the construction and collapse of an empire, devastating defeat in a world war, occupation by a foreign power, and postwar economic take off and rough landing have marked Japan’s modern experience. This course will examine the main themes of modern Japanese history with a focus on how various “ordinary people” have lived through the extraordinary changes of the past century and a half. Through the perspectives of ordinary people, be it a young girl working in a cotton textile factory in the 1920s, a wartime soldier, or a teenager of the early twenty-first century, issues of national identity and nationalism, democracy, work, gender, family, youth and consumerism will be addressed. Reading materials will include anthropological studies, fiction, films, political documents, and oral histories.