Advanced Seminar on Modern Japan

Catalog description

In this advanced seminar, we read and debate cutting-edge scholarship on modern Japan alongside classic studies. We?ll interrogate how ?Japan? emerged as an empire and nation-state; Japan?s shifting borders and fraught relations with foreign powers and conquered lands; and the tricky question of what it means to be ?Japanese.? Readings vary by semester, but major topics include empire, colonialism, and nationalism; war and peace, with emphasis on World War II; race, gender, and reproductive politics; democracy and fascism; labor and class; the history of science; and the meaning of ?modern.? (ASIAN-SC)