Samurai: A History of Japan

Catalog description

This upper-division course traces the history of Japan through the development of the samurai as a distinct social group over the last millennium. We will focus on the formation of a distinctive Japanese culture and identity through its initial interaction with cultures inhabiting present-day Korea and China; its borrowing and adaptation of political, economic, social, linguistic, religious and educational elements from China and Korea; and the repeated opening and closing of Japan to the outside world over the course of several centuries. We will also look at Japan’s contact with the West, beginning with Dutch traders, the encounter with Commodore Perry’s US naval fleet of Black Ships, and the conflict with the Allies (principally the US) during WWII. We will examine these issues through the lens of samurai culture: exploring the myths and reality of samurais as warriors and bureaucrats, their professional and family lives, and their symbolic meaning within Japanese and popular culture; and so on. We will also consider whether this samurai/Japanese ethos is culturally and geographically specific, or transferable. This seminar-style course uses first person accounts; tales, fables and histories; scholarly articles; and films (not just the great Kurosawa epics, but also lesser-known accounts by Mizoguchi Kenji, Inagaki Hiroshi, Jim Jarmusch, Hirayama, Oshima, Yamada and others). Code 3