Phoenix out of the Ashes: Contemporary Japanese History

James J. Orr                                                          http://www.facstaff.bucknell.edu/jamesorr/
MWF 12:00 - 1 PM; Vaughan Lit 101

Evening film viewing, common hour to be determined.

Description: In this course we will strive to gain a rich understanding of contemporary Japan by examining basic political, economic, technological, social, and cultural developments of Japan from the time of WWII to the present. Cultural practices examined will include film, popular song and music, architecture and urban space, art, manga and political cartoons, and anime.

Method of Instruction: Some lecture, more discussion of primary sources (film, photography, architecture, art, song, cartoon and anime) and secondary (analytical) works. 

Materials:

Harp of Burma TAKEYAMA Michio

Black Rain IBUSE Masuji

In the Realm of a Dying Emperor. Norma FIELD. Vintage, reprint ed., 1993 ppbk.

Kitchen YOSHIMOTO Banana

Other reading assignments will be available on Blackboard, traditional reserve, or in handout form.  In weekly schedule, items labelled "1," "2," or "3" are to be prepared for the first, second, and third class of the week, respectively.

Film list--subject to change: "Red Angel," "Stray Dog," "Street of Shame,"  "Ikiru"  "High and Low,"  "Funeral,"  "MacArthur's Children," "A Taxing Woman," "Princess Mononoke." 

Powerpoints included for your reference.  They will be used in class.

Warning: Syllabus is currently being revised. Portions below this note are from a previous iteration of the course and will change significantly for the Spring Semester 2009.

Evaluation:

Evaluation based on class participation (20%); submission of short comments, observations, and questions from the readings, quizes (20%); exams (40%); term research paper on a wartime or postwar topic of student's choosing (20%)

Topics

Week 1: (Jan. 14, 16) Introduction

• Wednesday--No readings first class--Course overview; themes; discussion of the uses of history.
• In class discusion of John Dower's Oct. 2002 op-ed piece.
• Documents of interest: U.San Diego map site, Cairo Declaration, 1943, Potsdam Declaration, 1945, Powerpoint on Wartime/postwar.
• Friday--Pacific War and its origins
  • Readings:
    • Dower, John. "The Other Japanese Occupation," The Nation June 19, 2003.
• Resource:

Week 2:  (Jan. 19, 21, 23) The Asia- Pacific War: Japanese Imperial Expansion, Defeat and Surrender

• Monday--Pearl Harbor and the progress of the war
• Resources:
  • USMA WWII map site, for those interested in military history
  • 1890 Imperial Rescript on Education

• Wednesday--Life in Wartime Japan
  • Readings:
• Atkins, E. Taylor. “The war on jazz, or jazz goes to war: toward a new cultural order in wartime Japan.” Positions: East Asia Cultures Critique (Durham, NC) 6, no.2 (Fall 1998): 345-392.
• Resource
  • 2009 Inaugural performance, John Williams' "Air and Simple Gifts"
  • Showakan website (in Japanese)
  • Ron Loftus' Showakan website

• Friday--Realization of defeat and politics of surrender--discussion
• Readings
  • Asada, Sadao. "The Shock of the Atomic Bomb." Pacific Historical Review 67.4 (1998): 477-512.
  • Frank, Richard B. "Why Truman Dropped the Bomb." The Weekly Standard Aug. 8, 2005
• Film: Masumura's "Red Angel" (1971)

Week 3: (Jan. 26, 28, 30) U.S. Occupation

• Monday--Lecture: "New Deal Meets Cold War"
  • Readings
    
    • Pyle, Ken. "Japan's American Revolution" in his textbook, The Making of Modern Japan D.C. Heath, 1979.
  • Resources:
    • Tokyo Kid powerpoint
• Wednesday
  • Readings:
    • Baerwald, Hans.  “The best overview of the Allied Occupation of Japan yet written” [review essay on Inside GHQ: The Allied Occupation of Japan and Its Legacy, by Takemae Eiji].  Social Science Japan Journal (Oxford, England) 7.1 (2004) 117-122.
    • Ulrich Straus.  “Selected Comments on Inside GHQ, a Prodigious Work.” Social Science Japan Journal 7.1 (2004): 123-127.
  • Resources
    • Initial post-surrender policy directive for Japan (SWNCC150/4/A), from the National Diet Library archives

• Friday --Queston's of war responsibility in a democratic state
  • Readings:
    • Dower, Chapter 11 "Imperial Democracy: Evading Responsibility" pp. 319-345
    • "Japanese Filmmakers and Responsibility for War: The Case of Itami Mansaku" Kyoko Hirano.  In War, Occupation and Creativity, 212-232.
  • Resources:
    • National Diet Library site on the Occupation, "Reconstruction of Japan."
    • Asahi Shinbun May 2006 "Tokyo Trials Poll"

Week 4: (Feb. 2, 4, 6) U.S. Occupation

• Monday "Cultures of Defeat"
  • Readings:
    • Dower, John. "Cultures of Defeat," Chapter 4 in Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II. Norton, 1999.
  • Resources:
    • "The Confusion Era" Smithsonian collection of posters from U.S. Occupation
    • John W. Bennett's portfolio of photographs (1948-1951) from the U.S. Occupation
    • Photos from Kanto region, late war, early postwar (in Japanese).

• Wednesday
  • Readings:
    • Kojima Nobuo, "American School" 1954 Akutagawa Prize Winner

• Film: Akira Kurosawa's "Stray Dog" [PN1997 STRAY Video]; For your reference: Yoshimoto, Mitsuhiro. "Chapter 10: Stray Dog" in his Kurosawa: Film Studies and Japanese Cinema (Duke University Press, 2000): 147-178.

• Friday--cultural politics
  
  • Reading
    • "To Be or Not to Be: Kabuki and Cultural Politics in Occupied Japan." Marlene Mayo.  In War, Occupation and Creativity, 269-309.
  • Resource: Japan Information Network site on "Kanjincho" kabuki play.
  • SCAP directive on civil and religious liberties, from the National Diet Library site

Week 5 (Feb 9, 11, 13) Partial independence

• Monday--Controversy over the San Francisco Peace Treaty and U.S.-Japan Security Treaty; Korean War, SDF, MSA
• Reading
  • Dower "Epilogue." pp. 547-64.

• Wednesday--Midterm #1 (and/or take-home essay)

• Friday--Korean War and its impact
  
  • Reading
    • tbd
  • Resource:
    

Week 6 (Feb 16, 18, 20)--The 1950s Establishment: 1955 political system, foundations for the economic miracle: Japan, Inc.

• Monday--Discussion: Akira Kurosawa's 1952 "Ikiru, To Live" [PN1997 Ikiru]
  • Reading: Ezra Vogel, "The Bureaucratic System in Perspective," Chapter 2 in Japan's New Middle Class, 2nd ed. (Univ. of California Press, 1971): 15-39.

• Topical film: Mizoguchi's "Street of Shame"
  

• Wednesday--The 1955 System, or the 1 1/2 System
  • Reading
  • Masumi, Junnosuke, "The 1955 system in Japan and Its Subsequent Development." Asian Survey 28.3 (March 1988): 286-306.
    

• Friday
  • 1955 system and the Institutions of High-Speed Growth
    
    • Reading:
      • Johnson, Chapter 7, "Administrative Guidance."
  
  Week 7 (Feb 23, 25, 27)--The 1950's Counter-Establishment: Pacifism, Labor Unions, and the implicated culture of opposition

• Monday--Hiroshima on My Mind: 1954 Lucky Dragon Incident and Anti-Nuclear Peace Movement
• Reading: Orr, "Yui-itsu no hibakukoku"
• Resources:
  • Gensuikyo: Japan Council against Atomic and Hydrogen Bombs
  • 1955 Atomic Energy Basic Law
  
  
• Wednesday-- Discussion: Harp of Burma and the nature of Japanese pacifism
  • Reading: Takeyama, Harp of Burma
    
• Thursday film: "High and Low" for discussion Week 8.

• Friday-- Politics of Confrontation--Conservative and Progressive contests
  • Ohara collection of posters from labor and social movements
  • "When the Akashiya Rain Lifts" Nishida Sachiko

Week 8 (Mar 2, 4, 6)--Go, Go Japan: The 1960s, Income Doubling and Celebration

• Monday-1960, Turning Point in Politics and Labor
  
• Resources: Documentary "Pacific Century"
  

• Wednesday--Ikeda Hayato and Income Doubling: embracing the middle class ideal
  • Reading
    • Vogel, "The Gateway to Salary: The Infernal Entrance Examinations." In Japan's New Middle Class, UC Press, 1970. Pp. 40-67.
      

• Friday--Discussion of 1960s society. Politics and economics
  • Reading:
    • skim Yoshimoto, "High and Low" in Kurosawa: Film Studies and Japanese Cinema.

Week 9 (Mar 9, 11, 13) Spring Recess

Week 10 (Mar 16, 18, 20)--1960s continued. Middle Mass, Industrial Society, and "Decade of Consensus?"

• Monday--Tokyo Olympics and the transformation of the national body economic
  • Reading
    • Otomo, Rio. "Narratives, the body and the 1964 Tokyo Olympics [media representations: the stories of three Olympic athletes]". Asian Studies Review 31.2 (June 2007): 117-132.
    • Ibuse. Black Rain (make sure you have at least begun reading the novel)
  • Resource:
    • Ichikawa Kon's film, "Tokyo Olympiad" in class film clip.
      

• Wednesday--The Vietnam War, Beheiren, and a revived peace movement
• Reading:
  • Oda Makoto.  "The Ethics of Peace."  In Koschmann, ed.,  Authority and the Individual in Japan: Citizen Protest in Historical Perspective, 154-70.  Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press, 1978.
  • Ibuse. Black Rain novel

• Topical film: Oshima Nagisa's "Cruel Story of Youth"
  

• Friday--the underside of high growth
• Reading
  • de Bary, Brett. “Sanya: Japan’s Internal Colony.” In The Other Japan: Conflict, Compromise, and Resistance since 1945," edited by Joe Moore, 80-95.
• Resources:
  
• Shannon Higgins' photo journalism of Kamagasaki (Osaka's major doyagai) in late 1980s early 1990s
• "Sun Tribe" film clip in class

Week 11 (Mar 23, 25, 27)-- 1970s Anxieties: Asian Awakening, post-imperial responsibilities

• Monday--Okinawan reversion; who's the subaltern?
• Reading:
  • Molasky, Michael S. "Roads to no-man's land."  In Molasky, American Occupation of Japan and Okinawa, 25-52. Routledge, 1999.
  • Norma Field, "I Okinawa" in In the Realm of a Dying Emperor
    

• Wednesday--Escape from Asia, join Asia?
• Reading:
  • Wakabayashi. "The One-Hundred Man Killing Contest"

• Topical film: Itami Juzo's "A Taxing Woman" [PN1997 TAXING]

• Friday-- End of high growth, the problem of political reform
• Reading
  • Johnson, "Tanaka Kakue, structural corruption"

Week 12 (March 30; Feb. 1, 3)--1980 and 1990s The Affluent Society; Japan as Number One? Two?

• Monday--Ultranationalism and war: a legacy of distrust
  
• Reading:
  • Norma Field, "II Yamaguchi," and "III Nagasaki" in In the Realm of a Dying Emperor
  • Tetsuya Takahashi, "The National Politics of the Yasukuni Shrine" on Japan Focus website.
• Resources:
  • Maruki Murals Museum. Maruki Toshi and Maruki Iri were known for their Hiroshima murals.

• Wednesday--Comfort women remembrance and war legacies
• Reading:
  • C. Sarah Soh. "Imperial Gifts to Sex Slaves." Social Science Japan Journal 3.1 2000, pp 59-76.

• Friday--Silliness, existential confusion?
  • Reading:
    
    • Kitchen Yoshimoto Banana

Week 13 (Apr 6, 8, 10)--The Affluent Society Continued: Enjoying Prosperity

• Monday--Civil Service to the People, "Take a vacation!": Resort development, Leisure travel
• Reading:
  • "Consuming Rural Japan: The Marketing of Tradition and Nostalgia in the Japanese Travel Industry."  By Millie Creighton.  Ethnology 36.3 (Summer 1997): 239-54.
• Resources:
  • Hachiro Suzuki webpage
    

• Wednesday--Departures to and from Tradition
• Reading:
  • "Misora Hibari: The Postwar Myth of Mournful Tears and Sake."  By Alan Tansman, in Anne Walthall, ed., The Human Tradition in Modern Japan (SR Books, 2002): 213-29.
  • If interested in music, "Enka as Engendered Longing," by Christine Yano, Tears of Longing: Nostalgia and the Nation in Japanese Popular Song.
    
• Resources:
  • See the "official" Misora Hibari website top page and Misora Hibari Memorial Hall site (in Japanese).
  • Powerpoint "Enka as longing."

• Topical film: Miyazaki Hayao's "Princess Mononoke"

• Friday--Playing with the national mythology
• Reading:
  • "Anime and historical inversion in Miyazaki Hayao's 'Princess Mononoke.'"  John A. Tucker.  Japan Studies Review 7 (2003): 65-102.
    
• Supplemental
• Powerpoint: Postwar Avant-garde and Architecture
  

Week 14 (Apr 13, 15, 17)--Post-Cold War and the 1990s; ...

• Monday--Political re-alignment in the 1990s: the post-1955 system?
  • Reading:
    
• Wednesday--Student-directed projects
• Reading:
• Friday--Student-directed projects
• Reading:

Week 15 (Apr 20, 22, 24)

• Monday--Student-directed projects
  

• Wednesday--Student-directed projects
  

• Friday--Student-directed projects

Week 16 (April 27) Last class

Final paper due: Wednesday May 6, 6:30 PM.

Useful websites for learning about Japan

Links to Postwar Japan Culture sites

f interest:   Surrender Documents, 1945

                    New Constitution of Japan, 1946

                    National Diet Library site, "Historical Figures," and the NDL's extraordinary "Memories of Japan" site.