Course Syllabus

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ASH4442: Modern Japan

Department of History, College of Arts and Humanities

Table of Contents

Instructor Information 

  • Instructor: Dr. Tadashi Ishikawa
  • Office Location: 311 F, Trevor Colbourn Hall
  • Office Hours: Wednesday 3pm–4:30pm and by appointment on Zoom
  • Departmental Phone Number: 407-823-2225
  • Digital Contact: Tadashi.Ishikawa@ucf.edu or Webcourses@UCF messaging

Course Information

  • Term: Fall 2020
  • Credit Hours: 3 Units
  • Class Meeting Days: Tuesday (on WebCourses) and Thursday (Live on Zoom)
  • Class Meeting Time: 16:30pm-17:45pm
  • Class Location: Zoom (Link on WebCourses)
  • Course Modality: V (Video)

Enrollment Requirements 

There is no prerequisite for the course.

Course Description

Japan in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries has been characterized as its aggressive efforts to westernize the country. This view often equates Westernization to modernity as it pervades in textual analyses of Japan’s modernity that people in and outside Japan have generated, observed, and critiqued. Many have supported the conceptual equation by assuming that countries like the United States incorporated an isolated Japan into the world in the mid-nineteenth century and determined the direction of its history. However, in fact, some Japanese continued to deploy something called “the West” as a means of achieving modernity rather than pursued it as an end. Others referred to it as the objects of their fascination and criticisms. In other words, the hegemonic concept of Westernization analytically oversimplifies the rich histories of modern Japan and Western countries.

This course explores the issues of Japan’s modern history in national, regional, and international contexts from the early seventeenth century to the present. The course consists of video lectures and on-Zoom discussions that center on the analyses of intellectual treatise, pictorial images, manga, and films created during the period under study. It begins by examining the order and crises of Tokugawa Japan (1603–1868) to understand what continued and discontinued. The course turns to revolutionary transformation known as the 1868 Meiji Restoration and its aftermath, focusing on Japan’s efforts to build a nation and nationalism and a colonial empire. After studying World War II and the end of the Japanese Empire, the course traces the US-occupation period; Japan’s postwar “miracle” in the 1960s and 1970s; the “bubble” economy in the 1980s; the “lost decades” of economic stagnation in the 1990s and 2000s. The aim of the course is to help move beyond the assumption of Japan as a westernized, homogeneous nation to analyze its identities. All readings are available in English.

Course Materials and Resources

Required Materials/Resources:

  • Wireless connection, microphone and webcam, and PC/Mac.

All materials, except for the following textbook, are available electrically on WebCourses. You can purchase the textbook in the campus bookstore.

  • Andrew Gordon, A Modern History of Japan: From Tokugawa Times to the Present

(New York & Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013).

Third-Party Accessibility and Privacy Statements

The course requires you to use Google Docs for group work throughout the semester. Thus, you are expected to create a personal Google account.

Student Learning Outcomes

  • Make historical arguments and communicate them through the analysis of information and primary sources in written and oral ways;
  • Absorb and reconstruct historical knowledge with one's perspectives and themes on given historical information in lectures and group work;
  • Situate one's constructed knowledge and historical analysis within the national, interregional, and international contexts of Japan.

Course Activities

  • 6-page final essay
  • Final exam that consists of mini-essay portions concerning the accumulation of your critical historical knowledge through group work and primary source analyses
  • Give a group presentation on the result of your collaborative notetaking about lectures and primary sources by consolidating the notes into two particular themes about modern Japan, including but not limited to, identities, ethnicity and race, imperialism, gender, the West, economy, war, and the like
  • 3-time, 350-word mini essays on the specifically assigned primary sources
  • Use Google Docs to post your notes on lectures by the end of Wednesdays and those on primary sources by the end of Fridays when you are playing a role other than "Conciliator/Liaison;" Conciliator/Liaison should put his or her group's takeaway from those individual notes on Saturdays.
  • Taking notes on the textbook, lectures, and primary sources and shape the group's own historical perspectives on Japanese history
  • A variety of forms of Zoom discussions including role plays and games
  • Watch lecture videos, read the textbook, and analyze primary sources
  • Enter into a "contract" with me about your commitment to group work and assigned role
  • A special assignment -- reflections on Japanese images of the “Spanish flu” of 1918-1919 -- for the academic engagement for federal aid on Friday in the first week

Tips for Success

The following expectations will help you be successful in this course. Please carefully review these expectations and follow them.

  1. Log into the course several times each week to check the course content, announcements, conversations, and discussions.
  2. Keep up with the weekly readings and assignments. Students who keep up with the weekly reading and assignments tend to do much better in an online course than those who do not.
  3. Communicate with your group members.
  4. Please do not miss an assignment deadline. Refer to the course schedule/calendar to ensure that you submit assignments on time.

Remember that academic integrity will be appraised according to the student academic behavior standards outlined in The Golden Rule of the University of Central Florida’s Student Handbook.

Activity Submissions

Lecture videos are available on the Modules. You are expected to share the notes on the textbook and lectures on the tab of Collaboration by using Google Docs. Each group needs to include myself as well. You are also expected to submit 3-time mini essays on the assigned primary sources on the tab of Discussion.

Requirements:

Attendance

Your regular attendance is required. By “attendance” I mean that you actively listen to the lectures and read the assigned textbooks and primary sources before coming to the classroom. You are expected to read around 40 pages (sometimes more or less) per week.

Excused absences: Reasons for them include "illness, serious family emergencies, special curricular requirements (e.g., judging trips, field trips, professional conferences), military obligations, severe weather conditions, and religious holidays.” You must inform me of your intent in advance. I consider that you are unjustifiably absent from the class if you miss it without any reason more than twice.

Participation in Discussions

You are expected to actively participate in in-class conversations on Thursday instead of being simply appearing on Zoom. By "active participation" I mean you perform your assigned role, such as coordinator, in group discussions and contribute to the discussions in their expected way.

I understand that some of you have difficulty to speak publicly in the classroom. If there are some issues related to classroom participation, I encourage them to see me at my office hours to complement your relatively inactive participation in the discussion.

Academic Engagement for the Federal Student Aid Regulation

All instructors/faculty are required to document students’ academic activity at the beginning of each course. In order to document that you began this course, please complete the following academic activity by the end of the first week of classes or as soon as possible after adding the course. Failure to do so may result in a delay in the disbursement of your financial aid.

Please post it on the thread of Discussion on Canvas by 5pm on Friday, August 28.

Map Quiz

I ask you to name the sites of the Asia-Pacific. Several maps and study guides are available on WebCourses. We conduct it in class on September 10.

Group Work Expectations

We are going to engage in group work -- notetaking and discussion -- throughout the semester. I will randomly assign each of you to a group of 4 members by the end of the first week. You are also given one of the following roles in the group: Coordinator/Organizer, Ice Breaker/Initiator, Refuter/Rebutter, and Conciliator/Liaison. The role will be changed every other week. Make sure you perform one of them:

  1. Coordinator/Organizer: Make sure that everyone is responsible for performing his or her group role; that everyone contributes to the group work; and that communication goes well technically and collectively.
  2. Ice Breaker/Initiator: Make sure that you need to initiate any group conversation; that you need to make efforts to raise a provocative question or provide an interesting perspective on the topic under discussion.
  3. Refuter/Rebutter: Make sure that you need to respectfully disagree with any aspect of what the Initiator addresses to stimulate group work; and that you need to express your own view on the topic under discussion as well.
  4. Conciliator/Liaison: Make sure that you synthesize the different perspectives provided during the group work and create a group (not any ad-hoc individual) view; that you are responsible for communicating with me as a group representative if necessary.

On Sharing Notes on Google Docs

This course requires you to take notes of the textbook, lectures, and primary sources and share them on the Google Doc account your group will create. This graded assignment is necessary for you to help groups create their own historical knowledge, which will become your own version of a textbook-like knowledge on modern Japan.

Each Coordinator is responsible for creating the Google Doc account, adding other members and Dr. Ishikawa in that account, and organizing the notes.

Each note should include something like questions, observations about the authors’ assumptions, conundrums, counterarguments, logical gaps, the like rather than the summary and repetition of what those authors state. Each person should provide, at least, two entries each time. As for the expected details in those notes, I will put sample notes in Week 2.

Three-Time Short Posts on the Assigned Primary Sources

  • Once in Week 5
  • Once in Week 8
  • Once in Week 10

From Week 3 onward, you are required to post a 350- word log on the assigned materials on WebCourses by 6pm on Sundays.  Please firstly write it on Word or any other program and paste it on the tab of Discussions on WebCourses.

In the short posts, you should not simply summarize each text because I assume that you come to class after reading it. Rather, you should present something like, but not limited to, your own analysis of primary sources in a historical context, a comparison of two works related to a topic, or your evaluation of classmates’ views in his or her short posts. To do so, you should know the background information of each material and consider who creates the material, what motivates him or her to create it, how and under what circumstances he or she creates it, and so on. These exercises are designed to provide you with the opportunities to help write a final paper.

Group Presentation

Towards the end of the semester, each group is expected to present its own knowledge and position on modern Japanese history. It should be done as a result of collaborative notetaking on the textbook, lectures, and primary sources. The content of presentation should be around the construction of critical perspectives on issues and themes each group has gained, such as identities, ethnicity and race, imperialism, gender, the West, economy, and war.

Each group should be ready to give a 20-minute presentation.

Final Exam

In the final exam, I ask you to demonstrate the accumulation of critical historical knowledge on modern Japan through group work. The answers to the questions are written in mini-essay forms of answers. Those questions are related to your group work and presentation, I also ask you to analyze excerpts from the primary sources the course has discussed.

We have the exams in the classroom at some point during the exam week.

Final Paper

By the end of the semester, you need to submit a six-page paper.

In Week 12, I assign the list of primary sources for your paper. You must work on one of the sources. If you want to work on sources outside the list, please feel free to choose a primary source in consultation with Professor Ishikawa.

The best practice in primary source analysis is to make an argumentative thesis followed by the evidence in the supporting paragraphs. You identify what kind of question you hope to answer while analyzing primary sources and consider why answering the question contributes to our historical knowledge. To this end, you are expected to narrow down your topic and question, which is appropriate for the length of paper. These questions are central to presenting your “original” analysis. You are NOT allowed to cite secondary sources, except for the textbook and lecture notes, to write this source analysis paper. If you use introductory notes often attached to each primary source, you must cite them while paraphrasing them and differentiate your idea from the notes.

In the final session of Week 15, we discuss your tentative questions in your paper. Please feel free to upload your notes on WebCourses to share them with classmates. In the session, we will discuss your thesis and the ways in which you interpret the primary sources. The session is the opportunity for you to improve your paper while receiving suggestions from me and your classmates.

Make-up Exams and Assignments

Per university policy, you are allowed to submit make-up work (or an equivalent, alternate assignment) for authorized university-sponsored activities, religious observances, or legal obligations (such as jury duty). If this participation conflicts with your course assignments, I will offer a reasonable opportunity for you to complete missed assignments and/or exams. The make-up assignment and grading scale will be equivalent to the missed assignment and its grading scale. In the case of an authorized university activity, it is your responsibility to show me a signed copy of the Program Verification Form for which you will be absent, prior to the class in which the absence occurs. In any of these cases, please contact me ahead of time to notify me of upcoming needs.

Late assignments will not be accepted unless you are justifiably absent from the class and consult with me in advance.

Assessment and Grading Procedures

The table shows the weight distribution for each assignment.

Assignments

Percentage of Grade

Final Essay

18%

Final Exam

15%

Group Work in Each Week for Producing a Textbook including Its Final Presentation

19% (1×10 weeks+ 10% - grades to each person; Presentation for 9% - grades as each group)
Peer Review of the Second Short Post and Revision of the Third Short Post

5% (Peer Review 3%; Revision 2%)

Activities in Week 2 (Creating a Google Docs Account and Reflections on Your Writing)

2%

3 Mini-Essay Posts

15% (5% for Each)

Map Quiz

4%

Participation

10%

Attendance

10%

Academic Engagement for the Federal Student Aid Regulation

2%

Total

100%

 

Letter Grade

Points

A

93 – 100 points

A-

90 – 92 points

B+

87 – 89 points

B

83 – 86 points

B-

80 – 82 points

C+

77 – 79 points

C

73 – 76 points

C-

70 – 72 points

D+

67 – 69 points

D

63 – 66 points

D-

60 – 62 points

F

59 and below

Consult the latest Undergraduate or Graduate catalog for regulations and procedures regarding grading such as Incomplete grades, grade changes, and grade forgiveness.

Regular Wording in Your Grade

When I assess your assignments, I give my own terms rather giving numeric percentages to each work because this eases your stress while helping you focus on the improvements you would like to make. The following is the mode of grading:

Check Plus(=90% or above), Check/Check Plus (=87 to 89), Check (=83 to 86), Check/Check Minus (80 to 82), and Check Minus (79 or below).

CITATION MATTERS, CHEATING, AND ACADEMIC INTEGRITY

You must cite the source of information, whether it is directly quoted or paraphrased.

Please refer to what constitutes plagiarism and its consequences on the university’s website: http://honor.sdes.ucf.edu/integrity. You receive an F as a result of cheating and plagiarism.

UNIVERISTY WRITING CENTER

The University Writing Center is available: https://uwc.cah.ucf.edu/. Please do not hesitate to shape your ideas and discuss your papers in-person in the Center. That website also includes the useful online resources for writing-related skills.

POLICIES ON MISCONDUCTS

You are also expected to follow the Golden Rule, policies defining your responsibilities to avoid academic and non-academic misconducts such as sexual misconducts, harmful behavior, and disruptive conducts. Please refer to the university’s websites: http://goldenrule.sdes.ucf.edu/; http://osc.sdes.ucf.edu/process/roc.

Netiquette/Interaction Guidelines

Use the following conventions when interacting with the instructor and fellow students:

  1. While using synchronous tools, such as Zoom, be located in a quiet, private environment. This will help you stay clear of disturbances.
  2. Be patient. Don’t expect an immediate response when you post to a discussion.
  3. Respect each other’s ideas, feelings and experience.
  4. Be courteous and considerate. It is important to be honest and to express yourself freely, but being considerate of others is just as important and expected online, as it is in the classroom.
  5. Explore disagreements and support assertions with data and evidence.

USING ZOOM for REMOTE INSTRUCTION

Because of the continued remote instruction requirement due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this course will use Zoom for some synchronous (“real time”) class meetings. Meeting dates and times will be scheduled through Webcourses@UCF and should appear on your calendar.

Please take the time to familiarize yourself with Zoom by visiting the UCF Zoom Guides at <https://cdl.ucf.edu/support/webcourses/zoom/>. You may choose to use Zoom on your mobile device (phone or tablet).

Things to Know About Zoom:

  • You must sign in to my Zoom session using your UCF NID and password.
  • I hope you can appear on the screen when we have Zoom sessions. However, if you believe that there is a compelling explanation on speaking only, I understand that.
  • The Zoom sessions on my lectures are recorded. However, I do not record the discussions sessions on Thursdays because I hope everybody feels comfortable in speaking his or her thought.
  • Improper classroom behavior is not tolerated within Zoom sessions and may result in a referral to the Office of Student Conduct.
  • You can contact Webcourses@UCF Support at <https://cdl.ucf.edu/support/webcourses/> if you have any technical issues accessing Zoom.

INSTRUCTOR COMMUNICATION

When you send a message to the teacher, please expect a general response time of 24-48 hours. Please use Inbox on WebCourses or your UCF email account to contact me. Please address me "Dear Dr. Ishikawa" or "Hello Dr. Ishikawa" when you send a message to me because it is fundamental for you to maintain the courtesy of communication to succeed in your life before and after graduation.

Generally, you will receive feedback on your graded assignments within 1-2 weeks after the assignment has been submitted. Note any exceptions here.

Statement Regarding COVID-19

To protect members of our community, everyone is required to wear a facial covering inside all common spaces including classrooms (https://policies.ucf.edu/documents/PolicyEmergencyCOVIDReturnPolicy.pdf). Students who choose not to wear facial coverings will be asked to leave the classroom by the instructor. If they refuse to leave the classroom or put on a facial covering, they may be considered disruptive (please see the Golden Rule for student behavior expectations). Faculty have the right to cancel class if the safety and well-being of class members are in jeopardy. Students will be responsible for the material that would have been covered in class as provided by the instructor.  

Depending on the course of the pandemic during the semester, the university may make changes to the way classes are offered. If that happens, please look for announcements or messages in Webcourses@UCF or Knights email about changes specific to this course.

COVID-19 and Illness Notification – Students who believe they may have a COVID-19 diagnosis should contact UCF Student Health Services (407-823-2509) so proper contact tracing procedures can take place.

Students should not come to campus if they are ill, are experiencing any symptoms of COVID-19, have tested positive for COVID, or if anyone living in their residence has tested positive or is sick with COVID-19 symptoms. CDC guidance for COVID-19 symptoms is located here: (https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/symptoms-testing/symptoms.html)

Students should contact their instructor(s) as soon as possible if they miss class for any illness reason to discuss reasonable adjustments that might need to be made. When possible, students should contact their instructor(s) before missing class.

In Case of Faculty Illness – If the instructor falls ill during the semester, there may be changes to this course, including having a backup instructor take over the course. Please look for announcements or mail in Webcourses@UCF or Knights email for any alterations to this course.

Course Accessibility and Disability COVID-19 Supplemental Statement – Accommodations may need to be added or adjusted should this course shift from an on-campus to a remote format. Students with disabilities should speak with their instructor and should contact sas@ucf.edu to discuss specific accommodations for this or other courses.

Course Schedule

Week 1: Introduction to the Course and Its Themes

Aug. 25 (Tuesday): Introducing the Course and Explaining Learning Goals

Aug. 27 (Thursday): Discussion of Modern Experiences in Japan in the Past and Present

  • Department of Public Hygiene, Ministry of the Interior (of Japan), Ryūkō sei kanbō (The

pandemic influenza) (Tokyo: Department of Public Hygiene, Ministry of the

Interior, 1922), accessed on August 6, 2020,

https://www.niph.go.jp/toshokan/koten/Statistics/10008882-p.html.

Week 2: Introduction to Skills Necessary for the Course

Sep. 1 (T): Learning How to Critically Read the Textbook and Lectures: Case Study of

Tokugawa Japan (1600–1868) and Its International Relations

* Gordon, MHJ, 11–46.

Sep. 3 (Th): Learning How to Write a Mini-and Final Essays: Group Discussions on the

Comments You Have Received Before

Week 3: Japan in Crisis in the Early Nineteenth Century

Sep. 8 (T): Lecture on Decline in Japan-Centric World Order

* Gordon, MHJ, 11–46.

Sep. 10 (Th): Map Quiz; and Discussion of

  • Aizawa Seishisai, “Prefatory Remarks,” “The Barbarian’s Nature,” in Anti-Foreignism and Western Learning in Early-Modern Japan: The New Theses of 1825, Bob Tadashi Wakabayashi ed. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1986), 149–151, 200–213.

Week 4: Western Imperialism and Encounters in the Mid-Nineteenth Century

Sep. 15 (T): Lecture on the Opening of Japan in 1853–1854 and Unequal Treaties

* Gordon, MHJ, 47–59.

Sep. 17 (Th): Role Play on Being an American Communicating with a Person in Japan

  • “Black Ships and Samurai Image Gallery” in MIT Visualizing Cultures.

Week 5: The Meiji Restoration of 1868

Sep. 22 (T): Lecture on State-Building in Early Meiji Japan (1868–1912)

* Gordon, MHJ, 61–76.

Sep. 24 (Th): Discussion of

  • “The Meiji Emperor & Invention of the Modern Emperor System” in MIT Visualizing

                 Cultures, accessed on August 6, 2020,

https://visualizingcultures.mit.edu/throwing_off_asia_01/toa_vis_02.html.

First Short Post due Sep. 27

Week 6: Visions of Nation-Building in Meiji Japan

Sep. 29 (T): Lecture on the Freedom and Popular Rights Movement in the 1880s

* Gordon, MHJ, 77–113.

Oct. 1 (Th): Discussion of

  • Construction of Your Critical Knowledge on East Asia by Sharing Notes on Your Google

Docs Account

  • Discussion of a Sample Short Post on “The Meiji Emperor & Invention of the Modern

Emperor System”

Week 7: Nationalism and Japan’s Changing Positions in Asia and the World

Oct. 6 (T): Lecture on Japan’s Wars Around the Turn of the Twentieth Century and Its

Aftermath

* Gordon, MHJ, 115–137.

Oct. 8 (Th): Discussion of

  • Marquis Shigenobu Okuma, “Illusions of the White Race,” in What Japan Thinks, ed.

Kiyoshi Kawakami (New York: Macmillan, 1921), 160–170.

Week 8: Empire and Crises

Oct. 13 (T): Lecture on Japanese Colonialism and Crises in the Empire

* Gordon, MHJ, 161–184.

Oct. 15 (Th): Role Play on Being a Japanese Boy in the Sothern Pacific

  • Shimada Keizō “The Adventures of Dankichi,” in Reading Colonial Japan: Text, Context,

and Critique, eds. Michelle M. Mason and Helen J.S. Lee, trans. Helen J.S. Lee

(Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2012), 243–270.

Second Short Post due Oct. 18

Week 9: Japan’s Total War

Oct. 20 (T): Lecture on the “China Problem” Before 1931, the Manchuria Incident, and the

Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945)

* Gordon, MHJ, 185–203.

Oct. 22 (Th): Discussion of

  • Peer Review of Second Short Post in Your Group

Week 10: Japan Before and after 1945

Oct. 27 (M): Lecture on The Pacific War (1941–1945), the US Occupation of Japan (1945–1952)

* Gordon, MHJ, 204–241.

Oct. 29 (W): Discussion of

  • Akira Kurosawa, Drunken Angel (1948).

Week 11: Cold War Japan

Nov. 3 (T): Lecture on US-Japan Relations in the 1950s and 1960s and Political Coordination

* Gordon, MHJ, 268–288.

Nov. 5 (Th): Discussion of

  • Imamura Shōhei, Pigs and Battleships (1962).

Third Short Post due Nov. 8

Week 12: Japan’s Economic Prosperity

Nov. 10 (T): Lecture on High-Growth-Era Japan in the 1960s and 1970s and Economic Bubbles in the 1980s

* Gordon, MHJ, 243–267, 289–307.

Nov. 12 (Th): Discussion of

  • Revision of Your Third Short Post

Week 13: End of the Cold War and the Question of Japan’s Decline

Nov. 17 (T): Lecture on the Lost Decade since the Early 1990s

* Gordon, MHJ, 308–335.

Nov. 19 (Th): Discussion of

  • Kurosawa Kiyoshi, Tokyo Sonata (2008).

Week 14: Review of the Final Exam and Essay

Nov. 24 (T): Review of the Final Exam and Essay

Nov. 26 (Th): No Class for Thanksgiving Holidays

Week 15: Presentations

Dec. 1 (T): Presentation

Dec. 3 (Th): Presentation

Final Exam Due: TBA

Final Paper Due: TBA

University Services and Resources

Academic Services and Resources

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Non-Academic Services and Resources

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If you are a UCF Online student, please consult the UCF Online Student Guidelines for more information about your access to non-academic services.

Policy Statements

 

 

Course Summary:

Course Summary
Date Details Due