| Week 1: Introduction |
| 1 | Introduction to the Course | |
| Week 2: Analyzing Japan / Analyzing Popular Culture |
| 2 | Film Segment: "The Japanese Version" | Adorno, Theodor, and Max Horkheimer. "The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception." In The Cultural Studies Reader. 2nd ed. Edited by S. During. London: Routledge, 1999. Pp. 31-41.
Treat, John Whittier. "Introduction: Japanese Studies into Cultural Studies." In Contemporary Japan and Popular Culture. Edited by J. W. Treat. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 1996a. Pp. 1-14. |
| 3 | The History of Popular Music in Japan | "Can Japanese Sing the Blues? "Japanese Jazz" and the Problem of Authenticity." In Japan Pop! Inside the World of Japanese Popular Culture. Edited by T. Craig. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 2000. Pp. 27-59. |
| Week 3: Racial Boundaries and Representation in Popular Culture |
| 4 | Film Segment: "Doubles" | Russell, John G. "Race and Reflexivity: The Black Other in Contemporary Japanese Mass Culture." In Contemporary Japan and Popular Culture. Edited by J. W. Treat. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 1996. Pp. 17-40. |
| 5 | Race in Japanese Hip-Hop | Condry, Ian (To be Available Online) "Introduction: Cultural Politics of Japanese Hip-Hop." In Japanese Hip-Hop: Locating the Power of Transnational Popular Culture. Durham, NC: Duke Univerity Press. (Working Draft). |
| Week 4: Gender, Sexuality, and Popular Culture |
| 6 | Seminar on "Gender Roles and Anime."
If unable to attend the Seminar, then your Assignment is to Write a 2-page Commentary Contrasting Two of the Assigned Readings (Due by Ses #8). | |
| 7 | Special Event: "Comfort Women of Korea visit MIT."
If you cannot attend, an additional assignment can be done instead. | Allison, Anne. "Sailor Moon: Japanese Superheroes for Global Girls." In Japan Pop! Inside the World of Japanese Popular Culture. Edited by T. Craig. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 2000. Pp. 259-278.
Tsurumi, Maia. "Gender Roles and Girls' Comics in Japan: The Girls and Guys of Yûkan Club." In Japan Pop! Inside the World of Japanese Popular Culture. Edited by T. Craig. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 2000. Pp. 171-185.
Izawa, Eri. "The Romantic, Passionate Japanese in Anime: A Look at the Hidden Japanese Soul." In Japan Pop! Inside the World of Japanese Popular Culture. Edited by T. Craig. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 2000. Pp. 138-153. |
| Week 5: Identity, Resistance, and Popular Culture: Borders and Crossings |
| 8 | Japanese Identity: Homogeneity or Difference? | Kelly, William W. "Finding a Place in Metropolitan Japan: Ideologies, Institutions, and Everyday Life." In Postwar Japan as History. Edited by A. Gordon. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993. Pp. 189-216. |
| 9 | Methods and Approaches to the Study of Popular Culture | Readings from Kinsella. Adult Manga. |
| Week 6: Manga and Cultural Production |
| 10 | Harvard Talk | |
| 11 | A Sociology of Cultural Production of Manga | Kinsella. Adult Manga (Selections).
Kawada, Yuka. "Beauty Fighter "Sailor Chemist"." In Japan Pop! Inside the World of Japanese Popular Culture. Edited by T. Craig. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 2000. Pp. 279-286.
"Hadashi no Gen (Barefoot Gen)." In Japan Pop! Inside the World of Japanese Popular Culture. Vol. 8. Edited by T. Craig. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 2000. Pp. 17-31, 154-170. |
| Week 7: Manga and Power |
| 12 | Metropolis: Fritz Lang to Tezuka to Otomo | |
| 13 | Manga and Social Commentary | Kinsella. Adult Manga. (Selections)
MacWilliams, Mark Wheeler. "Japanese Comic Books and Religion: Osamu Tezuka's Story of the Buddha." In Japan Pop! Inside the World of Japanese Popular Culture. Edited by T. Craig. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 2000. Pp. 109-137.
Mizuki, Shigeru. "Little TV Guy." Translated by Ian Condry. (Manga Short Story) - On Reserve. |
| Week 8: Manga and Anime |
| 14 | Harvard Talk | |
| 15 | Who are the Otaku? | Napier, Susan. "Panic Sites: The Japanese Imagination of Disaster from Godzilla to Akira." In Contemporary Japan and Popular Culture. Edited by J. W. Treat. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2000. Pp. 235-262.
Lee, William. "From Sazae-san to Crayon Shin-chan: Family Anime, Social Change, and Nostalgia in Japan." In Japan Pop! Inside the World of Japanese Popular Culture. Edited by T. Craig. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 2000. Pp. 186-203. |
| Week 9: Assessing Manga as Cultural Form |
| 16 | In Class Discussion of Manga Issues Re: Essay 2 | |
| 17 | | Shiraishi, Saya S. "Doraemon Goes Abroad." In Japan Pop! Inside the World of Japanese Popular Culture. Edited by T. Craig. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 2000. Pp. 287-308. |
| Week 10: Re-Imagining Japan |
| 18 | Tradition and Transnationalism | |
| 19 | Flow or Appropriation - Whose Culture is it? (2) | Tansman, Alan M. "Mournful Tears and Sake: The Postwar Myth of Misora Hibari." In Contemporary Japan and Popular Culture. Edited by J.W. Treat. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 1996. Pp. 103-133.
Yano, Christine R. "The Marketing of Tears: Consuming Emotions in Japanese Popular Song." In Japan Pop! Inside the World of Japanese Popular Culture. Edited by T. Craig. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 2000. Pp. 60-74.
Iwabuchi, Koichi. "Localizing Japan in the Booming Asian Media Markets." Chapter 3. (On Reserve).
Condry, Ian. [Forthcoming] Selection from Japanese Hip-Hop. (On Reserve). |
| Week 11: Japanese Television |
| 20 | Student Presentations 1 | |
| 21 | Japanese Television | Gossmann, Hilaria M. "New Role Models for Men and Women? Gender in Japanese TV Dramas." In Japan Pop! Inside the World of Japanese Popular Culture. Edited by T. Craig. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 2000. Pp. 207-221.
Painter, Andrew. "Japanese Daytime Television, Popular Culture and Ideology." In Contemporary Japan and Popular Culture. Edited by J. W. Treat. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 1996. Pp. 197-234.
Chun, Jayson. "A New Kind of Royalty: The Imperial Family and the Media in Postwar Japan." In Japan Pop! Inside the World of Japanese Popular Culture. Edited by T. Craig. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 2000. Pp. 222-244.
Yoshimoto, Banana. "Dreaming of Kimshee." In The Oxford Book of Japanese Short Stories. Edited by Theodore Goossen. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pp. 432-443.
Murakami, Haruki. "The Elephant Vanishes Source." In The Oxford Book of Japanese Short Stories. Edited by Theodore Goossen. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pp. 400 - 416. |
| Week 12: Japanese Popular Literature |
| 22 | Student Presentations 2 | |
| 23 | Japanese Popular Literature | Tamotsu, Aoki. "Murakami Haruki and Japan Today." In Contemporary Japan and Popular Culture. Edited by J. W. Treat. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 1996. Pp. 265-274.
Treat, John Whittier. "Yoshimoto Banana Writes Home: The Shôjo in Japanese Popular Culture." In Contemporary Japan and Popular Culture. Edited by J.W. Treat. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 1996b. Pp. 275-308.
Murakami, Haruki. "The Elephant Vanishes." (Short Story, On Reserve).
Yoshimoto, Banana. "Dreaming of Kimchee." (Short Story, On Reserve). |
| Week 13: Crisis and Restructuring |
| | Condry. Selection from Japanese Hip-Hop (Available Online or On Reserve).
Iida, Yumiko. "Between the Technique of Living an Endless Routine and the Madness of Absolute Degree Zero: Japanese Identity and the Crisis of Modernity in the 1990s." Positions 8(2): 423-464. (Available Online through MIT library). |
| Week 14: Popular Culture and Japan's Future |
| | Ching, Leo. "Imaginings in the Empires of the Sun: Japanese Mass Culture in Asia." In Contemporary Japan and Popular Culture. Edited by J. W. Treat. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 1996. Pp. 169-194.
Iwabuchi, Koichi. "Localizing Japan in the booming Asian media markets." In Recentering Globalization: Popular Culture and Japanese Transnationalism. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2002. Chapter 3. Pp. 121-157. (E-Reserves or on reserve at Hayden). |