NO SEMINAR WEEK 1



WEEK 2

LECTURE: From the shogunate to the modern nation

LECTURE: Japan in the twentieth century


SEMINAR 1
Introductions, distribute readers, allocate SEMINAR assignments, explain nature of SEMINARs and assessment criteria.



WEEK 3

PART 2 CINEMA AND JAPANESE ESSENTIALISM

LECTURE: Serious essentialism: Kurosawa Akira and the subsequent rise of the Spaghetti Western

SCREENING: 1. Yojimbo
 Fistful of Dollars (excerpts)


SEMINAR 2
QUESTIONS: How did Kurosawa’s work influence the work of other directors in Japan and overseas? Why was his work influential? Compare the productions of Kurosawa and Leone, looking in particular at cinematic style, scripting, characterisations, and scripts. Can it be argued that spaghetti westerns were really chanbara films in another cultural context?

Reading:
Berardinelli, James. ‘A Fistful of Dollars’ (review article) http://movie-reviews.colussus.net/moviews/f/fistful.html
Crowther, Bosley. ‘Yojimbo’ (review article) NY Times Review. Oct 16, 1962.
Desser, David. ‘Toward a Structural Analysis of the Postwar Samurai Film’. In Noletti and Desser (eds) Reframing Japanese Cinema: Author, Genre, History, Indiana Uni 1992. ISBN 0-2533-41086.
 Yoshimoto Mitsuhiro. ‘Yojimbo’. In Kurosawa: Film Studies and Japanese Cinema, Duke Uni Press 2000. ISBN 0-8223-1519-5


WEEK 4

LECTURE: Laughing at oneself: Itami Juzo

SCREENING: 1. Taxing Woman
 Tampopo (excerpts)

SEMINAR 3
QUESTIONS: What values of 1980s Japanese society was Itami lampooning? How effective is Itami’s parody of women and crime in prompting viewers to ask deeper questions about Japanese society and culture? How do we reconcile Itami’s views of Japanese society with Nakane’s?

Reading:
McDonald, Keiko. ‘Satire on Contemporary Japan: Juzo Itami’s Taxing Woman’. In Reading a Japanese Film: Cinema in Context. Uni Hawaii Press, 2006. ISBN:978-0-8248-2993-3.
Mutsuko Murakami ‘A Mundane Exit for a Man Who Mocked Convention’ Asiaweek Magazine, Jan 9, 1998. (http://www.pathfinder.com.asiaweek/98/0109/feat4.html).
Nakane Chie ‘Criteria of group formation.’ In T. Lebra and W. Lebra (eds) Japanese Culture and Behaviour: selected readings, University of Hawaii Press, 1974. ISBN 0824810554







WEEK 5

PART 3: ANIME AND MANGA FROM JAPAN

LECTURE: Early manga and anime in Japan: Tezuka Osamu and The Lion King controversy

SCREENING: 1. Kimba the White Lion
The Lion King (excerpts)

SEMINAR 4
QUESTIONS: How was Tezuka influential in Japanese manga and anime production? Why have manga continued to expand their readership both in Japan and overseas in the face of new media incursions? How did the Lion King controversy reflect issues concerning the location of Japanese manga/anime within US pop culture?

Reading:
Kuwahara Yasue. ‘Japanese Culture and Popular Consciousness: Disney’s The Lion King vs. Tezuka’s Jungle Emperor. Journal of Popular Culture. Vol. 31. No. 1, Summer 1997. (37-48).
Sena Hideaki. ‘Astro Boy was born on April 7, 2003.’ Japan Echo, August 2003. (9-12).



WEEK 6

LECTURE: Foregrounding ‘Japaneseness’ in new wave anime: Ghibli and Miyazaki Hayao

SCREENING: 1. Spirited Away
Howl’s Moving Castle, Princess Mononoke (excerpts)

SEMINAR 5
QUESTIONS: What differentiates the new wave of Japanese anime from earlier, televised series? Consider in particular the work of Miyazaki, and assess why his works have become critical and popular successes overseas. Given the long history of successful anime from Ghibli in Japan, why has it taken so long for their products to penetrate overseas markets?


Reading:
Drazen, Patrick. ‘Flying with Ghibli: the animation of Hayao Miyazaki and company.’ In Anime Explosion: The What? Why? and Wow! of Japanese Animation. Berkeley: Stone Bridge Press, 2003. ISBN 1880656728 (253-279)
Kyodo News. ‘Japanese Animated Movie ‘Spirited Away’ Big Hit in South Korea.’ Asian Economic News. July 22, 2002.
Kyodo News. ‘Spirited Away’ Breaks Record of another Japanese Animation.’ Asian Economic News. October 21, 2004.
McCarthy, Helen. Hayao Miyazaki: Master of Japanese Animation. Films, Themes, Artistry. Berkeley: Stone Bridge Press, 2002. ISBN 1880656418
Napier, Susan. ‘The Enchantment of Estrangement: the shoujo in the world of Miyazaki Hayao.’ (121-138). In Anime: from Akira to Princess Mononoke. Experiencing Contemporary Japanese Animation. New York: Palgrave, 2000.  ISBN 0312238630


WEEK 7

PART 4:  WAR AND MEMORY IN POPULAR CULTURE

LECTURE: World War 2 and the place of the domestic self in Japanese popular discourse
 
SCREENING: 1. Grave of the Fireflies
Barefoot Gen


SEMINAR 6
QUESTIONS: How have memories of World War 2 been located in Japanese popular culture? Consider the messages of Barefoot Gen and Grave of the Fireflies, and compare these with official discourse of the war.
How have regions in Japan dealt with representing the experience of war? How was losing the war rationalized? How do such films as BG and GF reconcile themselves with Japan as either a ‘victim’ or a ‘victimiser’ in World War 2?


Reading:
Allen, Matthew. ‘Wolves and Tigers: Remembering the Kumejima Massacres.’ In Identity and Resistance in Okinawa. MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2002. ISBN 0-415-36898-7
Cook, H. T., and T. F. Cook (eds.). Japan at War: An Oral History. New York: New Press, 1992. ISBN 1565840143. Pp 441-478.
Nakazawa Keiji. Barefoot Gen. Tokyo: Shonen Jump, 1983. ISBN 0867196025
    








WEEK 8

LECTURE: Japan, World War 2, and memory

SCREENING: 1. Tora! Tora! Tora!!
 Pearl Harbor (excerpts)

SEMINAR 7
QUESTIONS: How was the propaganda war fought between the US and Japan, and how has this propaganda of demonized images influenced contemporary representation of Japan in film? Consider in particular the two films above.  
Why was the Pearl Harbor exhibit such an important marker of nationalist identity for both Japan and the United States? How important is the present in reconstructing images of the past for public consumption?

Reading:
White, Geoffrey ’Moving History: the Pearl Harbor films’. In Fujitani, T., White, Geoffrey, and Yoneyama, Lisa [eds.]. Perilous Memories: The Asia Pacific War(s). Durham: Duke University Press, 2001. ISBN 0-8223-2564-0.
Weingartner, James. ‘War against subhumans: comparisons between the German War against the Soviet Union and the American war against Japan, 1941-1945.’ Historian. Spring, 1996.


WEEK 9

LECTURE: The end of the world, nuclear holocausts, and the recreation of dystopia:

SCREEENING: 1. Akira
Godzilla King of the Monsters (excerpts)

SEMINAR 8
QUESTIONS: Why has there been a preoccupation with post-apocalyptic themes in many Japanese anime released in the West (Star Cruiser Yamato, Gundamu, Bubblegum Crisis, Jin-Roh, for example)? In the context of pacifist representations of Japan’s postwar era, can these interpretations of a dystopian future be reconciled with the bitter experiences of nuclear holocausts, occupation by an alien culture, and postwar reconstruction? How derivative are many of these images (cf 2001: A Space Odyssey)?




Reading:
Napier, Susan. ‘Panic Sites: The Japanese Imagination of Disaster from Godzilla to Akira.’ In J. Treat (ed) Contemporary Japan and Popular Culture. Honolulu: University of Hawaii, 1996. ISBN 0824818555
Tstutsui, William. ‘Understanding the Monster’. In Godzilla On My Mind. Palgrave Macmillan, 2004. ISBN 1-4039-6474-1.

WEEK 10

PART 5: GLOBALIZING JAPAN IN US POP CULTURE

LECTURE: South Park and The Simpsons ’do’ Japan

SCREENING: South Park (Chimpokomon), The Simpsons (Thirty Minutes Over Tokyo)

SEMINAR 9
QUESTIONS: To what extent did the makers of South Park and The Simpsons essentialize and parody Japanese society and culture? Which of these two episodes demonstrated more ‘inside knowledge’? And which (if either) demonstrated more ‘cultural sensitivity’? How have the images of Japan presented in these two episodes reinforced or contradicted more standard ‘Japanese stereotypes’ and perspectives on history?

Reading:
* Allen, Matthew. ‘South Park Does Japan.’ In Allen and Sakamoto (eds) Inside-Out Japan: Globalization and Popular Culture. London: Routledge, 2006. . ISBN 0-415-36898-7
Anonymous. ‘Mister Sparkle Meets the Yakuza: Depiction of Japan in the Simpsons’ (unpublished ms).
Fagin, Barry. ‘Coin’ Down to South Park.’ Reason. May, 2000. Gale Group, 2003.
Said, Edward. Orientalism. London: Vintage, 1979 ISBN 039474067X – please see film in FTV library of Said interview.


WEEK 11

LECTURE: Hybridized selves, hybridized others

SCREENING: Tarantino’s Kill Bill Vol 1, Takashi Miike’s Dead or Alive (excerpts)    

SEMINAR 10
QUESTIONS: How does Tarantino incorporate stylized Japanese martial arts into the production of his Kill Bill? Compare Tarantino’s depiction of otherness and the routinization of violence with Dead or Alive. Why does the latter have a much harder, rawer edge? What motifs of Japaneseness and Japanese history are employed by the directors to convince viewers of their ‘authenticity’?

Reading:
Chris D. ‘Takashi Miike’. In  Outlaw Master of Japanese Film. London: IB Tauris, 2005. ISBN 1-84511-090-0.


WEEK 12 CONCLUSION