ANTHR 2595

Japanese Culture and Society: Tradition and Modernity

Course Description

Course information provided by the Courses of Study 2014-2015.

This is an introductory survey of Japan from an anthropological perspective.  Through ethnographies, fictions, films, and mass media materials, it covers a wide range of topics, including the family, marriage, education, workplace, life course, old age, death, rituals, notion of self, conception of time, popular culture, and minority peoples.  The exploration of these topics revolves around three groups of broader questions: 1) What are the distinctive features of Japanese social institutions and cultural idioms?; 2) What has been the Japanese course of social and cultural change?; Is Japanese modernity similar to Western modernity?; 3) What new social formations are appearing in contemporary Japan?; What is happening to the traditional ways of life?   

When Offered Fall.

Breadth Requirement (GB)
Distribution Category (CA-AS)

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