East Asian Images of Japan (Intensive Course)

This seminar looks at how Japan is portrayed in neighbouring Asian countries, both in school curricula / textbooks, and in other media likely to influence young people – including film, television, manga, museums and online media. Countries discussed include China, Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, the Philippines, Malaysia and Singapore. During these seminars, we discuss the factors that have shaped portrayals of Japan in these different societies and various times since 1945. We also consider how the ways that Japan has been ‘imagined’ have been related to the construction of national or local identities within these societies.

The course will run over five days (September 26-30). Each day, there will be two conventional classes (10:30am-12pm, and 13:00-14:30), with a lecture and discussion on ‘images of Japan’ in a particular East Asian society. After this, in the third class each day (14:50-16:20), I will show Asian films that in some way relate to portrayals of Japan.

The main readings for this course are chapters in this book: Imagining Japan in Postwar East Asia (edited by Paul Morris, Naoko Shimazu and Edward Vickers), which is available as an ebook from Kyushu University Library. (More details of the book can be seen here: https://www.routledge.com/Imagining-Japan-in-Post-war-East-Asia-Identity-Politics-Schooling-and/Morris-Shimazu-Vickers/p/book/9780415713993)