Lectures in Modern Japanese History

(2 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

According to E. H. Carr, history is a continuous process of interaction between the historian and his facts, an unending dialogue between the present and the past. How does the past influence the present? We would like to explore, through cultural phenomena, what kind of impact the past had at a certain point in time and how things changed thereafter. This course focuses on 20th-century Japanese cultural history, particularly people's memories and imaginations regarding war. The course is divided into two main parts: one examining the major historical narratives of Japan since the 1930s, and another analyzing people's memories and imaginations based on these narratives. How did people confront the reality of defeat immediately after the war? What connection did the fervor for Godzilla, melodramas, and professional wrestling have to the postwar era? How did the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty and the 1964 Tokyo Olympics help heal the wounds of defeat? How did the past resurrected during the period of high economic growth relate to memories of the war? We will explore these questions.