Conceiving Japan and its World

3 credits · Undergraduate

(3 hrs Lecture) This course explores Japan's collective identity by surveying the historical, cultural, and religious positioning of Japan in its world. Students examine how maps, both in their literal and figurative kinds, played a role in establishing this collective identity. Such literal maps include those of samurai domains, pilgrimage routes, and radioactive fallout from the Second World War and the 2011 Great Tohoku Earthquake. Figurative ones cover travel diaries of seventeenth century poets and contemporary Japan-centric worldviews from popular literature. Both types underscore historical and cultural shifts from the time of the Shoguns to the digital age of the twenty-first century.