THE UNIVERSITY of EDINBURGH

DEGREE REGULATIONS & PROGRAMMES OF STUDY 2014/2015
- ARCHIVE as at 1 September 2014

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DRPS : Course Catalogue : School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures : Asian Studies

Postgraduate Course: State, Society and National Identity in Japan after 1989 (ASST11075)

Course Outline
SchoolSchool of Literatures, Languages and Cultures CollegeCollege of Humanities and Social Science
Course typeStandard AvailabilityNot available to visiting students
Credit level (Normal year taken)SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate) Credits20
Home subject areaAsian Studies Other subject areaNone
Course website None Taught in Gaelic?No
Course descriptionThis course will map out and interrogate the contours of continuity and change in Japanese society from 1989 to the present. The first section covers major political, societal and identity related shifts in Japan at the end of the Cold War. This sets the stage for a thematic section, which zooms in on specific cases of identity and difference in contemporary Japanese society, including questions of ethnicity, class, age and gender. This approach will enable students to build both synchronic and diachronic knowledge of the relationship between state, society and identity in post-Cold War Japan.
Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
Pre-requisites Co-requisites
Prohibited Combinations Other requirements None
Additional Costs None
Course Delivery Information
Delivery period: 2014/15 Semester 1, Not available to visiting students (SS1) Learn enabled:  Yes Quota:  None
Web Timetable Web Timetable
Course Start Date 15/09/2014
Breakdown of Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) Total Hours: 200 ( Seminar/Tutorial Hours 22, Feedback/Feedforward Hours 1, Formative Assessment Hours 5, Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 4, Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours 176 )
Additional Notes
Breakdown of Assessment Methods (Further Info) Written Exam 0 %, Coursework 100 %, Practical Exam 0 %
No Exam Information
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
1. Students who have completed this course successfully will have:
- Acquired critical knowledge of the development of the Japanese state and society in the post-Cold war period
- Become familiar with frameworks of identity
- Acquired critical knowledge of a number of dynamic identity vectors in Japanese society, including ethnicity, class, age and gender.
- Produced a rigorously researched and theoretically informed written work in the form of a 4000-word essay.
2. Students who have completed this course successfully will be able to:
- Discuss major changes in Japanese politics, society and identity since the end of the Cold War
- Critically apply analytical concepts such as 'risk' 'identity' and 'difference' to Japan, as well as use those concepts elsewhere
- Present detailed, evidence-based arguments both in oral and written form
- Quickly locate, utilise and critique relevant literature
- Use knowledge acquired from the course to appraise news media and popular discourses on Japanese society
Assessment Information
One 4000 word essay (100%)

Formative Assessment:
One 1000 word article analysing a Japanese news item related to one of the course themes.

Articles are due in Friday Week 6 and should be handed into the LLC postgraduate office. You will receive verbal and written feedback on your summary in time for your summative assessment.
Special Arrangements
None
Additional Information
Academic description Not entered
Syllabus 1. Studying post-cold war Japan: legacies of the past (Zachmann)
2. Politics and the economy after 1989: towards a new 'system'? (Zachmann)
3. Shifting state, individual relations in post-1989 Japan: risk and human security (Zachmann)
4. Questioning the nation at the end of the 20th century (Perkins)
5. Neo-conservative tendencies in Japanese society and education policies (Zachmann)
6. The Demographic Shift: Japan's Aging Society (Perkins)
7. Difference and multiculturalism in the 'New Japan': Japan's minorities (Perkins)
8. Japan's New Working Class : the advent of a kakusa-shakai? (Perkins)
9. Gender 1: Women and the Economy (Parker)
10. Gender 2: (Re)producing Gender in Japan (Parker)
Transferable skills Not entered
Reading list Segers, R.T., 2008, A New Japan for the Twenty-First Century: an Inside Overview of Current Fundamental Changes. London: Routledge.
Gaunder, A., 2011, The Routledge Handbook of Japanese Politics. London: Routledge.
Sugimoto, Y., 2010, An Introduction to Japanese Society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010.
Gordon, A., ed., 1993, Postwar Japan as History. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Study Abroad Not entered
Study Pattern One two hour lecture/seminar per week.
KeywordsSSNIJ
Contacts
Course organiserDr Christopher Perkins
Tel: (0131 6)50 4174
Email: Chris.Perkins@ed.ac.uk
Course secretaryMiss Sophie Bryan
Tel: (0131 6)50 3030
Email: Sophie.Bryan@ed.ac.uk
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