Course Description

This course offers a broad sweep of changing American images of Japan, with a focus on their form and structure, development and context, and effects and stakes. It examines excerpts from influential travel narratives, memoirs, short stories, plays, and novels; mainstream and alternative newspaper and magazine articles; and classic and modern films and documentaries. Throughout, emphasis will be placed on relating visual/discursive and materialist analyses; on evaluating future prospects in light of past patterns and present developments; on close, contextual, and comparative reading and viewing; and on critical thinking, writing, and speaking.

Course Outline

Course Instructor

The salutatorian of Clinton High School�fs Class of 1987 and co-valedictorian of Hamilton College's Class of 1991, Bruce Simon went on to earn his M.A. and Ph.D. from the Department of English at Princeton University, where he was a teaching assistant in English and Afro-American Studies and an instructor in the Princeton Writing Program. A former co-general editor of Workplace: A Journal for Academic Labor, he has published essays in The Politics of Information (2004), The Social Construction of Race and Ethnicity in the United States (2nd ed., 2001), Postcolonial Theory and the United States: Race, Ethnicity, and Literature (2000), and Race Consciousness: African-American Studies for the New Century (1997). As an assistant and now associate professor of English at SUNY Fredonia, he has taught courses in American, African-American, and world literature as well as in Multiethnic Studies and American Studies. With a sabbatical leave from SUNY Fredonia from fall 2006 to spring 2007 to enable him to serve as a Fulbright Visiting Lecturer at Kyushu University and Seinan Gakuin University, he stepped down as Vice President for Academics of the Fredonia chapter of the SUNY faculty/professionals union, Chair of the university�fs Planning and Budget Advisory Committee, Associate Chair of the English Department, and University Senator. In addition to teaching courses in American Literature and American Studies in Fukuoka, Japan, he is currently working on a book manuscript, American Studies and the Race for Hawthorne, co-editing two collections of critical essays, tentatively entitled Echoes of Nuremberg and Trauma, Melancholia, and the Politics of Race, and preparing a conference paper on Paule Marshall and Mahasweta Devi. For further information about the instructor, please see his web site at http://www.fredonia.edu/department/english/simon/.

Course Requirements

As this course combines lectures, activities, student presentations, and open, guided, and small-group discussion, regular classroom attendance is very important. One-third of your grade in the class will be based on my assessment of your preparation and participation, both for class and on the SUNY Fredonia ANGEL space I have created for our use. Another third of your grade will be based on your contribution to a group project in which you work with a team in researching and presenting on a debate in American Cultural Studies. The final third of your grade will be based on a research paper (7-10 pages) due at the end of the semester.

Course Schedule

Week 1: Introductions, Goals, Expectations (4 October 2006). Getting to know each other and familiarizing ourselves with the set-up of the course. We focus this week on the big idea of the course, using Sawa Kurotani�fs �gBehind the Paper Screen: Japanese Beauty Fit for Global Consumption--Part II of II�h (Daily Yomiuri 14 Sept. 2006) as the basis for discussion.

Week 2: Definitions, Debates, Processes (11 October 2006). We will consider various perspectives on the meaning, purpose, and stakes of American Studies, in order to clarify the particular focus and emphases of this course. A film clip from Kill Bill (2004), along with discussion of its relation to the Kurotani essay from last week, will supplement this introductory lecture.

Week 3: Images and Realities, Myths and Symbols (18 October 2006). After a brief lecture on the structure of the course and topics of this unit, we will focus on issues raised by the assigned readings--such as conflicting perspectives in philosophy, linguistics, semiotics, and cultural studies on the relations between images and reality and between words and things--as they connect to the study of American representations of Japan.

Assigned Reading (available on course ANGEL space): Plato, from The Republic, Book VII [the allegory of the cave]; Ziauddin Sardar and Borin Van Loon, Introducing Cultural Studies 3-23; Roland Barthes, �gChange the Object Itself: Mythology Today,�h Image-Music-Text 165-169; Jean Baudrillard, �gThe Evil Demon of Images,�h Baudrillard Live 136-144.

Week 4: Ambivalent Stereotypes (25 October 2006). We will focus on issues raised by the assigned readings--such as conflicting perspectives in psychology, anthropology, Black Studies, and postcolonial studies over the proper analysis of and response to stereotypes and stereotyping--as they connect to the study of American representations of Japan.

Assigned Reading (available on course ANGEL space): Ralph Ellison, �gTwentieth-Century Fiction and the Black Mask of Humanity,�h Shadow and Act 24-44; Homi Bhabha, �gThe Other Question: Stereotype, Discrimination and the Discourse of Colonialism,�h The Location of Culture 94-120.

Week 5: Cultural Work, Discourse, and Ideology (1 November 2006). We will focus on issues raised by the assigned readings--such as how best to theorize discourse and ideology today--as they connect to the study of American representations of Japan.

Assigned Reading (available on course ANGEL space): Stuart Hall, �gThe Problem of Ideology: Marxism without Guarantees,�h in David Morley and Kuan-Hsing Chen, eds., Stuart Hall: Critical Dialogues in Cultural Studies 25-46.

Week 6: Orientalism and the Politics of Representation (8 November 2006). We will focus on issues raised by the assigned readings--such as strengths and weaknesses of the concept of �gorientalism�h--as they connect to the study of American representations of Japan. This week marks a shift in this unit: we will be moving from more abstract concerns with issues surrounding images, signs, symbols, myths, stereotypes, discourse, ideology, and representations to more direct analyses of American representations of Japan, so we�fll begin testing out our critical tool box on concrete examples; also student presentations begin this week, with Horiuchi-san, Kamada-san, Ozono-san, and Tamura-san leading the way.

Assigned Reading (available on course ANGEL space): from Gauri Viswanathan, ed., Power, Politics, and Culture: Interviews with Edward Said; Ueno Toshiya, "Japanimation and Techno-Orientalism"; Wendy Hui Kyong Chun, Control and Freedom: Power and Paranoia in the Age of Fiber Optics 171-196.

Week 7: War Propaganda (15 November 2006). We will focus on issues raised by the analyses of U.S. propaganda during World War II/The Pacific War in the assigned readings. Ikeda-san, Kobuchi-san, Takayama-san, and Ueno-san will lead us in a consideration of some of these issues.

Assigned Reading (available on course ANGEL space): selected U.S. World War II posters, photographs, and cartoons from John Dower, War without Mercy and George Roeder, The Censored War.

Week 8: Occupied Japan and the Cold War in Asia (22 November 2006). This is an OPTIONAL screening session, from 12-2:30 pm, for those who want to watch footage from Frank Capra�fs Why We Fight film series and Henry Salomon�fs Victory at Sea TV series. Our goal will be to examine similarities and differences between American propaganda produced during World War II and a major American documentary produced in its aftermath as well as to trace the beginnings of the Cold War in Asia in the context of Japan�fs transition from occupied enemy to occupied and then independent ally of the U.S. As this week is officially a Kyudai holiday, there are no assigned readings, although as usual recommended readings are available on the course ANGEL space.

Week 9: Why Hiroshima and Nagasaki? (29 November 2006). We will examine studies of the American government�fs decision to drop atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II for the relative causal weight they assign to conceptions of Japan, diplomatic and military strategy, and geopolitical considerations among U.S. civilian and military leaders. Era-san, Terashi-san, and Yoshizumi-san will lead us through a comparison of public memorializations of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in schools, museums, and media in different regions of Japan and in the U.S. Homework analyzing ICS 14-23 is due in class today.

Assigned Reading (available on course ANGEL space): J. Samuel Walker, �gHistory, Collective Memory, and the Decision to Use the Bomb,�h in Michael Hogan, ed., Hiroshima in History and Memory 186-199.

Week 10: Japan, Inc. (6 December 2006). We will examine the shift to what is now known as �gJapan-bashing�h in the late 1970s though early 1990s American media, as the success of Japan�fs development, trade, and investment policies coupled with the struggles of the U.S. economy lead to it being considered an economic �gcompetitor�h and �gthreat.�h Higa-san, Ige-san, and Matsushita-san will lead us in a consideration of issues they raise.

Assigned Reading (available on course ANGEL space): cartoons from John Dower, Japan in War and Peace 288-300 and either pp. 301-335 or Masao Miyoshi, Off Center: Culture Relations between Japan and the United States 62-94.

Week 11: Turning Japanese/�gReturning�h to Japan (13 December 2006). We will examine selections from memoirs by Japanese-American and other American writers written during the 1980s and 1990s for the ways in which they imagine and represent Japan. Goto-san, Hidaka-san, Kondo-san, and Oniki-san will lead us in a consideration of the issues they raise.

Assigned Reading (available on course ANGEL space): please read a little bit from each writer OR choose one or two writers and read as much as you can of the selections from the works: Elena Tajima Creef, �gNotes of a Fragmented Daughter,�h in Gloria Anzaldua, ed., Making Face, Making Soul: Creative and Critical Perspectives by Feminists of Color 82-84; Beate Sirota Gordon, The Only Woman in the Room A Memoir; David Mura, Turning Japanese: Memoirs of a Sansei; Cathy Davidson, 36 Views of Mount Fuji: On Finding Myself in Japan; Kyoko Mori, Polite Lies: On Being a Woman Caught between Cultures.

Week 12: American Otaku (20 December 2006). We will examine selected representations of Japan from American popular genres such as science fiction and comic books from the 1980s and 1990s. Danbara-san, Ikenaga-san, Tanaka-san, and Yoshida-san will lead us in a consideration of the issues they raise.

Assigned Reading (available on course ANGEL space): please read a little bit from each writer or choose one or two writers and read as much as you can of the selections from the works: William Gibson, Neuromancer and Idoru (1984, 1996); Marge Piercy, He, She, and It (1991); Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash (1992); Ishmael Reed, Japanese by Spring (1993).

Week 13: Beautiful Japan? (10 January 2007). We will examine selected American representations of Japan in the twenty-first century. Kaneko-san, Muto-san, Nagatomo-san, and Uemura-san will lead us in a consideration of the issues they raise. We will also devote a good portion of class time to workshopping your final project, so please bring to class as close to a complete draft of your paper as possible.

Assigned Reading (available on course ANGEL space): Kim Stanley Robinson, from The Years of Rice and Salt (2002).

American Cultural Studies: Representing Japan in American Culture, Kyushu University, Fall 2006
Created: 10/4/06 6:30 am
Last modified: 1/10/07 12:12 pm
Webmaster: Bruce Simon, Fulbright Visiting Lecturer in American Studies, Kyushu University and Seinan Gakuin University and Associate Professor of English, SUNY Fredonia