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, Seinan Gakuin University, and Fukuoka 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 posting regularly to his Hawthorne blog, Citizen of Somewhere Else (citizense.blogspot.com). For further information, please see his web site at www.fredonia.edu/department/english/simon/.

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 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 (10 April 2007). Getting to know each other and familiarizing ourselves with the set-up of the course. We focus this week on the central idea of the course, using Pico Iyerfs gJapanese Hybridh (Time 2 Apr. 2007) and 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 (17 April 2007). 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 Quentin Tarantinofs Kill Bill (2004), along with discussion of its relation to the Iyer and Kurotani essays from last week, will supplement this introductory lecture.

Week 3: Tokugawa Encounters (24 April 2007). We will examine John Dowerfs exhibit/web site Black Ships and Samurai: Commodore Perry and the Opening of Japan (1853-1854) for patterns in American representations of Japan and Tokugawa representations of America.

Week 4: Turn-of-the-Century Reexaminations (1 May 2007). We will compare excerpts from Lafcadio Hearnfs Japan and Jack Londonfs The Iron Heel for the ways in which they represent Meiji Japan.

Week 5: War Propaganda (8 May 2007). We will focus on issues raised by examples of U.S. propaganda during World War II/The Pacific War in selected posters, photographs, and cartoons from John Dower, War without Mercy and George Roeder, The Censored War, along with clips from the Frank Capra film series Why We Fight.

Week 6: Why Hiroshima and Nagasaki? (15 May 2007). 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.

Week 7: Occupied Japan and the Cold War in Asia (22 May 2007). We will examine how images of Japan in U.S. culture shifted from conquered enemy to Cold War ally during the late 1940s and early 1950s through selected images from John Dower, Embracing Defeat.

Week 8: Japan, Inc. (29 May 2007). 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 Students should examine cartoons from John Dower, Japan in War and Peace 288-300 and read one of two analytical/historical essays in the course ANGEL space.

Week 9: Turning Japanese/gReturningh to Japan (5 June 2007). We will examine selections from memoirs by Japanese-American and other American writers (in the course ANGEL space) written during the 1980s and 1990s for the ways in which their imaginations and representations of Japan compare to those from last weekfs readings.

Week 10: American Otaku (12 June 2007). We will examine selected representations of Japan from American popular genres such as science fiction and comic books (in the course ANGEL space) from the 1980s and 1990s, a time when certain Japanese subcultures began to be appreciated, celebrated, and engaged in American popular culture.

Week 11: Beautiful Japan? (19 June 2007). We will focus on the question of what will be the dominant theme in the representation of Japan in American culture in this decade (2000-2010). We will also turn to examining the ways Japanese institutions and individuals attempt to shape the perception of Japan by non-Japanese people.

Week 12: Images and Realities, Myths and Symbols (26 June 2007). 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.

Week 13: Ambivalent Stereotypes, Partial Ideologies, High-Tech Orientalisms (3 July 2007). 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; how best to theorize ideology today, and strengths and weaknesses of the concept of gorientalismh--as they connect to the study of American representations of Japan.

Representing Japan in American Culture, Kyushu University, Spring 2007
Created: 4/9/07 4:55 pm
Last modified: 6/26/07 9:45 am
Webmaster: Bruce Simon, Fulbright Visiting Lecturer in American Studies, Kyushu University, Seinan Gakuin University, and Fukuoka University; Associate Professor of English, SUNY Fredonia