Course Description: An analysis of historical and modern Japanese society through works of art and media including photography, film, maps, and other visual materials. Students learn to extract information from images as part of a visual analysis, while dealing with socio-geographical methods for understanding urban flows, economic disparities, transportation, and built environments. Students compare what they understand about Japanese culture with their own familiar environments. Taught in English.
Course Narrative: In this course JAPN 314, we investigate Japanese culture and aesthetics through visual resources including photos, film, advertisements, commercials, videos, wood-block prints, and more. I was able to develop my own visual catalog of Japanese society and culture, while learning about the use of images as tools for social analysis. My learning experience will include a mixture of formal lectures and multimedia presentations, library and online research, and student presentations of original visual projects related to contemporary and/or historical Japan. We had to investigate the religious and philosophical foundations of Japanese art and life to help me to understand how the Japanese see their social and cultural world. Students will also study methodologies for the analysis and interpretation of visual texts. This class will examine how economic, political, geographical and historical factors have shaped the way Japan. For this class I did a presentation about a visual portfolio project in which I represented my understanding of Japan through a collection of visual images as well as your explanation of the context of the images I have chosen based on academic research.