This is an archived course. A more recent version may be available at ocw.mit.edu.

Calendar

The tables below include the topics covered in each class session as well as the topics of each of the talks students are required to attend.

SES # TOPICS KEY DATES
Week 1: Introduction
1 Introduction to the Course  
Week 2: Analyzing Japan / Analyzing Popular Culture
2 Film Segment: "The Japanese Version"  
3 The History of Popular Music in Japan  
Week 3: Racial Boundaries and Representation in Popular Culture
4 Film Segment: "Doubles"  
5 Race in Japanese Hip-Hop  
Week 4: Gender, Sexuality, and Popular Culture
6 Seminar on "Gender Roles and Anime."

If unable to attend the Seminar, then your Assignment is to Write a 2-page Commentary Contrasting Two of the Assigned Readings (Due by Ses #8). 		  
7 Special Event: "Comfort Women of Korea visit MIT."

If you cannot attend, an additional assignment can be done instead.		  
Week 5: Identity, Resistance, and Popular Culture: Borders and Crossings
8 Japanese Identity: Homogeneity or Difference? Discussion of Essay #1 Assignment
9 Methods and Approaches to the Study of Popular Culture Essay #1 Due (5 Pages, Double-Spaced)
Week 6: Manga and Cultural Production
10 Harvard Talk  
11 A Sociology of Cultural Production of Manga  
Week 7: Manga and Power
12 Metropolis: Fritz Lang to Tezuka to Otomo  
13 Manga and Social Commentary  
Week 8: Manga and Anime
14 Harvard Talk  
15 Who are the Otaku?  
Week 9: Assessing Manga as Cultural Form
16 In Class Discussion of Manga Issues Re: Essay 2  
17   Essay #2 Due (5 Pages, Double Spaced)
Week 10: Re-Imagining Japan
18 Tradition and Transnationalism  
19 Flow or Appropriation - Whose Culture is it? (2)  
Week 11: Japanese Television
20 Student Presentations 1  
21 Japanese Television  
Week 12: Japanese Popular Literature
22 Student Presentations 2  
23 Japanese Popular Literature  
Week 13: Crisis and Restructuring
Week 14: Popular Culture and Japan's Future
24   Final Paper is Due the Last Day of Class.
There is no Final Exam

Schedule of Talks

TALK # SPEAKER TOPICS
1 Anne Allison, Duke University (special Popular Culture Series: co-sponsored
with the Program in U.S.-Japan Relations)
 		 Japanese Monsters in the Era of Pokemon Capitalism
2 Sydney Brown, Emeritus, University of Oklahoma Jazz in Japan
3 Alisa Freedman, Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow, Cornell University Daily Commutes and Evening Dates: Images of Modern Middle Class
Tokyo, 1925-1935
 
4 Gennifer Weisenfeld (Asian Cultural Studies series) Duke University From Baby's First Bath: Kao Soap and Japanese Commercial Design
5 Laura Miller (special Popular Culture Series) Loyola University of Chicago The Naughty Girls of Tokyo: Kogal Fashion, Language and Behavior
6 Theodore Bestor (special Popular Culture Series) Harvard University The Americanization of Sushi