MA Modern Languages and Cultures / Course details

Year of entry: 2024

Course unit details:
Bodies, Sex and Gender in Japan

Course unit fact file
Unit code JAPA63071
Credit rating 15
Unit level FHEQ level 7 – master's degree or fourth year of an integrated master's degree
Teaching period(s) Semester 1
Available as a free choice unit? Yes

Overview

In this course unit, we will examine a number of key issues in modern Japan through the lens of bodies, gender and sexuality. This involves understanding concepts such as nationalism and colonialism as socio-political endeavours and ideologies that shaped particular gender identities and bodily performance. With this approach, we will aim to gain fresh insights into our understanding of Japanese history and society. We will address questions such as: ‘How  and why did tolerance towards male homosexuality disappear in Meiji Japan?’; ‘How was an effort to improve women’s hygienic practices informed by nation building in the Meiji period?’; ‘How and why was sterilization justified under fascist Japan?’; or ‘What links the (in)famous Japanese work-ethos to the masculinity of salary-men?’ 

Pre/co-requisites

Undergraduate degree in Japanese Studies or JLPT N2. Students who have not fulfilled any of the pre-requisite conditions will be subject to a form of language assessment prior to enrolment.

Aims

The principal aims of the course unit are as follows:

  • To provide students with an understanding of some of the major issues pertaining to bodies, gender and sexuality in modern Japan.
  • To introduce major concepts necessary to develop an understanding of how bodies and gender identities/roles were understood in modern and contemporary Japan.
  • To help students develop their teamwork skills.
  • To help students develop communication and presentation skills.
  • To help students critically analyze primary sources.

To help students develop their translation skills.

Syllabus

Week 1: Erotic bodies

[Shunga in ukiyoe, shudo in late Tokugawa]

Week 2: Bodies for the nation

[The rise of a new medical administration and education system, civilized ‘posture’, infectious diseases and foreign bodies, conscription – predominantly Meiji]

Week 3: Promiscuous bodies

[Birth control, abortion, infanticide, prostitution, venereal disease control and feminism in the 1920s, ero guro nansensu]

Week 4: Healthy bodies and the Japanese state

[Cult of health, eugenics and fascism, healthy soldiers (free of VDs), healthy mothers and healthy babies (the rise of Koseisho)]

Knowledge and understanding

On successful completion of this course unit, you will be able to:

  • systematically demonstrate understanding of how specific cultural, political and social conditions shaped the perception of bodies, sexuality and gender performance in modern and contemporary Japan;
  • show how different understandings of bodies, gender and sexuality have existed in history, thus critically assess Euro-centric views.

Intellectual skills

On successful completion of this course unit, you will be able to:

  • present intellectual interests and cultural awareness for areas beyond English-speaking countries;
  • debate critically about modern history of Japan.

Practical skills

On successful completion of this course unit, you will be able to:

  • improve their skills to describe and discuss primary and secondary sources about Japan;
  • improve their skills to handle communication and presentation tools;
  • improve their skills to read Japanese-language primary sources;
  • improve their translation skills.

Transferable skills and personal qualities

On successful completion of this course unit, you will be able to:

  • demonstrate their skills for reasoned presentation, discussion and argument;
  • develop personal qualities of independence of mind in order to make ethical judgments;
  • develop collaborative skills to prepare students for professional and vocational work;
  • develop communication and presentation skills to prepare students for professional and vocational work;
  • confront their own values as global citizens.

Employability skills

Analytical skills
• write analytically: gain exposure and practice in appropriate presentation and written skills related to a discipline or profession;
Project management
• develop a project in a specific topic;
Oral communication
• read, translate and comment on complex Japanese literary and more scientifically-oriented texts.

Assessment methods

Method Weight
Written assignment (inc essay) 100%

Feedback methods

  • Global feedback on test on Blackboard.
  • Additional one-to-one feedback (during consultation hours or by appointment).

Recommended reading

Früstück, Sabine and Anne Walthall eds. Recreating Japanese Men (Berkeley: University of California, 2011).

Igarashi, Yoshikuni Bodies of Memory: Narratives of War in Postwar Japanese Culture, 1945-1970 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000).

Low, Morris ed. Building a Modern Japan: Science, Technology, and Medicine in the Meiji Era and Beyond (Basingstoke, Hampshire: PalgraveMacmillan, 2005).

Molony, Barbara and Kathleen Uno eds. Gendering Modern Japanese History (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Asia Center, 2005).

Nakayama, Shigeru ed. A Social History of Science and Technology in Contemporary Japan, vols. 1-4 (Melbourne: Trans Pacific Press, 2001-2006).

Roberson James and Nobue Suzuki eds. Men and Masculinities in Contemporary Japan: Dislocating the Salaryman Doxa (New York: Routledge, 2003).

Tomida, Hiroko and Gordon Daniels eds. Japanese Women: Emerging from Subservience, 1868-1945 (Folkestone, Kent: Global Oriental, 2005)

 

Further reading will be recommended in the class.

Study hours

Scheduled activity hours
Lectures 22
Seminars 11
Independent study hours
Independent study 117

Additional notes

Pre-requisite units: JAPA30000 (University of Manchester), Undergraduate degree in Japanese Studies or JLPT N2. Students who have not fulfilled any of the pre-requisite conditions will be subject to a form of language assessment prior to enrolment.

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