Modern Japan

Prof. Edwin E. Moise
Office: Hardin 102
Phone: 650-8845
Home phone: 654-7087
e-mail: eemoise@clemson.edu

Messages can be left in my mailbox in Hardin 126, or in the box on my office door.

Office Hours: I will try to be in my office at the following hours, but it won't always be possible. On the other hand, I will be in my office, and available to you, at a lot of other times. E-mail me, or just check and see if my door is open.

    Monday     10:10-11:00
    Tuesday    
    Wednesday  10:10-11:00
    Thursday   11:00-12:00, 1:30-2:30
    Friday     10:10-11:00 

Course Objectives

Learning Objectives

• Students will be required to think about, and formulate and justify opinions on, in a short paper and on tests, the extent to which Japan was westernized from the 1860s onward, and the ways this occurred.
• Students will write papers analyzing the way Japan was perceived, with particular emphasis on possible biases in those perceptions, during various recent historical periods. These papers will be based on contemporary sources.

What goes into your grade

I do not emphasize trivial factual details in this course. On tests and quizzes I will NOT ask you to name the Prime Ministers who served during the 1950's, much less tell me the exact dates they served. There are some facts you need to know, but they are more important things than names and dates.

The written work will be:
    --Four short papers, on assigned topics, worth 40 points each, two of which will be newspaper research exercises.
    --A test (70 points) and the final exam (120 points), which will be mostly essay questions.
    --One minor essay quiz, which will be announced in advance. 20 points.

This adds up to 370 points. I use a 90%, 80%, 70% scale, sometimes modified in favor of students but never against them. In other words, 333 points (90% of 370) is guaranteed to be an A, 296 points is guaranteed to be a B, 259 points is guaranteed to be a C. But 332 or 328 points might quite possibly become an A, depending on how the class as a whole is doing.

Any student who has an average of 90% or better, for work up to the final exam, will be permitted to exempt the final.

Academic Integrity Policy

Academic integrity requires that we not try to pass other people's work off as our own.

As far as I can recall, I have not caught any students committing plagiarism in this course, in past years. But experience with plagiarism in other courses at Clemson suggests that if there were to be a plagiarism case in this course, it would probably take the form of one student copying another student's 40-point short paper, maybe changing a few words and substituting synonyms, but leaving the two papers still so similar that it is obvious the resemblance could not be coincidence. I would be likely to bring charges both against the student who copied and the student who allowed his or her paper to be copied.

There are some ways in which it is perfectly all right for student to help each other. If two students want to study together getting ready for a test, great. Only if help were still being given after I had handed out the questions would the help become improper. But if two people work together on a newspaper research exercise, and turn in papers that are very similar because each has been getting a lot of help from the other in writing it, both will be in deep trouble. If one of your fellow students asks to look at your paper, to get a better idea of how the assignment was to be done, please say no. They should come to me to ask for further explanations of the assignment, rather than looking at a completed paper to give them their clues. If too papers are so similar it is obvious the author of one must have seen the other, I will file charges.

Policy on late work

Attendance policy

If I am Late

Assigned reading

There will also be reading that I ask you to do online.

Course Outline

The following course outline is tentative. It may be modified slightly by class request, as a result of shifts in what I find practical to place online, or because of unexpected events. Items marked >>> are required reading.

August 24: Introduction to the course.

August 26, 29, 31: Traditional Japanese Civilization
>>> Duus, pp. 3-60
>>> Hane, pp. xiii-xv and 3-9

September 2: The Western Impact and Initial Japanese Reactions
>>> Duus, pp. 61-81

September 5, 7: The early years of the Meiji era
>>> Duus, pp. 85-111. (If you have seen the Tom Cruise film "The Last Samurai," notice that the events on which the film was based are covered on pp. 106-107 of Duus.)

                September 7: Quiz

September 9: Initial modernization and reactions to it
>>> Duus, pp. 111-117
>>> Hane, pp. 9-27

September 12: Consolidating the Meiji system
>>> Duus, pp. 118-133

September 14: The Rise of Imperialism
>>> Duus, pp. 134-149

September 16, 19: Industrialization
>>> Duus, pp. 150-168
>>> Hane, "The Textile Factory Workers" (pp. 173-204)

September 21: The Rise of Party government
>>> Duus, pp. 171-184

Short paper due September 21. Topic: how westernized had Japan become, by the 1920s? Length: about 500 words, or more. I would not expect you to deal with all possible issues, which would included westernization of the political system, use of western technology, changes in the ways both the educated elite and the common people thought about society and their role in it, changes in the ways ordinary people lived their daily lives. But I would expect you to deal with several of these--either the ones you regard as most important, or just the ones about which you feel able to say something intelligible.

September 23: Peasants and farm life
>>> Hane, pp. 29-59

September 26: The Military; Rural Women
>>> Hane, pp. 59-101

September 28: The Struggle for Survival
>>> Hane, pp. 103-136

September 30: Outcastes
>>> Hane, pp. 139-171

October 3: Prostitution; Coal Miners
>>> Hane, pp. 207-245

October 5: Review

  TEST October 7

October 10: Women Rebels
>>> Hane, pp. 247-292

October 12: Economic growth and social change
>>> Duus, pp. 185-199

Short paper due October 12. Topic: To what extent had the common people of Japan gotten actual benefits from the modernization of Japan, up to the 1930s? Length: about 500 words, or more. As you write this paper you will need to think about how broadly you are going to define that phrase "the common people." The very poor are obviously included, but people of average wealth should also be included in "the common people," and perhaps even people of slightly higher than average wealth. You don't need to spend half your paper defining that phrase, but I need to be able to tell, as I read your paper, what you mean by it.

October 14: From Japan's growing sphere of influence in China to the rise of the nationalist military fanatics in the 1930's.
>>> Duus, pp. 200-236

No Class October 17 (Fall Break)

October 19, 21: The Second World War.
>>> Duus, pp. 236-250
>>> Schlesinger, pp. 19-30

October 24, 26: The American Occupation of Japan begins
>>> Duus, pp. 253-273
>>> Schlesinger, pp. 30-45

October 28, 31, November 2: The New Japan; the Cold War in Asia
>>> Duus, pp. 274-312
>>> Schlesinger, pp. 46-58

November 2: Short paper . Newspaper research exercise. Go to the library or go online, and check to see what one or two newspapers or newsmagazines were saying about Japan in 1961. Use at least four articles. Write an essay of about two pages (typed double spaced), or more, about what you found. Say what there was in the articles that you found interesting or surprising. Evaluate the attitudes of the authors. Is there anything that leads you to distrust them, or to think that the facts may be being distorted to fit the author's viewpoint? Notice the source; did the reporter say that something was true, or only that somebody else had said it was true? If you say there is bias, please make it clear exactly what was said, that you consider biased. What kind of bias was it (false statements, or use of emotionally loaded language, or just careful selection of facts so that only facts favorable to one side get mentioned)? I want to see one essay based on several articles, not a string of essentially separate mini-essays, each based on a single article. Try to select articles that will allow you to have some unifying themes in your essay.

Please give source notes. I want to be able to tell in each section of your paper which article or articles you are discussing in that section. It is not enough to have a list at the end, if I can’t tell as I read the paper which article you are discussing where. Source notes must give page numbers. I don’t care about the format of source notes as long as they tell me what I need to know. Any format that allows me easily to discern the name of the author if it was given, the title of the article, the title of the publication, and the date and page, is OK.

There is no requirement that you use The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, or The Times of London, but those papers have the advantage that you can access them online through the Clemson Library's Databases Page. If you want to use newspapers other than those, your best bet is to go to the Microfilm Reading Room on level 2 of the Library, which has quite a few newspapers on microfilm. Or you could use weekly newsmagazines. Some are available bound into volumes, on the shelves on level 1 of the library. The only weekly newsmagazine whose back files are available online, so far as I know, is Time. You can get to it by going through the Clemson Library's online catalog.

November 4, 7: Spectacular Success
>>> Duus, pp. 313-330
>>> Hane, pp. 295-320

November 9: Kakuei Tanaka and his political machine
>>> Schlesinger, pp. 59-90.

November 11, 14: The Strange Victory of Kakuei Tanaka
>>> Schlesinger, Part II

November 16: The Bubble of the 1980s
>>> Duus, pp. 331-350

November 18, 21: The Tanaka machine in the 1980s
>>> Schlesinger, Part III

Thanksgiving: No Class November 23, 25

November 28: The malaise of the 1990s
>>> Duus, pp. 351-368

November 30, December 2: Politics in the 1990s
>>> Schlesinger, Part Four

December December 5, 7, 9: 21st Century Japan
>>> Edward J. Lincoln, "Japan in 2001: A Depressing Year." Asian Survey, February 2002, pp. 67-80, online through the Library catalog.
>>> David Arase, "Japan in 2008: A Prelude to Change?" Asian Survey, January/February 2009, pp. 107-119, online through the Library catalog.
>>> Martin Fackler, "Leader of Japan's Opposition Resigns." New York Times, May 12, 2009, A6.
>>> Martin Fackler, "In Reporting a Scandal, the Media Are Accused of Just Listening." New York Times, May 28, 2009, A9.
>>>> Martin Fackler, "Japan Tries to Face Up to Growing Poverty Problem," New York Times, April 22, 2010, A26.
>>>> Norimitsu Onishi and Martin Fackler, "Utility Reform Eluding Japan After Nuclear Plant Disaster," New York Times, November 18, 2011. Maybe for next time: A version of this article appeared in print on February 13, 2012, on page A8 of the New York edition with the headline: As Japan Works to Patch Itself Up, A Rift Between Generations Opens..

December 5: Hand in short paper . Newspaper research exercise. Go to the library or on the Internet (LexisNexis is good) and check to see what one or two newspapers or newsmagazines have been saying about events in Japan in 2011. Use at least four articles. Write an essay of about two pages (typed double spaced), or more, about what you found. Say what there was in the articles that you found interesting or surprising. Evaluate the attitudes of the authors. Is there anything that leads you to distrust them, or to think that the facts may be being distorted to fit the author's viewpoint? Notice the source; did the reporter say that something was true, or only that somebody else had said it was true? If you say there is bias, please make it clear exactly what was said, that you consider biased. What kind of bias was it (false statements, or use of emotionally loaded language, or just careful selection of facts so that only facts favorable to one side get mentioned)? I want to see one essay based on several articles, not a string of essentially separate mini-essays, each based on a single article. Try to select articles that will allow you to have some unifying themes in your essay.

Please give source notes. I want to be able to tell in each section of your paper which article or articles you are discussing in that section. It is not enough to have a list at the end, if I can’t tell as I read the paper which article you are discussing where. Source notes must give page numbers if they are available (even when you read a newspaper article online, the web site will usually tell you what the page number was in the newspaper). I don’t care about the format of source notes as long as they tell me what I need to know. Any format that allows me easily to discern the name of the author if that was given, the title of the article, the title of the publication, the date and page, and where you found it on the Internet if that is where you found it, is OK.

FINAL EXAM Monday, December 12, 8:00 a.m.

Other Links

Web site of the Perry-Castaneda Library Map Collection at the University of Texas

Clemson University Academic Support Center, which provides help and tutoring for students encountering academic problems. It does not, however, have tutors specifically for History courses.

Edwin Moïse's homepage

Regional geography

Revised November 18, 2011.