Modern Japan

Prof. Edwin E. Moise
Office: Hardin 102
Office phones: 656-5369, 656-3153
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

    Monday     10:10-11:00, 2:30-3:20
    Tuesday    11:00-12:00
    Wednesday  10:10-11:00, 2:30-3:20
    Thursday   11:00-12:00
    Friday     10:10-11:00 

Course Objectives

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

This policy will change if we have an epidemic of flu, and especially if we have an epidemic of H1N1 flu, on campus this semester. If you have the flu, it is really better to stay home, rather than come to class in order to turn in work on time. I will allow students to turn in late work without the normal penalty if they can document treatment for flu (Redfern Health Center will issue documents with a special stamp to students who have been treated there for flu).

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, or as a result of shifts in what I find practical to place online. Items marked >>> are required reading; items marked *** are tests.

August 19: Introduction to the course.

August 21, 24, 26: Traditional Japanese Civilization
>>> Duus, pp. 3-60
>>> Hane, pp. xiii-xv and 3-9

August 28: The Western Impact and Initial Japanese Reactions
>>> Duus, pp. 61-81

August 31, September 2: The early years of the Meiji era
>>> Duus, pp. 85-111. (If you have seen the 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 4: Initial modernization and reactions to it
>>> Duus, pp. 111-117
>>> Hane, pp. 9-27

September 7: Consolidating the Meiji system
>>> Duus, pp. 118-133

September 9: The Rise of Imperialism
>>> Duus, pp. 134-149

September 11, 14: Industrialization
>>> Duus, pp. 150-168
>>> Hane, "The Textile Factory Workers" (pp. 173-204)

Short paper due September 14. Topic: how westernized had Japan become, by the early 20th century (meaning approximately 1900 to 1914)? Length: about 500 words, or more.

September 16: The Rise of Party government
>>> Duus, pp. 171-184

September 18: Peasants and farm life
>>> Hane, pp. 29-59

September 21: The Military; Rural Women
>>> Hane, pp. 59-101

September 23: Review

*** TEST September 25

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

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

October 2: Prostitution; Coal Miners
>>> Hane, pp. 207-245

October 5: Women Rebels
>>> Hane, pp. 247-292

October 7: Economic growth and social change
>>> Duus, pp. 185-199

Short paper due October 7. 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.

October 9: 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 12 (Fall Break)

October 14, 16: The Second World War.
>>> Duus, pp. 236-250

October 19,21: The American Occupation of Japan begins
>>> Duus, pp. 253-273

October 23, 26, 28: The New Japan; the Cold War in Asia
>>> Duus, pp. 274-312

October 28: Short paper . Newspaper research exercise. Go to the library, and check to see what one or two newspapers or newsmagazines were saying about Japan in 1960. (There were particularly dramatic protests in May and June, by Japanese who disliked Japan's alliance with the United States, but you don't have to focus on those if you don't choose.) 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 Articles Access 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. Under normal circumstances, if you wanted to use weekly newsmagazines, I would suggest you use the ones bound into volumes, on the shelves on level 1 of the library. But now that section of the library is under renovation. 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.

October 30, November 2: Spectacular Success
>>> Duus, pp. 313-330
>>> Hane, pp. 295-320

November 5, 7: Kakuei Tanaka and his political machine
>>> Schlesinger, Part I

November 6, 9: The Strange Victory of Kakuei Tanaka
>>> Schlesinger, Part II

November 11: The Bubble of the 1980s
>>> Duus, pp. 331-350

November 13, 16: The Tanaka machine in the 1980s
>>> Schlesinger, Part III

November 18: The malaise of the 1990s
>>> Duus, pp. 351-368

November 20, 23: Politics in the 1990s
>>> Schlesinger, Part Four

Thanksgiving: No Class November 25, 27

November 30, December 2, 4: 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.
>>>> At least one additional article to be chosen later.

November 30: 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 2009. 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 Friday, December 11, 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 August 18, 2009.