This is a survey course on modern Japanese history, covering the period from the late 19^th century to the present.  The course will explore various issues in Japan’s modern history: industrialization, development of mass media, imperialism and colonialism, nationalism, feminism, war, and democracy. 

The course aims at helping students to:

1) Understand the major points of Japan’s modern history;

2) Deepen their understanding of Japanese society in its history, and today as well;

3) Learn to read materials in primary and secondary sources and discuss them;

4) Learn to write logical and concise papers in answering exam questions;

5) Learn to conduct research on a topic of their choice, formulate questions, search for necessary source materials and write original and probing papers. 

The class consists of a lecture and a discussion of the book chapters and articles we read for the week.  There are also 4 tutorials, two of which will be for the oral presentation of research papers.  The dates and other details will be announced later.

Schedule:

 Sep. 3  Introduction: The Background of the Meiji Restoration

         Reading: None required, but recommended, McClain, Chapter 4 (119-154);  Sharon L. Sievers, Flowers in Salt: The Beginnings of Feminist  Consciousness in Modern Japan, Chapters 1 & 2 (1- 25).

Sep. 10 Making of the New State and Industrialization

          Reading: McClain, Chapter 5 & 7 (155-168; 207-245); Sievers, Chapter 4 (54- 86).

         Recommended Reading: McClain, Chapter 8 (246-275); Andrew Gordon, The  Evolution of Labor Relations in Japan: Heavy Industry, 1853-1955, Chapter 1 (17-50).

 Sep. 17 “Civilization and Enlightenment” and Freedom and People’s Rights Movement

          Reading: McClain, Chapter 5 & 6 (169-182; 183-206); Itō Hirobumi,  “Commentaries on Constitutional Provisions Relating to Emperor’s Position, 1899,” in Tim Megarry, ed., The Making of Modern Japan: A Reader, 183-186; Fukuzawa Yukichi, An Encouragement of Learning, Section 1-3 (1-20); Daikichi Irokawa, “The Impact of Western Culture” in The Culture of the Meiji Period, Chapter 2 (59-68); “The Imperial   Rescript on Education” in Ryusuke Tsunoda et al, comp.,Sources of Japanese Tradition, vol. 2, 139-40.

Sep. 24 War and the Empire

        Reading: McClain, Chapter 9 (283-315); Fukuzawa Yukichi, “De-Asianization”  [Datsua-ron] in The Meiji Japan Through Contemporary Sources,  129-133; Gerhard Krebs, “World War Zero?  Re-assessing the Global Impact of the Russo-Japanese War 1904-05,” available at http://japanfocus.org/-Gerhard-Krebs/3755; Andrew Gordon, “Social Protest in Imperial Japan: The Hibiya Riot of 1905,” available at  http://japanfocus.org/-Andrew-Gordon/4150.

       Recommended reading: Sievers, Chapter 5 (87-113); Miyazaki Toten, My Thirty-Three Years’ Dream: the Autobiography of Miyazaki Toten (Chinese translation available in CUHK library); Shumpei Okamoto, “The emperor and the crowd: the historical significance of the Hibiya riot” in T. Najita and J. V. Koschmann, eds., Conflict in Modern Japanese History: The Neglected Tradition, 258-276.

  Oct. 8  Imperial Democracy

       Reading: McClain, Chapter 10 (316-332); Shuichi Kato, “Taisho Democracy as the Pre-Stage for Japanese Militarism,” in B. Silberman and H. D. Harootunian, eds., Japan in Crisis, 217-236; Sheldon Garon, Molding Japanese Mind, Chapter 1 (40-59).

        Recommended reading: Sievers, Chapter 5 (114-138). 

Oct. 15 Rural Life/Urban Milieu in Taisho Japan and Radicalism

        Reading: McClain, Chapter 10 & 11 (345-356; 357-393); Sievers, Chapter 6 (139-162); Barbara Satō, “The Moga Sensation: Perception of the Modan Gaaru in Japanese Intellectual Circles During the 1920s,” Gender and History 5.3 (Autumn 1993): 363-381.

       Recommended reading: Gregory Kasza, The State and the Mass Media in Japan: 1918-1945, Chapter 2 (28-53); Penelope Francks, The Japanese Consumer: An Alternative Economic History of Modern Japan, Chapter 5 (108-144).

Oct. 22 Japan’s Colonial Empire and the Rise of Militarism

        Reading: McClain, Chapter 10-12 (332-344, 393-397, 405-440); Louise Young,  “Imagined Empire: The Cultural Construction of Manchukuo, in Peter Duus et al, eds., The Japanese Wartime Empire, 1931-1945, 71-96; Mark Caprio, “Neo-nationalists’ interpretations of Japan’s annexation of Korea: the colonization debate in Japan and Korea,” available at http://japanfocus.org/-Mark-Caprio/3438

        Recommended reading: Lewis H. Gann, “Western and Japanese Colonialism: Some Preliminary Comparison,” in R. H. Myers and M. R. Peattie, eds., The Japanese Colonial Empire, 1895-1945, 497-525; Ramon Myers, “Japanese Imperialism in Manchuria: The South Manchuria Railway Company, 1906-1933” in Peter Duus et al, eds., The Japanese Informal Empire in China, 1895-1937, 101-132; Anne Booth, “Did It Really Help to be a Japanese Colony? East Asian Economic Performance in Historical Perspective,” available at http://japanfocus.org/-Anne-Booth/2418.

Oct. 29 The Japan-China War

         Reading: McClain, Chapter 13 (441-476); Yuki Tanaka, Japan’s Comfort Women, Chapter 1 (8-32); “Fundamentals of Our National Polity,” in Ryusuke Tsunoda et al, comp., Sources of Japanese Tradition, vol. 2, 278-288; “Draft of Basic Plan for Establishment of Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere,” in Ryusuke Tsunoda et al, comp., Sources of Japanese Tradition, vol. 2, 294- 298; “A 1942 Declaration for Greater East Asia Co-operation” available at http://japanfocus.org/-James-Orr/2692

        Recommended reading: “The Family Letters of Dr. Robert Wilson,” in Timothy Brook, ed., Documents on the Rape of Nanking, 207-254; Janis Miura, “Japan’s new order and Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere: Planning for empire,” available at http://japanfocus.org/-Janis-Miura/3657.

 Nov. 5 The Pacific War

        Reading: McClain, Chapter 13 & 14 (476-481, 482-515); John Dower, War Without Mercy, Chapter 1 (3-14); Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney, Kamikaze Diaries: Reflections of Japanese Student Soldiers, Chapter 2 (71-91).

        Recommended Reading: Yoshiko Miyake, “Doubling Expectations Motherhood and Women’s Factory Work Under State Management in Japan in the 1930s and 1940s,” in Gail Lee Bernstein, ed., Recreating Japanese Women, 1600-1945, 267-295.

Nov. 12 The Allied Occupation and Postwar Reforms

        Reading: McClain, Chapter 15 (523-561); John Dower, Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II, Chapter 9 (278-303) (not required but recommended: Dower, Chapter 10 (304-318)); Sayuri Guthrie-Shimizu, “Occupation policy and postwar Sino-Japanese relations” in Mark E. Caprio and Yoneyuki Sugita, eds., Democracy in Occupied Japan: The U.S. Occupation and Japanese Politics and Society, 200-219.

        Recommended Reading: James Orr, The Victim as Hero: Ideologies of Peace and National Identity in Postwar Japan, Chapter 2 (14-35).

Nov. 19 The Economic Miracle and the U.S.-Japan Military Alliance 

        Reading: McClain, Chapter 16 (562-582); John W. Dower, “The Useful War,” in Carol Gluck and Stephen R. Graubard, eds., Showa: The Japan of Hirohito, 49-70; Erik Esselstrom, “The 1960 ‘Anpo’ Struggle in the People’s Daily: Shaping Popular Perceptions of Japan during the Cold War,” available at http://japanfocus.org/-Erik-Esselstrom/3869.

         Recommended reading: Chalmers Johnson, MITI and the Japanese Miracle: The Growth of Industrial Power, 1925-1975, Chapter 1 (3-34); Wesley Sasaki-Uemura, Organizing the Spontaneous: Citizen Protest in Postwar Japan, Chapter 2 (15-54); Oguma Eiji, “The postwar intellectuals’ view of ‘Asia’” in Sven Saaler and J. Victor Koschmann, eds., Pan-Asianism in Modern Japanese History: Colonialism Regionalism and Borders, 200-212.

Nov. 26 Japan in Affluence and Stagnation/ Japan Today 

        Reading: McClain, Chapter 16 & 17 (582-598; 599-632); Sebastian Conrad, “Entangled Memories: Versions of the Past in Germany and Japan, 1945-2001” in Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 38 (1), 85-99; Philip A. Seaton, Japan’s Contested War Memories, Chapter 3 (65-84).

        Recommended reading: Kathleen Uno, “The Death of ‘Good Wife, Wise Mother’?” in Andrew Gordon, ed., Postwar Japan as History, 293-322; J. Victor Koschmann, “Asianism’s Ambivalent Legacy” in P. J. Katzenstein and T. Shiraishi, eds., Network Power: Japan and Asia, 83-110; Carol Gluck, “The Idea of Showa” in Gluck and Graubard, eds., Showa: The Japan of Hirohito, 1-26; Norm Field, In the Realm of A Dying Emperor; Satoshi Kotani, “Why are Japanese youth today so passive?” in Gordon Mathews and Bruce White, eds., Japan’s Changing Generations: Are Young People Creating a New Society?, 31-45.

There are 4 tutorials, two of which will be for the oral presentation of research papers. The dates and other details will be announced later.

Required Texts:

    1) James L. McClain, Japan: A Modern History (New York and London: W.W. Norton & Company, 2002)—the book is available for purchase at the campus bookstore as well as on reserve in the Chung Chi Library;

    2) Other readings will be uploaded onto the CU eLearning System at http://elearn.cuhk.edu.hk; some of the readings are also available at the Reserve Counter of the Chung Chi Library.

     * Interesting articles on Japan, on contemporary as well as historical issues, are available from The Asia-Pacific E-Journal Japan Focus at <http://japanfocus.org>. 

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