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 or 5 tutorials, depending the number of students enrolled, two or three of which will be for the oral presentation of research papers.  The dates and other details will be announced later. 

Schedule:

Sep. 9  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. 16 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. 23 “Civilization and Enlightenment” and Freedom and Popular 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.

Recommended reading:

Sievers, Chapter 3 (25-53); “The German Influence: Roessler and the Framing of the Constitution,” in J. Pittau, Political Thought in Early Meiji Japan, 131-157. 

Sep. 30 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 www.japanfocus.org/-Gerhard-Krebs/3755;

Andrew Gordon, “Social Protest in Imperial Japan: The Hibiya Riot of 1905,” available at www.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. 7   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); Sonia Ryang, “the tongue that divided life and death: the 1923 Tokyo earthquake and the massacre of Koreans,” available at www.japanfocus.org/-Sonia-Ryang/2513/article.html.

Oct. 14 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 an 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. 28 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;

Anne Booth, “Did It Really Help to be a Japanese Colony? East Asian Economic Performance in Historical Perspective,” available at www.japanfocus.org/-Anne-Booth.

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;

Mark Caprio, “Neo-nationalists’ interpretations of Japan’s annexation of Korea: the colonization debate in Japan and Korea,” available at www.japanfocus.org/-Mark-Caprio/3438/article.html;

Ellen Sebring, “Civilization & Barbarism: Cartoon Commentary & ‘The White Man’s Burden’ (1898–1902),” available at www.japanfocus.org/-Ellen-Sebring/4339/article.html.

Nov. 4 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 www.japanfocus.org/-James-Orr/2692.html.

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 www.japanfocus.org/-Janis-Miura/3657.html.

Nov. 11 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. 18 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));

Hirata Tetsuo and John W. Dower, “Japan’s Red Purge: Lessons from a Saga of Suppression of Free Speech and Thought,” available at www.japanfocus.org/-Hirata-Tetsuo/2462/article.html.  

Recommended Reading:

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;

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

Nov. 25 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 www.japanfocus.org/-Erik-Esselstrom/3869.html.

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.

Dec. 2   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;

Lawrence Repeta, “Japan’s Proposed National Security Legislation — Will This Be the  End of Article 9?,” available at www.japanfocus.org/-Lawrence-Repeta/4335/article.html.

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;

Philip A. Seaton, Japan’s Contested War Memories, Chapter 3 (65-84).  

Requirements:

1) participation in in-class discussion.  This will be 10% of your grade.

2) participation in tutorials, making up 20 % of your grade.

3) two 1300 -1500 word papers on two of the several questions to be announced later.  The first paper is due on October 7; the second paper on November 4. This will be 30% of your grade.

4) 3500 – 4000 word research paper, due on the second Wednesday of December, on any topic in modern Japanese history of your choice.  This will make up 40 % of your grade.

* Please be reminded to honor academic integrity in your writing assignments.  The information is available at <http://www.cuhk.edu.hk/policy/academichonesty/>

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 <www.japanfocus.org>

请注意大学有关学术著作诚信的政策和规则，及适用于犯规事例的纪律指引和程序。详情可浏览此处。

学生递交作业时，必须连同已签署的声明一并提交，表示他们知道有关政策、规则、指引及程序。

• 如属小组习作，则所有组员均须签署声明；所有组员 (不论有否签署声明及不论有否直接或间接撰写有问题的内容) 均须负上集体责任及受到惩处。
• 如作业以电脑制作、内容以文字为主，并经由大学「维诚」系统 (VeriGuide) 提交者，学生将作业的电子档案上载到系统后，便会获得收据，收据上已列明有关声明。
• 学生充分知悉到他们的作业可能会被人工智能内容检测软件审查，以确定其原创性。
• 学生充分知悉科目中采用人工智能工具的做法。在经允许下使用某些人工智能工具的情况下，学生已按照科目老师的指示明确注明出处和引文。

未有夹附签署妥当的声明的作业，老师将不予批阅。

学生只须提交作业的最终版本。

学生将作业或作业的一部份用于超过一个用途 (例如：同时符合两科的要求) 而没有作出声明会被视为未有声明重复使用作业。 学生重复使用其著作的措辞或某一、二句句子很常见，并可以接受，惟重复使用全部内容则构成问题。在任何情况下，须先获得相关老师同意方可提交作业。

由大学职员/老师制作的教学材料，包括课堂笔记、作业及考试题目等，其版权属香港中文大学拥有；学生可从大学采用的网上教学系统 (例如Blackboard) 下载由大学职员/老师制作的教学材料供其学习使用；惟未经相关职员/老师事先同意下，不得分发/分享/复制这些材料予第三者。