JAPN 314- Japanese Visual Culture and Media
Description: "An analysis of historical and modern Japanese society through works of art and media including photography, film, maps, and other visual materials. Students learn to extract information from images as part of a visual analysis, while dealing with socio-geographical methods for understanding urban flows, economic disparities, transportation, and built environments. Students compare what they understand about Japanese culture with their own familiar environments. Taught in English." (Prereq: Junior or Senior Standing) |
In this course, we did a very general survey of a variety of differing instances of Japanese visual culture and Media, and for reasons I will elaborate on below, fulfilled the goals and outcomes of MLO 2 (Japanese Culture). Towards the earlier half of the course we touched upon very abstract concepts introduced in course materials that would aid us in identifying culturally and historically connected themes in relation to specific pieces of visual and cultural media. To give specific examples, we touched upon the very famous Japanese genre of woodblock prints known in Japanese as Ukiyoe (浮世絵)in depth, such as the process behind making them, the key innovators of the genre such as Hokusai the 1st and Hokusai the 2nd, and as an in course presentation I chose to focus on differing portrayals of mountains in this genre and how differing key concepts in visual interpretation can inform one of the cultural background of the differing land formations. On a simultaneously similar but different topic, I decided to cover an in-depth look of a particular crimson hue, known in Japanese as beni-iro (紅色) that was often incorporated in particular landscape pieces in the Ukiyoe genre. Through research of this hue, I came to understand it's value as a dye due to its scarcity, that it was often used to establish specific temporal periods through the day, and that it was also sometimes used to evoke spacial isolation in the mind of the viewer. With that being said, I can see further application of this knowledge that I have acquired through this course for when I return to Japan and continue to absorb different aspects of Japanese visual culture and media. |