COOL JAPAN TODAY
In this course…
We examined contemporary media, culture, and products as a conceptual lens to focus on Japanese pop culture and soft power in the 21st Century. Manga, Anime, Cinema, literature, performance art, music, and fine arts were all surveyed with an eye to understanding what exactly is cool and different about Japanese creative work and whether these kinds of cultural exports could become the foundation of a new post-industrial Japanese economy.
Throughout this course, we briefly touched upon a variety of media and cultural products that are widely considered to be peculiar to Japan. A few such examples of that we took at look at in particular depth are the historically rich art genre of Ukiyo-e, the contemporary, widely popular medium of Japanese Animation, Artificial Intelligence in the context of contemporary Japan’s robotics industry and also its relationship to Japan’s native belief system Shintoism, and much more. We explored these topics not only through group in-class discussions and presentations, but also more in-depth through reports and research papers throughout the duration of the course.
I feel that this particular course not only served as an excellent introduction to the variety of social, cultural, and historical facets that collectively make up Japanese society, but was very beneficial to my pre-study abroad education.
In this course…
We examined contemporary media, culture, and products as a conceptual lens to focus on Japanese pop culture and soft power in the 21st Century. Manga, Anime, Cinema, literature, performance art, music, and fine arts were all surveyed with an eye to understanding what exactly is cool and different about Japanese creative work and whether these kinds of cultural exports could become the foundation of a new post-industrial Japanese economy.
Throughout this course, we briefly touched upon a variety of media and cultural products that are widely considered to be peculiar to Japan. A few such examples of that we took at look at in particular depth are the historically rich art genre of Ukiyo-e, the contemporary, widely popular medium of Japanese Animation, Artificial Intelligence in the context of contemporary Japan’s robotics industry and also its relationship to Japan’s native belief system Shintoism, and much more. We explored these topics not only through group in-class discussions and presentations, but also more in-depth through reports and research papers throughout the duration of the course.
I feel that this particular course not only served as an excellent introduction to the variety of social, cultural, and historical facets that collectively make up Japanese society, but was very beneficial to my pre-study abroad education.
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