Japanese Studies Commons^™

The Influence Of Japan And India In The Circle Of Patrick Geddes, Murdo Macdonald

Studies in Scottish Literature

Discusses the influence of Japanese art in Evergreen contributions by E.A. Hornel and Charles Mackie, the influence of Patrick Geddes's ideas in Japan, and Geddes's links with the early 20th century revival of interest in Hinduism and Indian art.

A Comparison Of The Canadian And Japanese Unesco Cultural World Heritage Sites, Tessa L. V. O'Connor

The Confluence

The purpose of this comparative study was to explore the similarities and differences between Canadian and Japanese cultures through a comparison of their respective UNESCO Cultural World Heritage Sites. Specifically, the historical, religious and spiritual, and geographical factors that led to the designation of said World Heritage sites in each country are compared. Analysis of these factors reveals that Canadian Cultural World Heritage Sites, as well as modern Canadian culture, have been molded by a combination of foreign and domestic influences. In contrast, Japanese Cultural World Heritage Sites and modern culture are primarily a result of domestic influences. The cumulative …

Making The Old New: The Recontextualization And Traditionalization Of Tree Spirits In Video Games, Alexandria Ziegler

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

Folklorists study the active rituals between humans and deities, as well as the inactive participation between them in narrative. However, they do not study the active participation that comes in the form of video games between them, though with shifts in society, this new way of engaging through digital forms is widespread and accessible. In my research, I studied Russian and Japanese tree spirits in a variety of video games to understand this new form of engagement with ancient deities. These video games are Okami, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Black Book, and The Witcher 3: The …

Traumas And Recovery In Takaya Natsuki's Fruits Basket, Vesper North

English (MA) Theses

This thesis examines the various traumas within Takaya Natsuki’s anime series Fruits Basket and how the act of transformation triggers the beginnings of recovery for numerous characters. Fruits Basket bears striking similarities to the French fairy tale Beauty and the Beast (as well as later adaptations) originated by Gabrielle-Suzanne de Villeneuve. Throughout, I draw parallels between the “Beauty and the Beast”-genre with Fruits Basket and how the anime expands upon shared themes, specifically trauma. Additionally, I analyse the birth of and recovery from traumas (caused by bullying, loss, abuse, and feelings of otherness) for “Beauty and the Beast” archetypes within …

Rethinking The Benefits Of Tadoku: The Effectivness Of "Tiny Tadoku Habits" On Learners' Sense Of Well-Being | 多読によるプラス要素の再考察: 通常授業内「ちょこっと多読」がもたらす学習者のウェルビーイングへの有効性, Atsuko Takahashi, Chikako Hirayama Cooke

East Asian Languages & Cultures: Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

ポストコロナの日本語授業に向けて: 遠隔から対面授業を体験した初級学習者の継続的な観察からわかること, Atsuko Takahashi, Yuko Takahashi

East Asian Languages & Cultures: Faculty Publications

本研究では、コロナ禍で遠隔、以後対面授業へ移行した初級学習者の学習経験の調査を目的に、筆者ら の大学で 2020 年秋から遠隔で日本語 1 年生を履修、2021 年秋に対面で日本語 2 年生を続けた学生らを対 象に、匿名アンケートとインタビューをし、その結果に加え、授業観察やエッセイ等をデータとして分 析した。また、インタビューを元に、遠隔授業と対面授業をそれぞれ担当した教師の対話もデータとし て考察した。本稿では、遠隔と対面授業で学習者が感じた違いとそれに伴う学習観の構築を探り、同価 値理論を背景とした遠隔から対面カリキュラム移行の際に生じた学習観のズレや、其々の学習環境にお ける学習の有効性について考察する。本研究は、遠隔授業を経験した初級学習者を対面授業後も継続的 に観察した報告例として、ポスト・コロナの日本語授業を考える上で、学習観を踏まえた教師側の情報 交換や振り返りの機会に貢献できるのではないかと考える。

The Valiant Woman, Ann Louise Cole

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In 1600, Hosokawa Tama Gracia perished under mysterious circumstances. She was a noblewoman married to a powerful daimyo, the daughter of a traitor, and a Kirishitan convert during the “Christian Century” in Japan. In life, she was both dutifully subservient and tenaciously bold. In death, she was fodder for propaganda, and in the hands of European writers her life story was re-written for specific narrative purposes. The most striking of these artistic transformations is her depiction as a Christian martyr in the late seventeenth-century Latin Jesuit drama Mulier fortis. The music for this drama was composed by Johann Bernhard Staudt …

Dawn Of A Silver Millennium: Millenarianism, Futurity, And Utopia In Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon, Matthew Dentice

Far West Popular Culture Association Annual Conference

The story of Sailor Moon, told and retold in countless forms in the thirty years since the original manga’s publication, is imbued with a cosmic sense of time. The modern-day protagonists’ personal journeys are tightly interwoven with the distant past of the Silver Millennium and the far future of thirtieth-century Crystal Tokyo. But only the manga is fully willing to grapple with what the future means for its own present moment. Written in the early 1990s during Japan's "Lost Decade," Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon dramatizes the angst that accompanies the imminent arrival of a new millennium. As the Sailor Guardians …

Press Any Button To Get Started: Approaching Japanese Culture And Society Through Video Games, Amanda Weber

East Asian Studies Honors Papers

This project argues for inclusion of video games into the liberal arts curriculum alongside more traditional texts. Three Japanese-developed video games are analyzed in terms of their appropriateness for the Ursinus Quest curriculum while also exploring their appropriation of characters, themes, and values from Japanese mytho-history. My approach incorporates the methodology introduced by the scholar James Paul Gee who studies video games through the lens of semiotics and gaming theory. Gee defines key elements presented in video games as ‘lifeworld domains,’ which incorporate cultures, societies, and individual and group experiences. The value of video games resides in the players’ development …

When I Was A Boy In Japan, Sakae Shioya

Zea E-Books Collection

Japanese children in the 1870s and 1880s were offspring of a centuries-old traditional order who faced a world suddenly dominated by foreign science and commerce. As a child in Meiji Japan, Sakae grew up among survivors of the shogunate and observed their samurai culture displaced by Western morals and practices. Meanwhile the traditional values of Japanese life still exerted a strong influence over his family and education and played a large part in shaping his experience, as recounted with charm and tenderness in this simple and reflective reminiscence.

Sakae Shioya (1873–1961) attended Tokyo’s First Imperial College and came to the …

Butoh: From Wwii To The West, Caroline Conner

[Archive] Belmont University Research Symposium (BURS)

Butoh is an underground dance movement in Japan that explores the human psyche in unconventional and sometimes grotesque ways. It originated out of the devastation of WWII Japan and rails against the rigidity of society as well as traditional theatre and dance forms. It has ties to Buddhism, in that both view suffering as a natural state of the world, and both may lead to depersonalisation (intentionally or otherwise), which is described as a loss of identity or sense of self. Gone unchecked, this detached exploration of the psyche can lead to personality dissolution, which can be especially problematic to …

Striking Chords Ii: Music In Ukiyo-E Prints (2022), Theory & History Of Art & Design Department, Elena Varshavskaya (H791 Instructor)

Ukiyo-e Prints Course | Exhibition Catalogs

"The theme of music in ukiyo-e prints has been explored by the RISD art history students for two semesters (fall 2021 and spring 2022) in a hands-on curatorial format. The resulting exhibition Striking Chords: Music in Ukiyo-e Prints, is on view at the RISD Museum from February through July 2022.

The spring semester project is virtual. However, the approach is similar – to comprehensively study music-related prints in the collection of the RISD Museum and to share the findings with interested audiences, albeit in digital format.

Nineteen prints have been selected. In the exhibition’s virtual space, they are displayed according …

The Influence Of The Thirty-Six Stratagems On Chinese Strategy In The Diaoyu Islands, Brent Schuliger

Senior Honors Theses

The Diaoyu Islands are a small, uninhabited archipelago in the East China Sea which has begun increasing in strategic significance due to its advantageous location near Taiwan and along the First Island Chain. The islands are currently under Japanese administration, but the People’s Republic of China considers them historically Chinese and contests Japan’s claim to the islands. A careful examination of China’s actions in challenging Japan’s rule over the Diaoyus reveals the influence of the Thirty-Six Stratagems, a tome of ancient Chinese military wisdom which provides a framework onto which China’s current strategy corresponds. This thesis examines the historical …

Xbox In Japan? Understanding The Distinctions Of The Japanese Video Game Market To Increase Microsoft's Competitive Advantage, Sekani Adebimpe

Senior Theses

Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony remain the biggest players in the video game console space. While all three companies have achieved worldwide success, Microsoft’s performance with the Xbox brand in Japan is an outlier for its historically poor sales numbers dating back to its 2001 debut. The purpose of this thesis is to unearth the various cultural distinctions inherent to the Japanese gaming industry that Microsoft must consider to gain a stronger foothold in the country, as well as diagnose the biggest issues facing Xbox with Japanese consumers. To accomplish this, several cultural frameworks were used to assess the differences between …

“For Now We See In A Mirror, Dimly”: Dialectical Wholeness In Oshii Mamoru’S Ghost In The Shell, Mari Aida

Comparative Literature M.A. Essays

This essay argues that Oshii Mamoru's 1995 animated film Ghost in the Shell, while indicating possible alliances with the political interests of cyberfeminism, ultimately advocates for the oppositional agenda of dialectical wholeness. Foundational texts of cyberfeminism, such as Donna J. Haraway's "A Manifesto for Cyborgs," have criticized narratives of isolation and a return towards a primordial wholeness implicit in Euro-American scientific culture. In the context of these texts, the cyborg symbolizes a departure from such narratives and guides the political project of reimagining epistemological boundaries. However, despite its apparent alignment with such projects, Ghost in the Shell dramatizes and …

A Study On The Sports Industry In Edo: Preface To A Study Of The History Of The Sports Industry In Early Modern Japan, Hironori Tanigama

Japanese Society and Culture

This study discusses what sorts of industries developed in Edo during the early modern period and their characteristics, with a specific look at the sports industry. The results of this study are as follows. 1. In the 17th century, the sports industry in Edo targeted the ruling samurai class. Samurai in Edo were fond of sumo tournaments and archery exhibition competitions; both were heavily influenced by the Kyoto area (then the capital). At the time, traditions carried on since the Middle Ages remained strong in the world of sports. 2. At the end of the 17th century, various urban sports …

Pathetic Beauty: Mono No Aware In Hollywood Cinema –To Family And Friends In These Estranged Times–, Aaron Francis Ward

Japanese Society and Culture

Mono no aware is considered to be one of the central-most Japanese aesthetics and distinctive to Japanese identity (Keene 1995; Miller 2011). This aesthetic standpoint finds wistful beauty in the transient, and is most often translated to ‘beauty in pathos’ or ‘the ah-ness of things’ (Hume 1995), as exemplified in the Heian-era classic, The Tale of Genji (Murasaki 1981). To the outside world, mono no aware is most commonly associated with cherry-blossom viewing, where the short-lived existence of the falling cherry blossom is seen as a metonym for contemplation of the beauty in the transience of life itself. Although this …

The Cherry Blossom And Its Influence On Japanese Culture, Gilberto Mejía Salazar

Japanese Society and Culture

The following research is of a documentary approach, and its objective is to analyze the cherry blossom from a social and cultural perspective, to know the importance and influence that this flower has on society and the environment. Thus, the Shinjuku Gyoen Park and Chidorigafuchi Park were taken as a reference, in this sense, it is understood that within the city of Tokyo there are parks and areas whose purpose is to provide various activities to citizens to contemplate nature, and therefore giving a great show to witness the cherry blossom in its maximum splendour. The influence of the cherry …

“The Power Of Onomatopoeia In Manga” An Essay By Natsume Fusanosuke With Translators’ Introduction, Jon Holt, Teppei Fukuda

World Languages and Literatures Faculty Publications and Presentations

Natsume Fusanosuke is one of the founding critics of manga that pioneered a style of formal analysis of manga in the 1990s. Natsume’s first important foray into his “theory of expression” (hyōgenron) was seen in the collaborate work, Manga no yomikata (How to read manga) in 1995. He later streamlined those ideas in a twelve-episode series Manga wa naze omoshiroi no ka: sono bunpō to hyōgen (Why is manga so interesting?: Its grammar and expression) for NHK television in 1996. The accompanying expanded book (1997) consists of well-ordered, individual essays on elements of manga such as …

The Pagoda, Rohan Kōda, Nariyuki Koda

Zea E-Books Collection

This novel is a landmark in Japanese literature, widely known, read, and beloved. Sometimes known as “The Five-Story Pagoda,” it tells the story of Jubei, a carpenter and craftsman, who dreams of building a pagoda for the Abbot of the Kannoji Temple. Despite his poverty, low station, and poor reputation—he is known as “the slouch”— Jubei’s determined and uncompromising allegiance to his own vision bring him the possibility of raising a great work for the ages … but will it stand against the howling demons of a tropical typhoon?

Rohan Kōda’s The Pagoda (Gojūnotō, 五重塔) first appeared in …