Course Proposal Details for - Radical Japan: culture, politics and protest in Japan¿s ¿Long 1960s¿
(Course code not assigned)
School
School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures
Course Description
In many respects the image of an economically driven, politically turgid and
socially harmonious Japan remains dominant. But in the immediate four
decades of the postwar period this was anything but the case. In particular,
the ¿long 1960s¿ witnessed a distinct and far reaching radicalism in Japan,
both on the left and the right, and the advent of a virulent cultural politics
that posed a range of challenges to the foundations of Japanese political
and social life. This course asks questions about the origins of this politics,
its forms, and its legacy, and to answer these questions students will
engage with a wide range of primary sources in Japanese and English,
including films, literature, art and photography, and the growing secondary
literature in English on the subject.
Normal Year Taken
Year 4 Undergraduate
Course Level (PG/UG)
UG
Visiting Student
Availability
Not available to visiting students
SCQF Credits
10
Credit Level (SCQF)
SCQF Level 10
Home Subject Area
Asian Studies
Other Subject Area
Course Organiser
Christopher Perkins
Course Secretary
David Horn
% not taught by this
institution
Collaboration
Information (School /
Institution)
Total contact teaching
hours
22
Any costs to be met by None
students
Pre-requisites
Students must have completed Japanese Language 3
Co-requisites
None
Prohibited
Combinations
None
Visting Student Prerequisites
N/A
Keywords
Fee Code (if invoiced at
course level)
Proposer
Christopher Perkins
Default Mode of Study Classes & Assessment excl. centrally arranged exam
Default delivery period Semester 2
Marking Scheme to be
employed
Common Marking Scheme - UG Honours Mark/Grade
Taught in Gaidhlig?
No
Course Type
Standard
Summary of Intended
Learning
Outcomes/L01
Students will:
Have acquired broad historical knowledge on Japanese political
movements in the 'long 1960s'
Have acquired specific knowledge about interventions in cultural politics in
the period
Have developed the skills necessary to make use of a range of primary
sources from the period, including photography, cinema, diary extracts,
literature and newsletters.
Be able to critically assess the impact of the period on contemporary
Japan, specifically in terms of bottom up political movements, student
politics, relationship between politics and the arts, and global social
movements.
Learning Outcome 2
Learning Outcome 3
Learning Outcome 4
Learning Outcome 5
Special Arrangements
none
Components of
Assessment
1 x 3000 word essay (75%)
1 x presentation based on primary source materials (25%)
Exam Information
N/A
Syllabus
1. The state of play: occupation, constitution and the reverse course
2. Politics, protest and subjectivity
3. Ampo 1
4. Taking over the university
5. Ampo 2, Beheiren, and civil Society
6. The United Red Army and the end of it all?
7. What went wrong (according to Oshima Nagisa)
8. Art and revolution: Akasegawa Genpei and the 1000 yen note incident
9. Provoke!
10. Women's Lib in Japan
11. Legacies of an era of protest
Academic Description
Study Pattern
1 x 2 hour seminar per week plus occasional film screenings.
Transferable Skills
Presentation skills; translation and analysis of Japanese texts
Study Abroad
Reading Lists
Primary Materials:
Anpo! (Documentary)
Night and Fog in Japan (Film, dir: Oshima Nagisa)
A Man Vanishes (Film, dir: Imamura Shohei)
Extracts from Sh¿kan Ampo (newsletter)
Extracts from Beheiren News (newsletter
Extracts from Nagata Hiroko¿s memoir
Extracts from Sakaguchi Hiroshi's memoir
Extracts from ¿tsuki Setsuko¿s diary
Examples of Akasegawa Genpei¿s work
Selection photographs by Hamaya Hiroshi
Selection of photographs by Moriyama Daido and Yutaka Takanashi
Extracts from demo ik¿! (guidebook on contemporary protest)
Secondary literature:
Ando, T., 2013. Transforming ¿Everydayness¿: Japanese New Left
Movements and the Meaning of their Direct Action. Japanese Studies,
33(1), pp.1¿18.
Asada, A., 2000. A LEFT WITHIN THE PLACE OF NOTHINGNESS. New Left
Review, 5, pp.1¿26.
Avenell, S., 2006. Regional egoism as the public good: residents'
movements in Japan during the 1960s and 1970s. Japan Forum, 18(1),
pp.89¿113.
DALIOT-BUL, M., 2013. The Formation of ¿Youth¿ as a Social Category in
Pre-1970s Japan: A Forgotten Chapter of Japanese Postwar Youth
Countercultures. Social Science Japan Journal.
Desser, D., 1998. Eros Plus Massacre: an Introduction to the Japanese New
Wave Cinema, Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Eckersall, P., 2011. The Emotional Geography of Shinjuku: The Case of
Chikatetsu Hiroba(Underground Plaza, 1970). Japanese Studies, 31(3),
pp.333¿343.
Fuse, T., 1969. Student Radicalism in Japan: A" Cultural Revolution"?
Comparative Education Review, pp.325¿342.
Hasegawa, K., 2006. Student Soldiers The Japanese Communist Party¿s
¿Period of Extreme Leftist Adventurism.¿ Stanford Journal of East Asian
Affairs, 6(1), pp.42¿52.
Hasegawa, K., 2003. In Search of a New Radical Left: The Rise and Fall of
the Anpo Bund, 1955 - 1960. Stanford Journal of East Asian Affairs, 3(1),
pp.75¿92.
Igarashi, Y., 2007. Dead Bodies and Living Guns: The United Red Army and
Its Deadly Pursuit of Revolution, 1971¿1972. Japanese Studies, 27(2),
pp.119¿137.
KERSTEN, R., 2009. The Intellectual Culture of Postwar Japan and the 19681969 University of Tokyo Struggles: Repositioning the Self in Postwar
Thought. Social Science Japan Journal, 12(2), pp.227¿245.
Koschmann, J.V., 1981. The Debate on Subjectivity in Postwar Japan:
Foundations of Modernism as a Political Critique. Pacific Affairs, 54(4),
pp.609¿631.
Kuriyama, Y., 1973. Terrorism at Tel Aviv Airport and a¿ New Left¿ Group in
Japan. Asian Survey, 13(3), pp.336¿346.
Mackie, V., 2011. Embodied Memories, Emotional Geographies: Nakamoto
Takako's Diary of the Anpo Struggle. Japanese Studies, 31(3), pp.319¿331.
MAROTTI, W. A. (2013). Money, trains, and guillotines: art and revolution
in 1960s Japan. Durham and London, Duke University Press.
McCormack, G., 1971. The Student Left in Japan. The New Left Review,
1(65), pp.37¿52. Available at:
http://newleftreview.org/?page=article&view=884.
Masafumi, F. & Fritsch, L., 2012. Is the World Beautiful? Moriyama Daid¿¿s
Provocation of the History of Photography. Art In Translation, 4(4),
pp.459¿474.
McKnight, A. & Hayashi, S., 2005. Good-bye kitty, hello war: the tactics of
spectacle and new youth movements in urban Japan. positions: east asia
cultures critique, 13(1), pp.87¿113.
Olson, L., 1978. Intellectuals and ¿The People;¿ On Yoshimoto Takaaki.
Journal of Japanese Studies, 4(2), pp.327¿357.
Olson, L., 1981. Takeuchi Yoshimi and the Vision of a Protest Society in
Japan. Journal of Japanese Studies, 7(2), pp.319¿348.
Shigematsu, S., 2012. The Japanese Women's Liberation Movement and
the United Red Army. Feminist Media Studies, 12(2), pp.163¿179.
Standish, I., 2009. Night and Fog in Japan: Fifty Years On. Journal of
Japanese & Korean Cinema, 1(2), pp.143¿155.
Sasaki-Uemura, W.M., 2002. Competing Publics: Citizens' Groups, Mass
Media, and the State in the 1960s. positions: east asia cultures critique,
10(1), pp.79¿110.
Sherif, A., 2009. Japan's Cold War: media, literature, and the law, New
York: Columbia University Press.
Steinhoff, P.G., 2013. Memories of New Left protest. Journal of the
German Institute for Japanese Studies Tokyo, 25(2), pp.127¿165.
Steinhoff, P.G., 2000. Doing the Defendant's Laundry: Support Groups as
Social Movement Organizations in Contemporary Japan. pp.1¿24.
Steinhoff, P.G., 1989. Hijackers, bombers, and bank robbers: managerial
style in the Japanese Red Army. Journal of Asian Studies, 48(4), pp.724¿740