Updated October 16, 2005
History of Contemporary Japan
日本現代史
Fall Term, 2005
War in Contemporary Japan
M. William Steele
Office Hours Monday and Friday, 11:30 1:30
Office: ERB 368, tel 3167
email: steele@icu.ac.jp
According to Benedetto Croce, “all history is contemporary history.” This year, 2005, marks the 60th anniversary of the end of the Pacific War. This course will show how events of the past are very much alive in the present. The war is constantly in the news. We will explore the ways in which the events and experiences of wartime Japan have been remembered and used and re-used over the past 60 years in shaping domestic politics, international relations, and national identity.
Textbooks:
Students are encourage (by not required) to purchase the following books. They are perhaps most easily available through internet book sellers such as Amazon. Copies of all required reading will be available on the course website.
Fujitani, White and Yoneyama, eds., Perilous Memories: the Asia-Pacific War(s), Duke University Press, 2001.
Hein and Selden, eds., Living with the Bomb: American and Japanese Cultural Conflicts in the Nuclear Age, East Gate, 1997.
Ienaga Saburo, Japan’s Past, Japan’s Future, Rowman & Littlefield, 2001.
Available in Japanese as Ichirekisha no ayumi, Iwanami Shoten.
Readings will be from these books and a variety of other sources, including internet sites such as
Japan Focus: http://www.japanfocus.org/
Requirements: 1) Attendance is required; please come prepared and on time! 2) Active participation in discussion sessions is required. (20 percent) Students are expected to demonstrate that they have done the readings by offering reactions, analysis, and thoughtful questions in each of the discussion sessions. 3) Reaction papers: (40 percent) There are 8 discussion sessions. Sample questions for discussion will be handed out one week in advance of each discussion session. All students are required to submit a 1-2 page reaction paper as preparation for the discussion sessions. 4) Final Paper and Oral Presentation. (40 percent) All students are required to complete a 10 page (double spaced, proper citation and formatting) research paper relating to the general topic of “war in contemporary Japan.” The paper is due at the end of the class. It should be based on wide reading of secondary and primary sources. Students may make a joint research project if desired, but each student will be responsible for 10 pages of research and text. Oral presentations of the research project will take place during the last week of classes.
Look here information on the RESEARCH REPORT. You will find a description of the expected format and possible topics. Also included is information regarding the ORAL REPORTS to be given beginning on November 7.
Visit the Yasukuni Shrine. The website will give you instructions on how to get there. Be sure to visit the history museum associated with the shrine, the Yushukan. On October 28, we will have a discussion class based on a visit to history museums in Tokyo, including the Yushukan. For details about this assignment, see Discussion Class 6.
Learning Goals:
1. To identify the major events, persons and ideas of the history of contemporary Japan.
2. To gain an appreciation of primary sources and demonstrate their significance to an understanding of historical problems.
3. To apply critical and analytical skills in dealing with historical problems.
4. To understand the influence of the past on contemporary events and problems.
In addition, this course has some general liberal learning goals. As a result of taking this course, students should be able :
1. To manage information, recognize significance, and synthesize facts, concepts and principles.
2. To understand and use organizing principles or key concepts in the social sciences.
3. To differentiate between facts, opinions and inferences.
4. To frame questions and develop problem solving skills.
5. To organize and communicate ideas clearly and concisely through both written and oral presentations.
Academic Integrity
Students are reminded of the ICU Policy on Academic Integrity which may be found on the W3 internal website (http://w3/webmaster/dean/AcademicIntegrity_e.html)
Schedule of Lectures and Readings
1 (9/9) Introduction: The 60th Anniversary: Read essay by Gavan
McCormack
Remembering the War
2 ( 9/12) Japan in the 1930s: Militarism and Ultranationalism
3 (9/14) Mitaka War Memories and Monuments
Learn about the history of Nakajima Aircraft Company.
Read Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama's address to the National Diet, August 15, 1995 "On the Occasion of the 50th Anniversary of the War's End"
Read Oe Kenzaburo's "Recovering the Right to be Part of Asia," Japan Times, 16 August 1995
Read "Recovering Japan's Wartime Past -- and Ours," New York Times, September 4, 2001
See the List
of Apology Statements made by Japanese government officials
4 (9/16) Discussion Class: 1995: The 50th Anniversary. Read; Morio
Watanabe, "Imagery and War in Japan; 1995," in Perilous
Memories. Students will be required to look at 1995 newspapers and
report on findings.
See Discussion
Class 1 for details on how to prepare for the discussion class.
9/16 Special Lecture: Yoshikuni Igarashi, "Kamikaze: A Mirror of Post-Cold War U.S.-Japan Relations" 12:50 Place to be announced
Professor Igarashi is the author of Bodies of Memory: Narratives of War in Postwar Japanese Culture, 1945-1970, Princeton UP, 2000.
How many people were killed in World War II? The answer is about 50 million. Look here for details on war casualties.
Atrocities
5 (9/19) Holiday
6 (9/21) Nanjing; Japanese Devils -- excerpts from the video
For information on this film, read interview with the director and producer of "Japanese Devils"
See here for an excellent summary of the various controversies (and listing of sites) surround the Nanjing Incident.
Optional
reading; Bob Tadashi Wakabayashi, "The
Nanking 100-Man Killing Contest Debate," in Journal of Japanese
Studies, 26.2 (Summer 2000).
7 (9/23) Holiday. But students are expected to read: Daquin Yang, “The Malleable and the
Contested: the Nanjing Massacre in Postwar China and Japan,” in Perilous Memories, pp. 50-86
Be prepared for brief discussion on the Nanjing Incident on Monday morning,
September 26.
Nothing to do this weekend? Visit the Maruki
Gallery of Hiroshima Murals. A great day trip. Go to Shinrin
Koen Station on the Tobu Tojo line (from Ikeburuko) and rent a bicycle!
Hiroshima
8 (9/26) Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the end of the war
9 (9/28) video: On the Enola Gay Exhibit
An excellent website on the Enola
Gay Controversy at the Smithsonian Institute, 1995.
10 (9/30) Discussion Class: Hein and Selden, “Commemoration and Silencing: Fifty Years of Remembering the Bomb in America and Japan” in Living with the Bomb
See Discussion Class 2 for details on how to prepare for the September 30 Discussion Class.
Optional reading: Yoshikuni Igarashi, "The Bomb,
Hirohito, and History: The
Foundational Narrative of Postwar Relations between Japan and the United
States," in Bodies of Memory, pp. 19-46.
See "Hiroshima Archive" -- an interesting website prepared by the Department of History at Lewis and Clark University.
See "The Avalon Project" for massive collection of primary materials on the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki
See the homepage of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum (See especially its 60th Anniversary Project)
Also interesting is a web-museum on Hiroshima: "A-Bomb WWW Museum"
How was the Pacific War viewed by common people? See this
interesting slide show presentation of Japanese
war time posters.
Read Emperor Hirohito's Surrender Speech. Listen to the speech (gyokuon hoso) [Link is at the bottom of the page]
The Potsdam Declaration listed the terms of surrender. Initially the Japanese side refused these conditions, asking for some assurance about the future of the imperial institution.
The Emperor
11 (10/3) War Responsibility
12 (10/5) video: The Constitution of Japan (John Dower)
13 (10/7) Discussion Class: Herbert Bix, “Inventing the Symbol Monarchy in
Japan” in Journal of Japanese Studies, 21.2
See Discussion Class 3 for details on how to prepare for the October 7 Discussion Class.
For
a basic bibliography of Hirohito:
http://www.time.com/time/asia/asia/magazine/1999/990823/hirohito1.html
On the emperor and war responsibility:
http://www.willamette.edu/~rloftus/mackiewarrespons.html
The Japanese Constitution (1947):
http://www.solon.org/Constitutions/Japan/English/english-Constitution.html#PREFACE
Compare the position of the emperor in the Meiji (1889) Constitution:
http://history.hanover.edu/texts/1889con.html
Trials
14 (10/10) Holiday
15 (10/12) The Tokyo War Crimes Trial
For basic information on the International
Military Tribunal for the Far East.
16 (10/14) Discussion Class: Kim Puja, “Global Civil Society Remakes
History: the Women’s International War Crimes Tribunal 2000,” in positions: east asia cultures critique, 9.3 (see website); see also the section on the Women’s Tribunal in the
VAWW-Net website
For an overview of issues relating to Comfort Women
See Discussion Class 4 for details on how to prepare
for the October 14 Discussion Class.
History and Education
17 (10/17) video: Re-inventing Japan
18 (10/19) Maruyama Masao: Overcoming the Past
19 (10/21) Discussion Class: Ienaga Saburo, Japan’s Past, Japan’s Future,
Rowman and Littlefield, 2001. Read entire book if possible, but at least
the chapters available below.
Chapter 7 "My State of Mind in the Period Immediately after the Defeat"
Chapter 8 "The Beginning of the Reverse Course and the Maturing of my Social Consciousness"
Chapter 9 "To the Filing of the Textbook Lawsuits"
Chapter 10 "The Textbook Trials and the Struggle at Tokyo University of Education"
For general information about the recent history textbook controversy
For the English transaction of the “New History Textbook” and the Japanese original 新しい歴史教科書
See Discussion Class 5 for details on how to prepare for the October 21 Discussion Class
Yasukuni
20 (10/24) How to remember the war dead
21 (10/26) Religion and Politics in Postwar Japan
22 (10/28) Discussion Class: Reactions to field trip to Yasukuni
For basic information on the so-called Yasukuni Problem
See Discussion Class 6 for details on how to prepare
for the October 28 Discussion Class. Involves going to a history museum in
the Tokyo area, including the Yushukan at Yasukuni Shrine.
Okinawa
23 (10/21) No class
24 (11/2) Okinawa in Postwar Japan (Look at the Contemporary
Okinawa website for good background and documentary materials)
25 (11/4) Discussion Class: Ishiharqa Masaie, "Memories of War and
Okinawa," in Perilous Memories, and Norma Field, "Chibana
Shoichi, a
supermarket owner," In the Realm of a Dying Emperor.
See Discussion Class 7 for details on how to prepare
for the November 4 Discussion Class.
Read the daily newspaper for news about Okinawa.
Reports on the 60th Anniversary
See ORAL PRESENTATIONS for details on
how to prepare for these presentations
26 (11/7)
27. (11/9)
28. (11/11)
29. (11/14) Review