JAPN 314 - Japanese Visual Culture and Media |
Fall 2018
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Course 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) Units: 4 Course Files
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Reflective Narrative In JAPN 314, Japanese Visual Culture and Media, we focused our senses on various forms of art culture in Japan. In this course students learned about Japanese culture through its art and media. Topics like traditional ukiyo-e, contemporary anime, and historical pottery were discussed in order to learn about how art can reflect societal images, histories, and ideas. This course clearly fulfills MLO 2, Japanese Culture. Not only did this course introduce new ideas, but it allowed students to revisit and expand upon previous concepts learned in lower division courses like JAPN 205, Cool Japan Today, as well as my study abroad courses. In this class students were asked to write an essay about a chosen topic, for mine I decided to write about Ukiyo-e, a topic that I learned about in JAPN 205. Students were also asked to give Mini Presentations on any topic they wanted as long as it reflected a form of Japanese Culture, some students presented on Latinx culture in Japan, Godzilla, and contemporary movies and games. For my Presentations I was able to dive further into Otsue, a historic style of art founded north of Kyoto, and the importance of pottery during the Jomon Period. From our classwork and projects, it became apparent that you can never be done learning about a topic, as there is an unlimited number of ways to analyze and discuss any given topic. With the help of our peers and professor art has become a topic of interest for myself, and I hope to continue to learn about Japan's and other countries’ visual culture. |