HU Credits: 2

Degree/Cycle: 2nd degree (Master)

Responsible Department: asian studies

Semester: 2nd Semester

Teaching Languages: Hebrew

Campus: Mt. Scopus

Course/Module Coordinator: Dr. Helena Grinshpun

Coordinator Email: helena.grinshpun@mail.huji.ac.il

Coordinator Office Hours:

Teaching Staff:
Dr. Helena Grinshpun

Course/Module description:
The course will focus on social and cultural issues related to gender, consumption, and identity in contemporary Japan. In order to explore the links between these, we will focus on two domains: the private sphere of the family and the public sphere of consumption.

Course/Module aims:
The aim of the course is to provide an anthropological perspective on the issues of gender and their expressions in the private and public spheres in contemporary Japan.

Learning outcomes - On successful completion of this module, students should be able to:
The students will learn on the less familiar aspects of Japanese society and obtain new perspectives on the norms and values which shape the social and cultural expressions of gender relations.

Attendance requirements(%):
100

Teaching arrangement and method of instruction: Each class consists of an introductory lecture by the teacher, followed by discussion based on the relevantEach student is required to give an oral presentation on the topic that she/he chooses for the final paper.

Course/Module Content:
1. The anthropological research on Japan: trends and controversies
2. Consumption and identity - theoretical overview
3. Women in the private sphere: the ideal of "Good Wife, Wise MOther", motherhood and labor division in the family; body, food, and gender
4. Women in the public sphere: public policy, social participation, employment, media and language, consumption practices, women as a social "other"
5. Men and masculinity

Required Reading:
Takami Kuwayama (2004), "Representations of Japan in American Anthropology Textbooks", in Native Anthropology, pp. 115-146

Eric Arnould and Craig Thompson (2005), "Consumer Culture Theory (CCT): Twenty Years of Research", Journal of Consumer Research, vol. 31, pp. 868-882

Antoine Hennion (2007), "Those Things That Hold Us Together: Taste and Sociology", Cultural Sociology, vol. 1:1, pp. 97-114

Robert Smith (1981), "Japanese Village Women- Suye Mura", Journal of Japanese Studies, vol. 7, pp. 259-284

Tomoko Yoda (2000), "The Rise and Fall of Maternal Society", The South Atlantic Quaterly, vol. 99, pp. 865-902

Katline Uno (1993), "Death of Good Wife Wise Mother?", Postwar Japan as history, pp. 293-324

Susan Holloway (2010), "What is a Wise Mother?", Women and Family in Contemporary Japan, pp. 38-71

Ofra Goldstein-Gidoni (2012), "The New Happy Housewife of Post-bubble Japan, Housewives of Japan", pp. 147-184

Katarzyna Cwiertka (2006), "Reforming Home Meals", Modern Japanese Cuisine: Food, Power, and National Identity, pp. 87-115

Klara Seddon (2012), "Bento blogs: Japanese Women's Expression in Digital Food Culture", Women & Performance: A Journal of Feminist Theory, vol. 21:3, pp. 301-319

Aiko Kojima (2011), "Responsibility or Right to Eat Well: The Food Education Campaign in Japan”, Japan SJEAA, pp. 48-63

Sally Hastings (2011), "A Dinner Party is Not a Revolution", in Manners and Mischief, pp. 95-109

Sheldon Garon (2000), Luxury is the Enemy: Mobilizing Savings and Popularizing Thrift in Wartime Japan", Journal of Japanese Studies, vol. 26:1, pp. 41-78

Andrew Gordon (2007), "Consumption, Leisure and the Middle Class in Transwar Japan", in Social Science Japan Journal, pp. 1-21

Keiron Bailey (2007), "Akogare, Ideology, and ‘Charisma Man’ Mythology: Reflections on Ethnographic Research in English Language Schools in Japan", Gender, Place & Culture: A Journal of Feminist Geography, vol. 14:5, 585-608

Miyako Inoue (2002), "Gender, Language, and Modernity", in American Ethnologist, vol. 29, pp. 392-422

Akiko Uchiyama (2014), "Akage no An in Japanese Girl Culture: Muraoka Hanako's
translation of Anne of Green Gables", Japan Forum, vol. 26:2, pp. 209-223

Hiroko Storm (1992), "Women in Japanese Proverbs", in Asian Folklore Studies, vol. 51:2, pp. 167-182.

Barbara Hartley (2008), "Performing the Nation: Magazine Images of Women and Girls in the Illustrations of Takabatake Kashō, 1925–1937”, Intersections: Gender and Sexuality in Asia and the Pacific, Issue 16.

Brian Moeran (1995), "Reading Japanese in Katei Gaho: The Art of Being an Upperclass Woman", in Women Media and Consumption in Japan, pp. 111-142

Ulrike Wohr (1999), "Discourses on Media and Modernity: Criticism of Japanese Women's Magazines in the 1920s and Early 1930s", in Gender and Modernity: Re-reading Japanese Women's Magazines, pp. 15-37

Uma Rani (2006), "Economic Growth, Labour Markets and Gender in Japan", Economic and Political Weekly, vol. 41:1, pp. 4369-4377

Lynne Nakano (2000), "Volunteering as a Lifestyle Choice: Negotiating Self-Identities in Japan", Ethnology, vol. 39, pp. 93-107


Elizabeth Harrison and Igeta Midori (1995), "Women's Responses to Child Loss in Japan: The Case of "Mizuko Kuyō", Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, vol. 11:2, pp. 67-100.

Jan Bardsley and Hiroko Hirakawa (2005), "Branded: Bad Girls Go Shopping", in Bad Girls of Japan, pp. 111-127

Millie Creighton (1994), "Edutaining" Children: Consumer and Gender Socialization in Japanese Marketing", in Ethnology, vol. 33:1, pp. 35-52

Vera Mackie (2014), "Science, Society and the Sea of Fertility: New reproductive technologies in Japanese popular culture", Japan Forum, vol. 26:4, pp. 441-461

Amanda Seaman (2011), "Making and Marketing Mothers", in Manners and Mischief, pp. 156-177

Kathleen Pike and Amy Borovoy (2004), "The Rise of Eating Disorders in Japan: Issues of Culture", Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry, vol. 28, pp. 493–531

Laura Spiegelvogel (2010), "Selfishly Skinny or Selflessly Starving", in Working out in Japan, pp. 174-205.

Emiko Taniguchi & Hye Eun Lee (2012), “Cross-Cultural Differences between Japanese and American Female College Students in the Effects of Witnessing Fat Talk on Facebook”, Journal of Intercultural Communication Research, vol. 41:3, pp. 260-278

Ian Bardsley (2012), "The New Woman Meets the Geisha: The Politics of Pleasure in 1910's Japan," Intersections: Gender and Sexuality in Asia and the Pacific,
Issue 29.

Elise Tipton (2002), "Pink Collar Work: The Café Waitress in Early Twentieth Century Japan", Intersections: Gender, History and Culture in the Asian Context,
Issue 7.

Elise Tipton (2005), "Sex in the City: Chastity vs. free love in interwar Japan", Intersections: Gender, History and Culture in the Asian Context, Issue 11

Karen Kelsky (1999), "Gender, Modernity, and Eroticized Internationalism in Japan", Cultural Anthropology, vol. 14:2, pp. 229-255

Kaoru Aoyama (2015), "The Sex Industry in Japan: The Danger of Invisibility", Routledge Handbook of Sexuality Studies in East Asia, pp. 281-194

Ofra Goldstein-Gidoni (1999), "Kimono and the Construction of Gendered and Cultural Identities", Ethnology, vol. 38, pp. 351-370

Mikiko Ashikari (2003), "Urban Middle-Class Japanese Women and Their White Faces: Gender, Ideology, and Representation", in Ethos vol. 31:1, pp. 3-37

David Leheny (2006), "Whatever It Is, It's Bad, So Stop It", in Think Global, Fear Local: Sex, Violence and Anxiety in Contemporary Japan, pp. 49-84

Miriam Silverber (2003), “The Modern Girl as Militant” in Erotic Grotesque Nonsense: The Mass Culture of Japanese Modern Times, pp. 51-72

Romit Dasgupta (2010), "Globalization and the Bodily Performance of "Cool" and "Un-cool" Masculinities in Corporate Japan, Intersections: Gender and Sexuality in Asia and the Pacific, Issue 23.

Yumiko Iida (2005), "Beyond the ‘Feminization of Masculinity’: Transforming
Patriarchy with the ‘feminine’ in contemporary Japanese youth culture", Inter-Asia Cultural Studies, vol. 6:1, 56-74

Emma Cook (2013), "Expectations of Failure: Maturity and Masculinity for Freeters in Contemporary Japan", Social Science Japan Journal, vol. 16:1, pp 29–43.

Kenichi Kumagai (2012), "Herbivorous Boy, Otaku, or Petit-Nationalist? Floating Japanese Men, Masculinity and National Integrity", Cool New Asia, pp. 71-82

Additional Reading Material:
The syllabi represents a "pool" of reading material from which reading assignments will be chosen.

Course/Module evaluation:
End of year written/oral examination 0 %
Presentation 10 %
Participation in Tutorials 10 %
Project work 80 %
Assignments 0 %
Reports 0 %
Research project 0 %
Quizzes 0 %
Other 0 %

Additional information: