AST 112 CRN 2008 Women in Contemporary Japan (SOC / WST)
Instructor: Jill Bouma
Prerequisite: None
Meeting Time: 10 a.m. to 12 noon MTWRF
Location: 216 Frost Building
Enrollment Limit: 20
Approved to Meet the Following General Education Requirement(s): African Americans’, Appalachians’, and Women’s Perspective and a World Culture (Non-Western) component of the International Perspective
This course offers an introduction to contemporary Japan through the eyes of Japanese women. From “good wives and wise mothers” to mogas, images of 20th-century Japanese women have varied greatly across the continuums of power, rights, and responsibilities. This course will explore how women’s roles and opportunities have changed as part of the larger historical changes in Japan. Drawing on novels, biographies, ethnographies, documentaries, and contemporary films, the course will examine some of the changes, conflicts, and triumphs of both ordinary and extraordinary women in recent Japanese history. Moving chronologically across individual women’s accounts, we will examine how the broader socio-economic context impinges on women’s lives in roles as various as peasant farmer, geisha, birth-control activist, politician, and wife and mother. With a focus on both changes and continuities in Japan, this course also will explore various elements of Japanese culture, including music, art, literature, and food.
SOC 112 CRN 20078
WST 112 CRN 20081
AST 129 CRN 20060 Yijing: Book Of Changes (REL)
Instructor: Jeffrey Richey
Prerequisite: GSTR 100 or GSTR 110
Meeting Time: 10 a.m. to 12 noon MTWRF
Location: 100 Draper Building
Enrollment Limit: 20
Approved to Meet the Following General Education Requirement(s): a World Culture (Non-Western) component of the International Perspective
“The way of the Changes is broad and great. It encompasses everything.”
So goes the traditional Chinese description of the Yijing (a.k.a. I Ching) or “Book of Changes,” China’s oldest manual of divination, which changed over time into a classic of spiritual wisdom. Confucius is said to have worn out three copies of the Yijing through frequent use, and virtually every East Asian thinker after him has consulted, contemplated, and commented upon the text. Since the nineteenth century, Westerners also have opened themselves to its influence. Through study of the Yijing and the myriad traditions of interpretation that surround it, we will gain a broad understanding of the foundations and patterns of East Asian thought, as well as an appreciation of how the text has influenced Western thinkers.
REL 129 CRN 20059