Arts and Ideas 310: Japanese Culture and Artistic Creation
Location: 035 Karpen Hall
Instructor: Christopher Daniels
E-mail: cdaniels@unca.edu
Required Texts:
Wabi Sabi for Artists, Designers, Poets & Philosophers, Leonard Koren
Manga! Manga! The World of Japanese Comics, Frederick L. Schodt
Underground, Haruki Murakami
The Woman in the Dunes, Kobo Abe
Our class Wiki: outsiderjapan.pbwiki.com
Movies:
Yojimbo, Akira Kurosawa
We will hopefully be showing a spate of Japanese films outside of class time, and attendance will be encouraged but optional.
Music:
Please bring a blank CD-R at some point before the music unit, as I will record a CD’s worth of Japanese music that we will discuss.
Course Objective:
The goal of this class is to examine art’s function to expose and reconcile an individual’s relationship to society. Most art is heavily concerned with this theme, and a favorite vehicle of writers, filmmakers, and musicians to express this is the conflict between the outsider and the insider.
In particular, we will look at how artists use this notion of the outsider in their art: through characters, themes, symbols, methods, and even the artist’s own persona. We are going to examine these ideas in the culture of Japan because of the way it has absorbed, reconfigured, and retransmitted the archetypes and themes of our own culture. We will also, naturally, examine our own methods of employing the outsider in art as well as our reactions to Japan’s reactions to our reactions, ad infinitum…
We will begin by looking at a traditional Japanese aesthetic (wabi-sabi), and then take a look at Modern (i.e. 20th and 21st century) Japanese artists in literature, film, visual art, and music to see how they attempt to solve the problem of belonging to the group while staying outside of the mainstream.
Student Learning Outcomes:
Arts and Ideas 310 Student Learning Outcomes -
- Students can articulate the value of the arts studied and their impact on the self and others.
- Students can recognize cultural, historical, spiritual, and/or political aspects of the arts studied.
- Students can define and articulate the concepts, methods, and organizing principles of the arts studied.
Diversity Intensive Student Learning Outcomes –
1. Students understand the socially constructed nature of identities.
2. Students understand the significance of individuals’ differing relationships to power.
3. Students understand how individuals, organizations, and institutions create, perpetuate, or challenge inequality.
4. Students understand how multiple identities intersect.
5. Students are better equipped to reevaluate their ideas about diversity and difference.
Attendance and Participation:
A major part of your grade is going to be based on participation – this means that you should be in class, you should prepare by reading the assigned texts, and you should speak up and offer your opinions in class. You are allowed three unexcused absences in a one-semester class, and every subsequent unexcused absence will result in a drop of half a letter grade.
Projects:
You will have three projects due in the course of the semester.
1. A short paper (3-5 pages)
2. A work of art – the format is up to you
3. Constructing a page on the class wiki
There are three due dates for the projects, but you will have a choice between the different media for each due date. However, you may only do each option ONCE! When you do options 2 or 3 you must also do a short presentation in front of the class: 5-10 minutes for the work of art, 10-15 minutes for the Wiki page. Each project has 3 days reserved for presentations.
Grades:
The breakdown of grades is as follows:
3 projects = 75%
Attendance/Participation/Small Assignments = 25%
Schedule:
January
11 Snow Day
13 Introduction Intro to the course; First Impressions of Japan; Historical Grounding
18 Wabi Sabi Part 1: Historical and other considerations (pp. 7-39)22 Wabi Sabi
20 Wabi Sabi Part 2: The Wabi-Sabi Universe (pp. 40-72)
25 Manga! Manga! Chapter 1: A Thousand Million Manga and 2: A Thousand Years of Manga; Also read comics in back of book.
27 Manga! Manga! Chapter 3: The Spirit of Japan, 4: Flowers and Dreams
February
01 Manga! Manga! Chapter 5: The Economic Animal at Work and Play and 6: Regulation vs. Fantasy
03 Project #1 Due
08 Project #1 Due
10 Project #1 Due
15 Kurosawa Introduction
17 Yojimbo Screening
22 Yojimbo Screening
24 Yojimbo Screening
March
01 Woman in the Dunes pp. 1-83
03 Woman in the Dunes pp. 84-160
08 Spring Break
10 Spring Break
15 Woman in the Dunes pp 160-end
17 Project #2 Due
22 Project #2 Due
24 Project #2 Due
29 Underground Preface, Chiyoda Line Intro, Kiyoka Izumi (12-18), Toshiaki Toyoda (30-39), Mitsuteru Izutsu (45-53), Marunouchi Line Intro (59-62), Kenji Ohashi (66-73), Sumio Nishimura (78-83), Koichi Sakata (84-86), Dr. Nobuo Yanagisawa (220-223)
31 Underground The Place That Was Promised, Hiroyuki Kano (251-264), Akio Namimura (265-276), Hajime Masutai (292-303), Miyuki Kanda (304-316), Harumi Iwakura (333-345)
April
05 Superflat Materials to be distributed in Class
07 Music Materials to be distributed in Class
12 Wrap Up/Final Comments
14 Project #3 Due
19 Project #3 Due
21 Project #3 Due
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