KANSAI GAIDAI UNIVERSITY

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“newcomer” foreigner communities. Throughout the semester, students can expect to increase their awareness of the rich, but often hidden diversity of Japanese society while exploring the ways minority groups come into existence, face marginalization, make claims for belonging and negotiate identity and social belonging.Gender and Sexuality in Japan: Norms, Practice and Selves in MotionWith a focus on gender as cultural belief, as a social structur-ing mechanism and a source of social inequality in Japan, students in this course will investigate the values and behavior-al expectations associated with “femininity” and “masculini-ty,” and how gender interacts with other spheres of life. Topics to be covered include historical changes in gender roles; gender, family and work; state policy, gender ideology and the gendered division of labor; the Japanese women’s movement; and gender and sexuality, including recent widespread and highly visible public discussions involving the "LGBT" model of understanding gender and sexual diversity, marginalization and recognition.Popular Culture as Social Practice: Fandoms, Subcultures and the Rest of UsHow do the products of popular culture (objects, images, discourses, categories) impact social life in Japan? While introducing key concepts in the study of popular culture and society, this course focuses on specific fandoms, subcultures or social categories constructed around consumption practices such as otaku, dōjinshi writers, J-rappers, gyaru, visual-kei fans and the legendary devotees of the Takarazuka Revue. Central themes running throughout the course include fan labor in participatory popular culture, including creative “play” in the fields of gender and sexuality; popular culture consumption and constructions of “deviance;” and identity work undertaken through investments in popular culture participation.Sexuality and Culture in Japan: Shifting Dimen-sions of Desire, Relationship and SocietyOur erotic lives are profoundly shaped by history, social beliefs and institutional practices. In Japan today, sexuality is a dynamic and contested field. Topics for exploration in this course include changing aspects of mating, romance and marriage; sex education in Japanese schools and recent contro-versies over sex education policy and practice; conjugal sexual relations, contraceptive practice, and abortion; international romance and marriage; the exploitation and commodification of sexual and emotional relations; mizu shōbai (the after-dark "water trades") and eroticized servicing by hostesses and hosts; sexualized images in popular culture; and minority sexual and gender identities and practices and impacts of the imported cultural model of "LGBT."Japan and Globalization: A Cultural Approach In today’s world, it is widely held that global-scale culture supersedes governments and political boundaries; economy is paramount. The new buzzword to explain this phenomenon is “globalization.” But what does this supposedly new concept really entail? Globalization is about movement and interaction: people, culture, technology, goods and services, money, religion and ideologies are moving through porous borders causing imme-diate and intense contact. This cultural contact affects everyone in the global village albeit in vastly different ways. Where does Japan and Japanese culture fit within globalization? Deaf World Japan: The Struggle of Disability, Iden-tity and LanguageThis course is an ethnographic examination of deaf culture in Japan and Japanese Sign Language. While the focus will be on deaf people and their language, it will be in the broader context of contemporary Japan. Deaf people will be compared/contrasted with other so-called disabled people and other minorities in Japan in terms of discrimination issues and political movements. Cross-cultural comparisons of deaf people in the United States, Bali and other places will also be considered. The Geisha - Evolution and Role in Contemporary JapanModels to Picasso and Rodin, entertainers to royalty, yet the Geisha have often been misinterpreted outside Japan and have shaped stereotypes about Japanese women. Closed in secrecy, not many outsiders have access to this world which has it's own rules and etiquette with very little documentation. This course examines the primary role of the Geisha in Japan as an artist and an entertainer encompassing a variety of important social, cultural, and historical elements and attempts to correctly place these artists in Japanese culture, and in a traditional world which runs parallel and yet is completely different than the modern Japanese world of manga, anime, and robots.26