Modern Japanese History In The Atomic Age

Students will study the history of Japan in this course designed around the theme of the 'atomic age.' This course does not take the dropping of the atomic bombs as a starting point to convey a typical postwar history. Rather, the seminar inter-relates contemporary issues emergent of the recent nuclear disaster in Fukushima to comb through the development of Japanese nationhood and identity over the span of nearly two centuries. Questions and issues such as resource acquisition, energy production, scientific development, wartime, US occupation, politics, education, popular culture, social movements, food production, manufacturing and economic power, medicine, leisure, and sustainability are all issues pertinent to an understanding of Japan that the rupture of Fukushima currently places in new light. Given this, the seminar brings students into an active engagement with the study of historiography, and students will actively engage in the writing of a history-in-process. HH2015 or equivalent required.