Postwar Politics of Peace and War
Admission requirements
This course is only accessible for BA Japanstudies students. Students must have successfully completed all courses from BA1 (propedeuse), 10 EC in BA2 seminars and the course Texts IIb.
Admission to a cluster seminar happens only through application via the head of the programme board or coordinator of studies.
Description
Content component:
Post war Japanese international relations have been mired in contradictions. While identifying itself as “the only victim of the atomic bomb,” it secures itself under the U.S. nuclear umbrella, thereby indirectly threatening any potential attackers with the promise of retaliation by nuclear strike. The emphasis on victimhood in turn effaces the existence of Japan’s “Other” who suffered under the Japanese imperial endeavors—which manifests as the persistence of Japan’s history problem. The pacifism enshrined in Article 9 of the post war constitution is operationalized by stationing more than seventy percent of U.S. troops in the prefecture of Okinawa against the Okinawan democratic will. Post war Japanese “peace” has been possible because of the violent peace maintained by U.S. global military security apparatus. In this seminar we examine several Japanese thinkers beyond the disciplinary expertise of International Relations who have grappled with the contradictions. Literary critics such as Jun Eto, Norihiro Kato, and theorists such as Masachi Osawa have illuminated the ways in which the shadow of America (“Amerika no kage”) delimits the domain of the political. This in turn have raised the question: how is normative thinking implicitly assuming strong state agency—which many in Japan consider as lacking relative to that of the United States? How do alliance politics and existence under Pax Americana blur the line between “war there and peace here”? As a combination of content and language component students are asked to critically engage with academic texts on how post war Japanese thinkers have theorized the relation between war and peace.
Language component:
At this stage of the curriculum, we will take the next step from reading, translating and understanding short newspaper texts (2 to 5 pages), as was practiced in the BA2 year, to developing skills in cursory and comprehensive reading of longer, academic texts (depending on the topic, between 6 and 15 pages). The three main goals will be to learn to determine and to analyze the author’s aim, argumentation and conclusion of his/her academic essay, to write a short, academic report of this analysis, and to add your own comments to this. The topics of the texts will connect to or even match the topics of the content component as much as possible.
Course objectives
Content component:
- To be able to identify the broader academic discourse within which “Japan” is used as a case to support or challenge the preexisting paradigms (i.e., on the relation between peace, force, and stability).
- To further critical reading skills and writing skills through the written assignments.
- To enhance oral presentation skills by leading one seminar with a clear articulation of the context and stake in examining a particular text of the student’s choosing.
Language component:
- To develop skills in how to approach texts that are too long and difficult to read and translate them line by line.
- To develop skills in cursory reading which in effect means that you will learn to distinguish those parts of a text that require close reading versus those parts of a text that can be skipped without the risk of losing control over the text.
- To develop skills in applying academic conventions and using relevant instruments required for the understanding of Japanese academic texts
Timetable
The timetables are available through My Timetable.
Mode of instruction
Seminar
Assessment method
Assessment
Participation (minimum attendance of 70%): 10% for both language and content seminars.
Webposts/seminar leading exercise (text component): 30%
seminar leading exercise (content component): 30%
Essay (2000words): 30%
Weighing
The final grade for the course is established by determination of the weighted average.
To receive a passing grade, you have to obtain a passing grade for all components.
Resit
There is no resit for the participation element:
If you miss more than 30% of sessions, you cannot successfully finish this seminar.
Students have to write and post at least 4 webposts for the content component of the course.
Everyone will receive feedback on their seminar leading exercise, but students do not have an opportunity to redo their seminar leading exercise. Instead, students are expected to use this feedback to improve their research and incorporate it into their essay.
The resit for the essay takes the format of a first draft and final version. After submitting a draft for the first deadline, you will receive feedback and may always rewrite your draft for a final version. This rewritten version counts as the resit for the final paper.
Inspection and feedback
How and when an exam review will take place will be disclosed together with the publication of the exam results at the latest. If a student requests a review within 30 days after publication of the exam results, an exam review will have to be organized.
Reading list
Content component:
Readings will be provided later on the syllabus. There is no set textbook for this course.
Language component:
Readings and supporting documents and instructions will be provided on Brightspace.
Registration
Enrolment through MyStudyMap is mandatory.
General information about course and exam enrolment is available on the website
Contact
For substantive questions, contact the lecturer listed in the right information bar.
For questions about enrolment, admission, etc, contact the Education Administration Office: Vrieshof
Remarks
Not applicable.