College Seminar - European History (101-7-20)

Topic

Inventing the Samurai

Instructors

Amy Beth Stanley
8474676722
Harris Hall - Room 203

Meeting Info

Shepard Hall B08/B09: Tues, Thurs 11:00AM - 12:20PM

Overview of class

If I say the word "samurai," you probably get an image of a fierce warrior communing with his sword. That tends to be our contemporary image, reinforced by Hollywood movies, video games, and manga. But the samurai have appeared in all kinds of guises, from the gentle, teary-eyed flute-player to the bored, bloated bureaucrat to the savage, xenophobic zealot. This course is about how the history of the samurai has been written and represented in Japan and the United States. We will start with the first attempts to record the history of Japanese warfare and end with movies, prestige tv, and manga. This is a class about samurai, but in the broadest sense, our academic objective is to explain how and why the representation of history has changed over time and space.

Learning Objectives

1) To become familiar with college life and the academic opportunities and forms of support that are available to students 2) To be able to explain how and why the representation of Japan's history as changed over time and space 3) to critically evaluate the myth of the samurai and assess its changing social and political valences

Evaluation Method

Response papers, final paper

Class Attributes

WCAS College Seminar