Continued introduction to the basic spoken patterns of contemporary Japanese.

Contemporary spoken and written Japanese.

Continued readings in varied modern texts and advanced conversation and oral comprehension.

Introduction to business Japanese including business etiquette, terminology, and e-mail discourse. Emphasis on cross-cultural concepts and practices needed for successful interaction within business settings. Taught in English.

There are a number of overly stereotypical gendered and sexualized images of Japanese in the United States. Consider, for instance, the continued dominance of the icons of Japan, the Samurai and Geisha. An examination of the wide variety of representations of femininity and masculinity and gender and sexual identities in Japan, however, offers us a fruitful opportunity to expand and challenge even our most inclusive ideas of gender and sexuality. The title of this course derives from a feminist, theoretical work by Judith Butler, Gender Trouble. Putting a critical lens to fiction, film, drama, art, and legal documents, we will trouble (complicate and deconstruct) received notions of gender and sexuality in a number of fundamental ways.

Explores the representations of samurai across media from the medieval period to the present day. We will study medieval warrior tales, classics of noh drama, masterpieces of 20th-century film, such as Kurosawa's Seven Samurai, and contemporary video games to examine how the figure of the samurai has shifted in response to socio-political changes. Taught in English.

An introduction to puppetry as a global art form, exploring techniques and styles from around the world. Students will learn basic principles of design and construction in the traditions studied. They will apply what they have learned in making puppets, composing scripts, and creating short performances. This course has a hybrid seminar and lab format. In the seminar hours, students will study puppetry traditions. Lab hours entail hands on construction of puppets.

Study of declassified documents and commentary on the United States decision to use the bomb in 1945, the many ways Japanese writers have attempted to express their indescribable experiences in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the shaping of historical narratives and national identities in post-war Japan and the U.S. Taught in English.

Explores the impact of censorship on discourse using materials from the UMD Libraries' Gordon W. Prange Collection (https://www.lib.umd.edu/collections/special/japan), an archive of Japanese publications issued in the first four years of the Occupation of Japan (1945-1949). Students will learn to analyze a variety of Japanese language texts, leveraging modern AI tools to facilitate their work. Final presentations will focus on items such as children's books, manga, magazines, and posters. Taught in English.