Teaching Japan: A Handbook

Abstract

This book aims to offer ideas and examples of pedagogy in the undergraduate classroom. The basic premise taken by the authors begins with a question: What if stereotypes surrounding Japan were not pushed to the margins in teaching but took center stage and were exposed for the multiple ways that they can be used to learn not only about “Japan” but of various scholarly disciplines? The task then becomes constructing ways to challenge essentialist notions that do not seek merely to deny, but to shift the conversation constructively by encouraging engagement with a theoretical field from which to acquire tools to critically and effectively evaluate stereotypes of Japan or other societies. The result is a collection of carefully crafted case studies of syllabi that showcase pedagogies aimed at the deconstruction of concepts such as “Japan,” “Japanese,” or “Japanese society” while at the same time offering skills of inquiry that transcend the topics being deconstructed. This handbook is a source of ideas from colleagues in a variety of disciplinary and institutional settings, who are tackling the same issues current or future teachers who plan to use case studies from Japan in their lectures.