[Family Game]
Week 1 - Introduction to the Course: What’s important about family in Japan? And why should we care about writing?
Wednesday, January 4
no reading due
Friday, January 6
Short reflection due
Week 2 - Family vs. Families
Monday, January 9
Writing Workshop #1 - Approaching Writing
Merry White. 2002. Perfectly Japanese: Making Families in an Era of Upheaval. Berkley: University of California Press. Pages 1-98.
Wednesday, January 11
Merry White. 2002. Perfectly Japanese: Making Families in an Era of Upheaval. Berkley: University of California Press. Pages 99-212.
Friday, January 13
No writing due
Week 3 - Theorizing Kinship
Monday, January 16
No class meeting in honor of Martin Luther King day.
Wednesday, January 18
Writing Workshop #2 - Balancing Old and New Information
Sylvia Yanagisako and Carol Delaney. 1995. “Naturalizing Power.” In their Naturalizing Power: Essays in Feminist Cultural Analysis. London: Routledge. Pages: 1-22.
Friday, January 20
No writing due
[Family]
Week 4 - Inventing Families
Monday, January 23
Writing Workshop #3 - Structuring a Thesis Statement
Ueno Chizuko. 2009. “Formation of the Japanese Model of Modern Family.” In her The Modern Family in Japan: Its Rise and Fall. Victoria: TransPacific Press. Pages: 63-88.
Wednesday, January 25
David Chapman and Karl Jakob Krogness. 2014. “The Koseki.” In their Japan's Household Registration System and Citizenship: Koseki, Identification and Documentation. London: Routledge. Pages: 1-18.
Friday, January 27
First paper thesis draft due at 5pm
Week 5
Monday, January 30
No class meeting. Unfortunately, because I am participating in a conference, I have to cancel both class meetings this week.
Wednesday, February 1
No class meeting. Use this time to work on the rough draft due on Friday and work ahead on next week’s readings, which are longer than usual.
Friday, February 3
First paper rough draft due at 12 noon. Please notice the unusual time. This is so I can download all your papers to read on the plane as I fly home.
Week 6 - Marital Disconnections
Monday, February 6
Writing Workshop #4 - Powerful Point Sentences
Walter Edwards. 1990. “Introduction” and “Gender, Person, and Society,” in his Modern Japan through Its Weddings: Gender, Person, and Society in Ritual Portrayal. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Pages: 1-13 and 114-134.
Wednesday, February 8
Shall we ダンス? (Shall We Dance?). 1996. Suo Masayuki, director. 136 minutes.
All films are available streaming on Canvas / Media Gallery.
Friday, February 10
No writing due.
Week 7 - How to Get Divorced
Monday, February 13
Writing Workshop #5 - Reconsidering the Writing Process
Harald Fuess. 2004. “Introduction” in his Divorce in Japan: Family, Gender, and the State 1600-2000. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Pages: 1-17.
Wednesday, February 15
Allison Alexy. unpublished. “Constructing Mutuality.” From her, Divorce and the Romance of Independence in Contemporary Japan.
Friday, February 17
First paper due at 5pm.
[Our Homeland]
Week 8 - Staying Single
Monday, February 20
Writing Workshop #6 - Strong Writing Uses Strong Verbs
Lynne Nakano. 2011. “Working and Waiting for an ‘Appropriate Person’: How Single Women Support and Resist Family in Japan.” In Home and Family in Japan: Continuity and Transformation, edited by Richard Ronald and Allison Alexy. London: Routledge. Pages: 131-151.
Wednesday, February 22
Emma E. Cook. 2014. “Intimate Expectations and Practices: Freeter Relationships and Marriage in Contemporary Japan.” Asian Anthropology 13(1): 1-16.
Friday, February 24
No writing due.
Week 9 - Unlikely Unwed Mothers
Monday, March 6
Writing Workshop #7 - When Repetition Helps Your Reader
Ekaterina Hertog. 2009. Tough Choices: Bearing an Illegitimate Child in Japan. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Pages: 1-76.
Wednesday, March 8
Ekaterina Hertog. 2009. Tough Choices: Bearing an Illegitimate Child in Japan. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Pages: 77-150.
Friday, March 10
Thesis draft for second paper due at 5pm
[Seven Days of a Dad and Daughter]
Week 10 - Children of the Japanese State
Monday, March 13
No Writing Workshop today
Further discussion on: Ekaterina Hertog. 2009. Tough Choices: Bearing an Illegitimate Child in Japan. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Pages: 77-150.
Wednesday, March 15
Kathryn Goldfarb. 2012. “Care and the Politics of Change: Embodied Transformations in the Japanese Child Welfare System.” From Fragile Kinships: Family Ideologies and Child Welfare in Japan. Dissertation in the Department of Anthropology, the University of Chicago. Pages: 49-78.
Kathryn Goldfarb. 2012. “Law, Blood, and the Space of Waiting: Theorizing the Temporality of Attachment in Japanese Child Welfare Placements.” From Fragile Kinships: Family Ideologies and Child Welfare in Japan. Dissertation in the Department of Anthropology, the University of Chicago. Pages: 79-117.
Friday, March 17
Second paper rough draft due at 5pm
Week 11 - Blood Ties
Monday, March 20
そして父になる (Like Father, Like Son). 2013. Koreeda Hirkazu, director. 121 minutes.
All films are available streaming on Canvas / Pages.
Wednesday, March 22
Vera Mackie. 2014. “Birth Registration and the Right to have Rights: The Changing Family and the Unchanging Koseki” In Japan's Household Registration System and Citizenship: Koseki, Identification and Documentation. London: Routledge. Pages: 203-220.
Friday, March 24
Second paper due at 5pm
Week 12 - Queer Families
Monday, March 27
Claire Maree. 2014. “Sexual Citizenship at the Intersections of Patriarchy and Heteronormativity: Same-sex Partnerships and the Koseki.” In Japan's Household Registration System and Citizenship: Koseki, Identification and Documentation. London: Routledge. Pages: 187-202.
Wednesday, March 29
S.P.F. Dale. 2017. “Gender Identity, Desire, and Intimacy: Sexual Scripts and X-Gender.” In Intimate Japan, edited by Allison Alexy and Emma E. Cook.
Friday, March 31
Final paper topic list due at 5pm
Week 13 - Legal and Fictive Families
Monday, April 3
Writing Workshop #10 -
Continue discussion last week’s readings
*optional* Shuuhei Ninomiya. 2014. “The Koseki and Legal Gender Change.” In Japan's Household Registration System and Citizenship: Koseki, Identification and Documentation. London: Routledge. Pages: 169-186.
Wednesday, April 5
東京ゴッドフャーザーズ(Tokyo Godfathers). 2003. Kon Satoshi, director. 92 minutes.
All films are available streaming on Canvas / Pages.
Friday, April 7
No writing due. Use this time to work your rough draft.
Week 14 - Families After Life
Monday, April 10
Writing Workshop #11 - Topic TBD
Satsuki Kawano. 2010. “The Grave-Free Promotion Society” and “Ash Scattering and Family Relations.” In her Nature's Embrace: Japan's Aging Urbanites and New Death Rites. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. Pages: 88-111 and 140-166.
Wednesday, April 12
おくりびと (Departures). 2008. Takita Yōjirō, director. 130 minutes.
Friday, April 14
Final paper rough draft due at 5pm
Week 15 - Final Thoughts and Future Questions
Monday, April 17
No reading due.
Peer comments due at 5pm
Final paper, final draft due Tuesday, April 25 at 5pm uploaded to Canvas.
[Tokyo Family]