Syllabus

[Our Homeland (かぞくのくに) was unfortunately not released with English subtitles]


WEEK 1

Wednesday, January 20 - Introduction
No reading due

Friday, January 22
Please complete this introductory survey by midnight.



WEEK 2

Monday, January 25 - Kinship
Merry Isaacs White. 2003. "Why Families Are a National Security Issue." In her Perfectly Japanese: Making Families in an Age of Upheaval. Berkeley: University of California Press. Pages: 19-41.

Wednesday, January 27 - The Ie System
Richard Ronald and Allison Alexy. 2011. "Continuity and Change in Japanese Homes and Families." In their Home and Family in Japan: Continuity and Transformation. London: Routledge. Pages: 1-23.



WEEK 3

Monday, February 1 - Control That's Hard to See
Sylvia Yanagisako and Carol Delaney. 1995. “Naturalizing Power.” In their Naturalizing Power: Essays in Feminist Cultural Analysis. London: Routledge. Pages: 1-22.

Wednesday, February 3 - Inventing the Family
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.



WEEK 4

Monday, February 8 - Records
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.

Wednesday, February 10 - Mistakes
Like Father, Like Son (そして父になる, Soshite chichi ni naru). 2013. Kore-eda Hirozaku, dir. 120 minutes. Films are available on Canvas.



WEEK 5

Monday, February 15 - Changing Norms
Linda White. 2018. "Preface" and "Separate-surname Activism." In her Gender and the Koseki In Contemporary Japan: Surname, Power, and Privilege. London: Routledge. Pages: ix-xiv and 31-46.

Wednesday, February 17 - Activism
Of Love and Law. 2017. Hikaru Toda, dir. 94 min. Films are available on Canvas.

Friday, February 19
First Thoughts are due


WEEK 6

Monday, February 22 and Wednesday, February 24
No class meetings, no reading due. I'm pretending we have a real spring break.



WEEK 7

Monday, March 1 - Single Mothers
Ekaterina Hertog. 2009. Tough Choices: Bearing an Illegitimate Child in Japan. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Pages: 1-76.

Wednesday, March 3 - Stigma
Ekaterina Hertog. 2009. Tough Choices: Bearing an Illegitimate Child in Japan. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Pages: 77-150.

Friday, March 5
Work Plan is due



WEEK 8

Monday, March 8 - Single Fathers
Gido Amagakure. 2016 [2013]. Sweetness and Lightning (甘々と稲妻, Amaama to Inazuma). Translated by: Adam Lensenmayer.

Wednesday, March 10 - Masculinity
Lindsay Nelson. 2020. "'That’s Not Very Manly': Debating Japanese Masculinities on Terrace House." Japanese Studies: 1-17.
This article discusses Season 4, Episode 4 of Terrace House, "The Reason She Cried," available on Netflix.



WEEK 9

Monday, March 15 - Family Tensions
Allison Alexy. 2020. Intimate Disconnections: Divorce and the Romance of Independence in Contemporary Japan. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Introduction through Chapter 2, pages: 1-83.

Wednesday, March 17 - Custody
Allison Alexy. 2020. Intimate Disconnections: Divorce and the Romance of Independence in Contemporary Japan. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Chapter 3 through Chapter 4, pages: 85-133.



WEEK 10

Monday, March 22 - Disconnections
Our Little Sister (海街diary, Umimachi Diary). 2015. Kore-eda Hirakazu, dir. 126 minutes. Films are available on Canvas.

Wednesday, March 24 - Poverty
Allison Alexy. 2020. Intimate Disconnections: Divorce and the Romance of Independence in Contemporary Japan. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Chapter 5 through Conclusion, pages: 135-176.



WEEK 11

Monday, March 29 - Institutional Care
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.

Wednesday, March 31 - Rights
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.



WEEK 12

Monday, April 5 - Categories and their Discontents
S.P.F. Dale. 2019. “Gender Identity, Desire, and Intimacy: Sexual Scripts and X-Gender.” In Intimate Japan: Ethnographies of Closeness and Conflict, edited by Allison Alexy and Emma E. Cook. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press. Pages: 164-180.

Wednesday, April 7 - Found Families
東京ゴッドフャーザーズ(Tokyo Godfathers). 2003. Kon Satoshi, director. 92 minutes. Films are available on Canvas.

Friday, April 9
Rough Draft is due



WEEK 13

Monday, April 12 - Belonging
Haafu. 2013. Megumi Nishikura & Lara Perez Takagi, dir. 93 minutes. Films are available on Canvas.

Wednesday, April 14 - Endings
Tagame Gengorō. 2017 [2015]. My Brother's Husband. Anne Ishii, translator. Part 1 and Part 2.
(This might seem like a lot of pages, but it's a manga and it goes pretty quickly.)

Friday, April 16
Peer Comments are due


WEEK 14

Monday, April 19
Reflection on our Work and Questions for the Future
No reading due



Wednesday, April 28 - Final project due