ASCE V2361

300 word response post every week. One Midterm, One Final. One lovely 8-10 page paper on a piece of Japanese art from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. One easy Map of Japan quiz.

Fair midterm Weekly postings + recitations 8-10 final paper Fair final

There were three assignments and discussion posts and participation. Both assignments 2 and 3 had the worst instructions. They just had one paragraph of instruction of what to do. I've had better instructions before in other classes. Grading was also very harsh for this class despite it being 1000 level. Weird policies for assignments that say you can use different tools but then they grade harsh on that.

Moderate reading. The two textbooks aren't bad. You should read them, even if your TA doesn't discuss them (as mine didn't). The other readings are very interesting--mainly primary sources. We had to post a weekly two- or three-paragraph reaction to the readings before the discussion section. My group took this fairly seriously and it worked out pretty well. Midterm and final, plus two papers on topics of your choice.

The course unfortunately falls into all the stereotypes of a Columbia humanities course. If I could break down the proportion of time spent on learning different aspects of Japanese History it would be - 50% Gender and Sexuality, 30% Art and Mythology, 20% Politics and Economics. The readings are sometimes pretty good, but the lectures are all monolithic in their focus on gender relations and art. If you want to learn about wars, leaders, economic relations, and other things generally expected from a history course, don't take this one. If what you care about in Japanese culture is art, poetry, and the role of women, then it's for you. Professor Pflugfelder is an excellent professor and is very knowledgeable in the fields that the class focuses on. However, the lectures rarely include elements of political or military history as that aspect of the class is relegated to readings from a rather dry textbook.

Ok, this is going to be one of those awkward reviews you often see around here. Why awkward? Well, you'll soon find out. I took Japan Civ. because of my personal interest while it did not fullfil any of my core requirements (I completed these before). I am mentioning this fact in order to illustrate that I do not have any possible bias regarding the class. The class material was really interesting while professor Brandt often focused on cultural aspects of Japan side by side its general history. We were assigned with interesting literature books, individual accounts, and even with a movie. I found the lectures particularly effective and interesting and soon found out that attending these lectures is a must (especially since there are many students who refused to share their class notes). So what went wrong with this class? Well, here comes the awkward part. After two years at Columbia this is the first time that I disliked a class because of my TA. During the last two years I worked with TAs in various (sometimes similar) classes, such as China Civ and Roman Empire. Our class TA, Andre, absolutely and undoubtedly made this class less enjoyable. He forced people to talk in recitations, constantly mentioning that some of us have already used our one-time-chance not to post weekly responses. Andre even gave us his own recitation syllabus emphasizing that we were not allowed to mi…

I expected typical global core class content with a discussion section and weekly readings. Prof Kreitman was a good lecturer and the TA as nice, but for a 1000 level class the expectations seemed too high for assignments that had very vague requirements. The final quiz was over the entirety of the course, and if you didn't memorize the exact info that was on it then good luck. Lectures were okay, but even if you write down everything you still miss out on some information. I thought I was doing okay since he had sporadic quizzes throughout the lectures, but then the final quiz had miscellaneous facts from different weeks. We also had to watch movies in class and discussion was apparently for extra credit. We had a lot of recorded lectures and these movies that it felt like we barely went over content, and when we did there is no way to look back on lectures since the slides are just pictures.

I wish I had had Prof. Lurie's version of Intro to Japan in my freshman year. I have taken a number of courses in Japanese civilization and culture and I find now that I've had Lurie's course, I have a MUCH better understanding of the historical context than I had before. His version is a very good survey course of Japanese history from prehistory to the present day, without the dumbing down you sometimes encounter in big sweep surveys. (I'm a history major, so I know whereof I speak.) He introduces major events, issues and personalities, and tries to keep an eye on continuities between periods as well as the distinctive characteristics. The readings are appealing, although as always the value of the weekly discussion sections depends on which TA you get. This is not one of those mickey mouse "get rid of an area requirement" courses, which you forget the minute you've finished the final exam. It's a legitimate Ivy League course which should increase your interest in and understanding of things Japanese.

1 midterm, 1 final, 1 8-10 page paper, weekly readings ranging from 50-350 pages and weekly 250-300 word responses plus a mandatory discussion section.

Weekly postings 1 Final paper 1 Midterm - fair 1 Final - fair