Gregory Pflugfelder

His lectures and great, it doesn't seem like a lecture but rather like someone telling a story about Japanese History. The course itself is very interesting if you love Japanese culture or anime. You don't need to go to lectures if you do the readings or vice versa. The TA I got, Xinyi, is also very considerate and understanding. Choose her if you can.

Prof. Pflugfelder is an interesting man. I want to note that his class is incredibly information-rich, and often very stimulating, but I think it is also worth noting that Prof. Pflugfelder's lecture style is oftentimes very meandering. Sitting through lecture is sometimes a bit like an acid trip in that everything makes sense and proceeds logically but you still wonder how the hell you got where you are, indeed sometimes you wonder "what is going on here?" I thoroughly enjoyed this class and felt that the readings complemented the lectures very well. I think that I gained a lot of appreciation for Japanese culture, artwork, and history through this class, and I think that Prof. Pflugfelder's class structure was very effective in giving students a very sound foundation in Japanese cultural studies. This class is much more focused on the culture surrounding different periods of Japanese civilization with less focus on specific events but you will still be well versed in important Japanese historical events. I highly recommend this class and Prof. Pflugfelder to anybody with an interest in Japanese history/culture.

This class is awesome! It does, however, take a specific type of person to really appreciate and grasp what this course and Prof. Pflugfelder has to offer. Interestingly, Prof. Pflugfelder will not often lecture about historical events, but rather sociocultural phenomenon relating to historical events. He is very clearly knowledgable in the study of visual art and interpretation and always provides interesting content when presenting. The majority of the class is project-based learning. You are expected to have completed all the reading before coming into class and hearing a presentation from your classmates on the material that you have read. Every class will begin with a 10-minute quiz on the reading with only five questions. If have done the reading thoroughly you will never have a problem getting 5/5 on each quiz, if skimmed, you may still succeed but are bound to have a point off here and there. These quizzes are really only meant to boost your grade for doing the reading. After this the Prof. will present the topics that you have to choose from for your next presentation to the class for about 20-30 minutes, giving a small introduction to each prompt. All of the presentation topics have to do with visual analysis, which I believe truly gives another layer of depth to the historical events taking place at the time. Prof. Pflugfelder is truly interested in the topics he as…

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.

I am not an EALAC or History major, but this was one of my fondest courses from undergrad. Prof. Pflugfelder is exactly what you would hope a professor to be at this University - a true subject matter expert, who is very approachable, fair, and engaging. A previous reviewer mentioned that this, "is not a military history course by any means, but there's a bit of that." In actuality, the fundamental essence of the samurai was his capacity as a warrior. Hence, everything involving the samurai was in some way military, but the class explores, "every conceivable angle--sexuality, ethics, legend, economics, law, gender roles, art, literature, film, political formations, major figures," as he or she noted. If you have any interest at all in Japanese History, the chance to explore it via "Who is the Samurai?" is a fantastic opportunity.

This is the sort of class where you'll get out of it exactly what you put in. The material is absolutely fascinating; readings come from every discipline, from psychology to art history to ancient Japanese folk tales. The class itself was a similar mix, including several EALAC majors, but also students from neuroscience, political science, math, and history. Professor Pflugfelder is also incredibly interested in the subject matter; he once told us, "I can't believe I get paid to do this," and that sort of enthusiasm makes for a more interesting class. That being said, he's also incredibly lazy, so you won't get much feedback on your work, and more than a couple classes wound up being substituted with outside lectures or panels he was speaking at, seemingly because he forgot about the schedule conflict until the last minute. On the one hand, the class is small enough that everyone will notice if you haven't done the reading; on the other hand, nobody seems to care very much. If you're looking for a class to coast through, there are much better ones to take, but if you're genuinely interested, then this class has the potential to do a lot for you.

I got a strong overview of the progression of East Asian history through an intersectional and transnational lens. I appreciated the focus on sexuality and feminism throughout all of our studies.

An overall dive into monster culture with a focus on Japan

All the details of Japanese culture. Japanese history, some language, readings, etc.

Professor Pflugfelder is a great guy. Very engaging and passionate about his area of expertise. Here's the problem, his area of expertise doesn't seem to be history as the course name would suggest. The vast majority of the course was dedicated to sexuality, gender relations, art, poetry, and pop culture. Although these are certainly part of Japanese civilization, I was very disappointed that more than half of all slides had no reference to political, economic, or military developments. We were expected to learn about these development on our time by reading a very dry and boring textbook. But here's truly the worst part of the class. There are three TAs. One is quite nice and very approachable. The other two are very unpleasant and clearly have some kind of bias. For my recitation, I got the nice one. I thought I was lucky. Wrong. Because she was my TA, she wouldn't be grading any of my papers or work. Having studied a whole week for my midterm and gone to around 80% of the lectures, I received an 87. Every single one of my friend who studied >1 hour, came to no lectures, and openly told me to my face that they BSed the midterm, received above a 95 (Pflugfelder graded their test). For my final, I was extra encouraged and decided to study twice as hard. Made pages upon pages of notes, met with other students in the class, read outside books, went over all the readings, got a B…