This course will focus on the interlinked modernity projects in China, Japan, and Korea and the historical, political, and economic forces that link the education of youth with projects of national development and international economic competition. Education as broadly conceived is not limited to activities that take place in the institutional context of schooling but it also includes pedagogies of citizenship and programs of human engineering in the reform of populations as a project of national development. This course will focus on how the time of childhood and youth has been synchronized into universalizing conceptions of development and modernity at different moments in the history of East Asia: under the banner of "civilization and enlightenment" in the early part of the 20th century, in the modernization projects of mid-century,and more recently in debates about "globalization." Although the emphasis of the course will be on contemporary debates about youth and globalization, these national histories will be introduced as a necessary background for understanding the present.
Another important focus is to explore how ideas such as modernity, development, and
globalization touch down and take route in different national contexts in ways that are specific to each but also complexly connected to each other. Our exploration of globalization will track how a loss of certainty about personal and national futures plays out in the arenas of education, labor, militarization, and technology in different places. An important objective of the course is to explore how the futures of students in the United States are intertwined with those of youth in East Asia through shared concerns about life possibilities and challenges.
Students will be engaged in collaborative research projects that will culminate with presentations in a teach-in on youth and globalization that will be presented in the Simpson Center of the Humanities as a public event for faculty, students, and members of the wider community. The class will be divided up into working groups that will collaborate on a presentation for the teachin. As part of their research for the teach-in, students will develop online interviewing techniques as a research method by communicating with English-speaking college students in East Asia via email or electronic bulletin board exchanges. All students will be expected to be active participants in the classroom and in E-post discussions for the course. They will also be required to write a 12-page paper based on the work that they did for the teach-in that will include a discussion of how their work fits into the larger whole and a reflection piece that explores how the course activities have affected their understanding of their own life possibilities.
This course is an excellent selection for seniors who would like to get started on a senior thesis for East Asian Studies or an honors thesis in Anthropology (or any other student who would like to work on a capstone project prior to graduation)--as long as their topics relate to the course content. Those students who would like to develop these projects over the subsequent twoquarters should contact us as soon as possible so that we can set up a program for them.
Course Requirements:
This course will be a discussion-intensive class. Students will be expected to come to class ready to discuss the readings for that day. Starting in the fourth week of the quarter, Fridays will be project-development days in which planning and discussion of group and individual projects will take place. By class-time on November 3, a preliminary research prospectus/reading list will be due to make sure that each student is on track for completion of their work for the teach-in and the final paper.
E-post discussion postings (two every week for weeks 1-8) 20%
Preliminary reading list/research plan 20%
Attendance at Speaker Series (3 talks) 10%
Teach-in presentation 20%
Final Paper 30%
Books on Order:
Arjun Appadurai, Fear of Small Numbers.
Harootunian
Global Assemblages. Aihwa Ong and Stephen J. Collier. Blackwell, 2004. (except that it is so expensive $37. See TOC pasted below)
Optional Texts:
Timothy Mitchell, Colonizing Egypt.
Staging Growth: Modernization, Development, and the Global Cold War. David C Engerman,
Nils Gilman, Mark H. Haefele, and Michael E. Latham. U. Massachusetts Press, 2003. (essays by Latham, Adas, Koschman, and Brazinsky).
Course Content:
Unit I: Critical Tools
Students will be introduced to key terms (modernity, culture, development, representation, etc.)
and methods of close reading that will help them to develop critical discussion in class. Students
will also be introduced to what anthropology specifically has to offer to the study of
globalization in its ability to make critical connections between national and individual futures--
how these forces work on us and through us--not just in terms of structuring our life
possibilities, but also our desires, hopes, and fears. We will also be exploring the subtle
relationship between knowledge and power and why certain kinds of knowledge become
invested with great value at particular moments in history.
Tentative Reading List:
Timothy Mitchell, "The World at an Exhibition," from Colonizing Egypt.
W.J.T. Mitchell, "Representation."
An anthropology reading that makes connections.
Jacquelyn Rose on connections between nation/temporality and the child?
Unit II: Comparative Modernities
This unit will trace how universalizing ideas of "civilization, modernity, nation" set down in
different places in East Asia (Japan, China, Korea) to develop locally specific dynamics that are
nonetheless in dialogue with each other. Specific foci will be the Meiji Reforms and the
"Overcoming the Modern" projects in Japan, the New Culture Movement in China, and the
Civilization Movement in Korea. The task of this unit will be to trace how the idea of the nation
was thought in each of these locations, the role it has played historically, and how it figures now
and into the future. We will be looking specifically at how youth, education, labor, militarization,
and technology provide important sites for the promotion of national modernity projects.
Tentative Reading List:
Andre Schmid, "Introduction: A Monumental Story" and "The Universalizing Winds of
Civilization." In Korea between Empires, 1895-1919. Pp. 1-54. Columbia University Press,
2002.
Leo Ching, "Colonizing Taiwan: Japanese Colonialism, Decolonization, and the Politics of
Colonialism Studies." In Becoming Japanese: Colonial Taiwan and the Politics of Identity
Formation. Pp. 15-50. U. California Press, 2001.
Stefan Tanaka, "Times, Pasts, History." (first chapter in his book) Pp. 1-26 and his earlier piece
or from his book (The Socialization of Society or the Socialization of Nature).
Ashis Nandy, colonialism and the child. Andrea will send.
Barlow (essay on intellectuals) (dissemination, knowledge/power, culture, epistemic shift)
Liu (translingual practices) (dissemination)
One week in which each class session is assigned one short fictional work, plus one historical
piece for CJK. Then the following session brings it all together and why nation is a contested
formation. Then one more session that focuses specifically on why youth and why the child.
Unit III: Genealogies of the Present
In this unit, we will be exploring how post-World War geopolitics set in place the nation as the
naturalized unit for economic development in theories of modernization and political order. We
will also be looking at how modernization movements encompass a form of human
engineering--through educational reform and the project of "development"--to re-make the
people into a "modern citizenry." Why does culture become so powerful as an explanatory
scheme?
Tentative Reading List:
Claudia Pierpont, The Measure of America.
Harootunian
Staging Growth (essays by Latham, Adas, Koschmann, and Brazinsky).
Rebecca Lemov, a piece from her book which would go well with the Boas piece.
Unit IV: Neoliberal Remappings
In this unit, students will explore how the post-Cold War era has opened up both unprecedented
opportunity and new forms of crisis in which the nation-state is being radically reshaped by
processes of globalization and the reorganization of capitalism. We will be looking at the
specific ways in which this sense of crisis takes place in each national context, whether it is
called globalization, restructuring, recovery, or reform, and the new forms of risk and uncertainty
these restructurings produce. A specific focus of this unit will be the way in which globalization
has produced new conceptions of human capital formation in the larger context of a global
arbitrage of labor. The objective is to make linkages between forces working globally and how
these forces transform our consciousness and how they register in our calculations for living.
What does global citizenship mean in the context of "internationalizing education" or in social
movements for fair labor laws?
Tentative Reading List:
Gordon, Colin
1991 "Government Rationality: An Introduction." In The Foucault Effect: Studies in
Governmentality. Graham Burchell, Colin Gordon, and Peter Miller, eds. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press.
Rose, Nikolas, "The Politics of Life Itself."
Richard Tanter, "With Eyes Wide Shut: Japan, Heisei Militarization, and the Bush Doctrine." In
globalization touch down and take route in different national contexts in ways that are specific to each but also complexly connected to each other. Our exploration of globalization will track how a loss of certainty about personal and national futures plays out in the arenas of education, labor, militarization, and technology in different places. An important objective of the course is to explore how the futures of students in the United States are intertwined with those of youth in East Asia through shared concerns about life possibilities and challenges.
Students will be engaged in collaborative research projects that will culminate with presentations in a teach-in on youth and globalization that will be presented in the Simpson Center of the Humanities as a public event for faculty, students, and members of the wider community. The class will be divided up into working groups that will collaborate on a presentation for the teachin. As part of their research for the teach-in, students will develop online interviewing techniques as a research method by communicating with English-speaking college students in East Asia via email or electronic bulletin board exchanges. All students will be expected to be active participants in the classroom and in E-post discussions for the course. They will also be required to write a 12-page paper based on the work that they did for the teach-in that will include a discussion of how their work fits into the larger whole and a reflection piece that explores how the course activities have affected their understanding of their own life possibilities.
This course is an excellent selection for seniors who would like to get started on a senior thesis for East Asian Studies or an honors thesis in Anthropology (or any other student who would like to work on a capstone project prior to graduation)--as long as their topics relate to the course content. Those students who would like to develop these projects over the subsequent twoquarters should contact us as soon as possible so that we can set up a program for them.
Course Requirements:
This course will be a discussion-intensive class. Students will be expected to come to class ready to discuss the readings for that day. Starting in the fourth week of the quarter, Fridays will be project-development days in which planning and discussion of group and individual projects will take place. By class-time on November 3, a preliminary research prospectus/reading list will be due to make sure that each student is on track for completion of their work for the teach-in and the final paper.
E-post discussion postings (two every week for weeks 1-8) 20%
Preliminary reading list/research plan 20%
Attendance at Speaker Series (3 talks) 10%
Teach-in presentation 20%
Final Paper 30%
Books on Order:
Arjun Appadurai, Fear of Small Numbers.
Harootunian
Global Assemblages. Aihwa Ong and Stephen J. Collier. Blackwell, 2004. (except that it is so expensive $37. See TOC pasted below)
Optional Texts:
Timothy Mitchell, Colonizing Egypt.
Staging Growth: Modernization, Development, and the Global Cold War. David C Engerman,
Nils Gilman, Mark H. Haefele, and Michael E. Latham. U. Massachusetts Press, 2003. (essays by Latham, Adas, Koschman, and Brazinsky).
Course Content:
Unit I: Critical Tools
Students will be introduced to key terms (modernity, culture, development, representation, etc.)
and methods of close reading that will help them to develop critical discussion in class. Students
will also be introduced to what anthropology specifically has to offer to the study of
globalization in its ability to make critical connections between national and individual futures--
how these forces work on us and through us--not just in terms of structuring our life
possibilities, but also our desires, hopes, and fears. We will also be exploring the subtle
relationship between knowledge and power and why certain kinds of knowledge become
invested with great value at particular moments in history.
Tentative Reading List:
Timothy Mitchell, "The World at an Exhibition," from Colonizing Egypt.
W.J.T. Mitchell, "Representation."
An anthropology reading that makes connections.
Jacquelyn Rose on connections between nation/temporality and the child?
Unit II: Comparative Modernities
This unit will trace how universalizing ideas of "civilization, modernity, nation" set down in
different places in East Asia (Japan, China, Korea) to develop locally specific dynamics that are
nonetheless in dialogue with each other. Specific foci will be the Meiji Reforms and the
"Overcoming the Modern" projects in Japan, the New Culture Movement in China, and the
Civilization Movement in Korea. The task of this unit will be to trace how the idea of the nation
was thought in each of these locations, the role it has played historically, and how it figures now
and into the future. We will be looking specifically at how youth, education, labor, militarization,
and technology provide important sites for the promotion of national modernity projects.
Tentative Reading List:
Andre Schmid, "Introduction: A Monumental Story" and "The Universalizing Winds of
Civilization." In Korea between Empires, 1895-1919. Pp. 1-54. Columbia University Press,
2002.
Leo Ching, "Colonizing Taiwan: Japanese Colonialism, Decolonization, and the Politics of
Colonialism Studies." In Becoming Japanese: Colonial Taiwan and the Politics of Identity
Formation. Pp. 15-50. U. California Press, 2001.
Stefan Tanaka, "Times, Pasts, History." (first chapter in his book) Pp. 1-26 and his earlier piece
or from his book (The Socialization of Society or the Socialization of Nature).
Ashis Nandy, colonialism and the child. Andrea will send.
Barlow (essay on intellectuals) (dissemination, knowledge/power, culture, epistemic shift)
Liu (translingual practices) (dissemination)
One week in which each class session is assigned one short fictional work, plus one historical
piece for CJK. Then the following session brings it all together and why nation is a contested
formation. Then one more session that focuses specifically on why youth and why the child.
Unit III: Genealogies of the Present
In this unit, we will be exploring how post-World War geopolitics set in place the nation as the
naturalized unit for economic development in theories of modernization and political order. We
will also be looking at how modernization movements encompass a form of human
engineering--through educational reform and the project of "development"--to re-make the
people into a "modern citizenry." Why does culture become so powerful as an explanatory
scheme?
Tentative Reading List:
Claudia Pierpont, The Measure of America.
Harootunian
Staging Growth (essays by Latham, Adas, Koschmann, and Brazinsky).
Rebecca Lemov, a piece from her book which would go well with the Boas piece.
Unit IV: Neoliberal Remappings
In this unit, students will explore how the post-Cold War era has opened up both unprecedented
opportunity and new forms of crisis in which the nation-state is being radically reshaped by
processes of globalization and the reorganization of capitalism. We will be looking at the
specific ways in which this sense of crisis takes place in each national context, whether it is
called globalization, restructuring, recovery, or reform, and the new forms of risk and uncertainty
these restructurings produce. A specific focus of this unit will be the way in which globalization
has produced new conceptions of human capital formation in the larger context of a global
arbitrage of labor. The objective is to make linkages between forces working globally and how
these forces transform our consciousness and how they register in our calculations for living.
What does global citizenship mean in the context of "internationalizing education" or in social
movements for fair labor laws?
Tentative Reading List:
Gordon, Colin
1991 "Government Rationality: An Introduction." In The Foucault Effect: Studies in
Governmentality. Graham Burchell, Colin Gordon, and Peter Miller, eds. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press.
Rose, Nikolas, "The Politics of Life Itself."
Richard Tanter, "With Eyes Wide Shut: Japan, Heisei Militarization, and the Bush Doctrine." In
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