As the drive to rebuild modern Japan after WWII slowed, latent and new social problems have become visible. This course offers interdisciplinary perspectives on issues such as care of the elderly and homeless, equal treatment of minorities, gender and labor issues, domestic and world ecological concerns, and relevant institutions that promote or attack prejudice towards heterogeneous social groups. Taught in English.
This course satisfies MLO2: Culture. In the course, we learned about the ways that people in Japan have engaged with the vast cultural, economic, and political changes since 1945. Among other topics, we read about the fights over environmental concerns, anti-war protests (including anti-U.S. military base protests), economic and gender inequalities, and the ongoing struggle for life-work balance. We also heavily examined the effects of the 3/11 Triple Disaster, as it is known.
This class was also my GWAR, or Graduation Writing Assessment Requirement. As part of the GWAR course, we were required to write a certain amount through three means: blog/discussion posts, an article review, and a final research paper. The final research paper, required that we conduct a review of literature, a first for some of us, which proved to be a valuable lesson when it came time to work on our capstone. It also required that the paper be a minimum of 2000 words excluding the bibliography of course. I chose to focus on the rights of LGBTQ+ individuals in Japan for my final paper, as it is a topic close to my heart as a member of that community. Below I have included that final research paper. In the course of the paper, I had to tie it into what had learned in class, which I did through looking at the division of labor between genders in both the workforce and at home. I also examined the historical context of LGBTQ+ people in Japan before transitioning to look at the more modern issues they face including the fact that still to this day, marriage in Japan must take place between a man and a woman, and gay marriage is illegal.
This course satisfies MLO2: Culture. In the course, we learned about the ways that people in Japan have engaged with the vast cultural, economic, and political changes since 1945. Among other topics, we read about the fights over environmental concerns, anti-war protests (including anti-U.S. military base protests), economic and gender inequalities, and the ongoing struggle for life-work balance. We also heavily examined the effects of the 3/11 Triple Disaster, as it is known.
This class was also my GWAR, or Graduation Writing Assessment Requirement. As part of the GWAR course, we were required to write a certain amount through three means: blog/discussion posts, an article review, and a final research paper. The final research paper, required that we conduct a review of literature, a first for some of us, which proved to be a valuable lesson when it came time to work on our capstone. It also required that the paper be a minimum of 2000 words excluding the bibliography of course. I chose to focus on the rights of LGBTQ+ individuals in Japan for my final paper, as it is a topic close to my heart as a member of that community. Below I have included that final research paper. In the course of the paper, I had to tie it into what had learned in class, which I did through looking at the division of labor between genders in both the workforce and at home. I also examined the historical context of LGBTQ+ people in Japan before transitioning to look at the more modern issues they face including the fact that still to this day, marriage in Japan must take place between a man and a woman, and gay marriage is illegal.
lgbtq__issues_in_japan.docx |