Welcome to Summer 2022, "Social Transformations in East Asia": JSIS 405A & ANTH 449.
This course explores contemporary examples of social transformation in Japan, Korea, China and Taiwan. Our approach will be inter-disciplinary. We will bring cultural anthropology together with environmental studies, landscape architecture, literature, film, social media and popular culture. We will also read about and discuss some of the historical background and economic context of these changes. The focus of the Summer 2022 course will be on the environment, gender, labor, and the younger generation: environmental movements, consciousness, energy, rethinking the built environment and the center-periphery divide; women, new forms of work and family, declining population and new connections among the young in East Asia. (We will also engage with the changes that the pandemic is creating). Additionally, students this summer will learn how to design and carry out their own small group research projects based on class materials.
The course will be taught in-person unless pandemic-related conditions necessitate a change. There may be an opportunity for Hybrid participation. Please contact the instructor at araia2@uw.edu if you have any questions.