Fall term, 2018
Prof. Edwin E. Moise
Office: Hardin 102
Cell Phone: 650-8845
e-mail: eemoise@clemson.edu
Messages can be left in my mailbox in Hardin 126, or in the box on the door of my office, Hardin 102.
Office Hours: I will try to be in my office at the following hours, but it won't always be possible. On the other hand, I will be in my office, and available to you, for much more of the week than my official office hours. E-mail me, or just check and see if my door is open.
Monday 2:30-3:20 Tuesday 11:00-12:00, 2:00-3:15 Wednesday 10:10-11:00, 2:30-3:20 Thursday (none) Friday (none)
I do not emphasize trivial factual details in this course. On tests and quizzes I will NOT ask you to name the Prime Ministers who served during the 1950's, much less tell me the exact dates they served. There are some facts you need to know, but they are more important things than names and dates.
The written work will be:
--Three short papers, on assigned topics, worth 40 points each,
two of which will be newspaper research exercises.
--One minor essay quiz: 20 points.
--A test
(70 points) and the final exam (120 points),
which will be mostly essay questions.
This adds up to 330 points. I use a 90%, 80%, 70% scale, sometimes modified in favor of students but never against them. In other words, 297 points (90% of 330) is guaranteed to be an A, 264 points is guaranteed to be a B, 231 points is guaranteed to be a C. But 295 or 294 points might quite possibly become an A, depending on how the class as a whole is doing.
Any student who has an average of 90% or better, for work up to the final exam, will be permitted to exempt the final.
Academic integrity requires that we not try to pass other people's work off as our own.
As far as I can recall, I have not caught any students committing plagiarism in this course, in past years. But experience with plagiarism in other courses at Clemson suggests that if there were to be a plagiarism case in this course, it would probably take the form of one student copying another student's 40-point short paper, maybe changing a few words and substituting synonyms, but leaving the two papers still so similar that it is obvious the resemblance could not be coincidence. I would be likely to bring charges both against the student who copied and the student who allowed his or her paper to be copied.
There are some ways in which it is perfectly all right for student to help each other. If two students want to study together getting ready for a test, great. Only if help were still being given after I had handed out the questions would the help become improper. But if two people work together on a newspaper research exercise, and turn in papers that are very similar because each has been getting a lot of help from the other in writing it, both will be in deep trouble. If one of your fellow students asks to look at your paper, to get a better idea of how the assignment was to be done, please say no. They should come to me to ask for further explanations of the assignment, rather than looking at a completed paper to give them their clues. If too papers are so similar it is obvious the author of one must have seen the other, I will file charges.
Clemson University is committed to a policy of equal opportunity for all persons and does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender, pregnancy, national origin, age, disability, veteran's status, genetic information or protected activity in employment, educational programs and activities, admissions and financial aid. This includes a prohibition against sexual harassment and sexual violence as mandated by Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972. This policy is located at http://www.clemson.edu/campus-life/campus-services/access/title-ix/. Ms. Alesia Smith is the Clemson University Title IX Coordinator, and the Executive Director of Equity Compliance. Her office is located at 110 Holtzendorff Hall, 864.656.3181 (voice) or 864.656.0899 (TDD).
Clemson University values the diversity of our student body as a strength and a critical component of our dynamic community. Students with disabilities or temporary injuries/conditions may require accommodations due to barriers in the structure of facilities, course design, technology used for curricular purposes, or other campus resources. Students who experience a barrier to full access to this class should let the professor know, and make an appointment to meet with a staff member in Student Accessibility Services as soon as possible. You can make an appointment by calling 864-656-6848, by emailing studentaccess@lists.clemson.edu, or by visiting Suite 239 in the Academic Success Center building. Appointments are strongly encouraged – drop-ins will be seen if at all possible, but there could be a significant wait due to scheduled appointments. Students who receive Academic Access Letters are strongly encouraged to request, obtain and present these to their professors as early in the semester as possible so that accommodations can be made in a timely manner. It is the student's responsibility to follow this process each semester. You can access further information here: http://www.clemson.edu/campus-life/campus-services/sds/.
There will also be reading that I ask you to do online.
The following course outline is tentative. It may be modified slightly because of unexpected events. Items marked >>> are required reading.
August 22: Introduction to the course.
August 24: Traditional Japanese Civilization
>>> Gordon, pp. 3-9
>>> Hane, pp. 3-9
August 27: Japan under Tokugawa Rule
>>> Gordon, pp. 11-34
August 29: The Western Impact
>>> Gordon, pp. 35-57
August 31: The "Meiji Restoration"
>>> Gordon, pp. 57-75
September 3: Initial modernization and reactions to it
>>> Gordon, pp. 76-95. (If you have seen the Tom Cruise film "The Last Samurai," notice that the events on which
the film was based are covered on pp. 84-85 of Gordon.)
September 5: Rural Life
>>> Hane, pp. 9-33
September 7: Rural Life, continued
>>> Hane, pp. 33-62
September 7: Quiz
September 10: Rural life, continued; Rural women
>>> Hane, pp. 62-101
September 12: Class will not meet, but you must write a short paper. Topic: To what extent had people in Japanese villages been affected by the westernization of Japan, during the period covered by our classes and reading so far? Length: about 500 words, or more. Obviously, some villagers had become much more westernized than others, and they had become more westernized in some ways than in other ways. Your essay should consist MOSTLY of discussion of particular ways that particular groups had or had not been affected by westernization. Please do not waste a lot of words on an overall definition of westernization, or on discussion of whether Japanese villagers, as a whole, had or had not become westernized. Please turn the paper in through Canvas.
September 14, 17: Urban Life
>>> Gordon, pp. 95-112
>>> Hane, pp. 172-205
September 19: The Growth of the Japanese Empire
>>> Gordon, pp. 113-137
September 21: Rural poverty
>>> Hane, pp. 103-136
September 24: Outcastes
>>> Hane, pp. 138-71
September 26: Poverty and Prostitution; begin the story of woman rebel Ito Noe
>>> Hane, pp. 206-225, 247-52
September 28: Women Rebels, continued
>>> Hane, pp. 252-292
October 1: Economy and Society
>>> Gordon, pp. 139-160
October 3: Coal Miners; review
>>> Hane, pp. 227-245
TEST October 5
October 8: Politics and International Relations in the 1920s
>>> Gordon, pp. 161-180
October 10: The Depression and the rise of Japanese militarism
>>> Gordon, pp. 181-201
October 12: The Second World War.
>>> Gordon, pp. 202-215
October 15: The Second World War, continued
>>> Gordon, pp. 215-223
>>> Schlesinger, pp. 19-30
October 17, 19: The American Occupation of Japan
>>> Gordon, pp. 224-241
>>> Schlesinger, pp. 30-45
October 22, 24: The New Japan
>>> Gordon, pp. 243-67
>>> Schlesinger, pp. 46-58
>>> Hane, pp. 295-320
October 26: Politics in the New Japan
>>> Gordon, pp. 268-284
October 29: Kakuei Tanaka and his political machine
>>> Schlesinger, pp. 59-90.
Please give source notes. I want to be able to tell in each section of your paper which article or articles you are discussing in that section. It is not enough to have a list at the end, if I can't tell as I read the paper which article you are discussing where. Source notes must give page numbers. I don't care about the format of source notes as long as they tell me what I need to know. Any format that allows me easily to discern the name of the author if it was given, the title of the article, the title of the publication, and the date and page, is OK.
There is no requirement that you use The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, or The Times of London, but those papers have the advantage that you can access them online through the Clemson Library's Databases Page. If you want to use newspapers other than those, you could find some on microfilm, but that would probably mean requesting them in advance, since most of the microfilms have been moved to off-campus rempte storage. Some weekly newsmagazines are available bound into volumes, on the shelves on level 1 of the library. The only weekly newsmagazine whose back files are available online, so far as I know, is Time. You can get to it by going through the Clemson Library's online catalog.
Please turn your essay in on Canvas, as an MS Word document.
November 2: The Strange Victory of Kakuei Tanaka
>>> Schlesinger, pp. 91-125.
FALL BREAK: No class November 5
November 7: Tanaka in Power, Continued:
>>> Schlesinger, pp. 126-155
November 9: The Bubble of the 1980s
>>> Gordon, pp. 285-307
November 12, 14: Japan in the 1980s; the changing international environment; The Second Generation of the Gundan
>>> Schlesinger, Part III
November 16: Major problems for the economy
>>> Gordon, pp. 308-322
November 19: The Gundan in decay
>>> Schlesinger, pp. 229-264
THANKSGIVING: No class November 21, 23
November 26: The possibility of political change?
>>> Gordon, pp. 322-329.
>>> Schlesinger, pp. 264-285
November 28: Aftermath
>>> Gordon, pp. 329-335.
Please give source notes. I want to be able to tell in each section of your paper which article or articles you are discussing in that section. It is not enough to have a list at the end, if I can't tell as I read the paper which article you are discussing where. Source notes must give page numbers if they are available (even when you read a newspaper article online, the web site will usually tell you what the page number was in the newspaper). I don't care about the format of source notes as long as they tell me what I need to know. Any format that allows me easily to discern the name of the author if that was given, the title of the article, the title of the publication, the date and page, and where you found it on the Internet if that is where you found it, is OK.
There is no requirement that you use The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, or the Washington Post, but those papers have the advantage that you can access them online through the Clemson Library's Databases Page.
Please turn your essay in on Canvas, as an MS Word document.
December 3, 5: Japan since 2008
>>> Gordon, pp. 336-354.
>>> Matt Alt, Japan's
Cute Army, New Yorker magazine, November 30, 2015.
December 7: Review
FINAL EXAM Tuesday, December 11, 8:00 a.m.
Other Links
Web site of the Perry-Castaneda Library Map Collection at the University of Texas
Clemson University Academic Success Center, which provides help and tutoring for students encountering academic problems. It does not, however, have tutors specifically for History courses.
The Nikkei 225, Japan's equivalent of the Dow-Jones Average.
Revised November 11, 2018.