Japan Field Seminar
Textbooks, Courses, & Requirements

  

Summer 2009

   

Instructors:
Dr. Todd Stradford stradfot@uwplatt.edu

Texts: Required for you to purchase and carry with you (it's small).

Itinerary

For a detailed view of the day by day plans, click on the "itinerary" above.

Sign up:


UWP: You must sign up for either LAE 3000 for 1-3 hours (rail trip only) or or GEO 3960, 6 credit hours (full 6 weeks in Japan).

The courses listed are:

1-3 credit hours from the following course:


6 credit hours from the following course:

The course requirements are as follows:

1. Essays
2. Research Paper

The "essays" are partial requirements for the 6 week course, and are the full assignment for the 3-credit 19-day rail trip course.

For the essays, you will keep a geographic journal/notebook of your experiences recording questions, curious interests, and observations.which include comparisons of landscapes made from the trains and at stops during the JR Pass trip. You will be given a take home set of essay questions that you will need to answer concerning the observations you made. The questions will be given before arrival, so specific notes and photos can be taken along the way that address each question. Photos should support each answer.

In addition to the essays, a focused paper on some aspect of Japanese society or culture as reflected in the landscape, as found through data gathered in the field in Yatsushiro fulfill the requirements for the 6-credit course. The topics are wide open and should be in an area that you already know something about. Suggestions are general topics dealing with some aspect of: agriculture (small farms vs. modernization and foreign competition), population (a stable but aging population; migration from rural to urban; return migrations to rural cities of disillusioned workers), industry (hollowing out of Japanese industry; special targeted industrial development - Kumamoto = new "silicon valley"), or environment (is there a "green" movement of importance?; what is the direction of water pollution and land degradation), or a topic approved or guided by Dr. Karan or Dr. Stradford. Finding some information before departure will help your organization of your subject and save time when in Japan so you can maximize your data gathering. Your paper will be based on the data collected.

 

Schedule (Also see itinerary)

Rail & Field trips

Pay attention to the instructor. Review essay questions before you arrive in the pertinent area and then take notes and photos as they pertain to each essay. Some essays are answered by observing the landscape outside the train or car window, so you must pay attention as we ride. Otherwise, your answer will not be specific enough to receive credit. Sleeping, reading, or chatting while in transport is not advised. Remember, you must document the questions with photos from that area. Photos from other areas are considered a greater negative than no photo because it seems as if you can't tell one place from another. Don't just take pictures of yourself standing in front of shrine entrances, for example; take pictures of the landscapes.

Compare your journal, notes, and observations to that of John Bennett, who traveled through Tohoku in 1949-1951. You should be looking for similar observations. For example, he noted that a major difference between mountain villages and plains farmland was that all the mountain fields had fences, whereas the lowland paddy did not. A difference such as this should trigger the question "why?" There are differences in the landscapes wherever we travel, and it is up to you to find them.

Yatsushiro - 5 June to return.

Weekends are free but it is recommended that you use part of this time to get research data. Sometimes, the host family will take an interest and help out. Don't expect this, however, as they can be busy themselves.

Requirements.

Essays and research are due at the end of the summer by 1 September. See the essay question and research pages for details.

Outcomes:

It is expected that students who take the 3 week course will gain an understanding of the various landscapes of Japan and the human influence upon them by the readings and direct observation. The 6-week students will gain further insights by detailed observations of a local area through field trips and the research problem.