Universität Wien

150063 VO+UE Vo+UE Religion and Nationalism in Modern Japan (2009W)

4.00 ECTS (2.00 SWS), SPL 15 - Ostasienwissenschaften
Continuous assessment of course work

Details

Language: English

Lecturers

Classes (iCal) - next class is marked with N

  • Wednesday 18.11. 10:00 - 14:00 Seminarraum Ostasienwissenschaften 1 UniCampus Hof 5 2I-O1-05
  • Thursday 19.11. 11:00 - 14:00 Seminarraum Koreanologie 1 UniCampus Hof 5 2I-O1-12
  • Friday 20.11. 10:00 - 13:00 Seminarraum Koreanologie 1 UniCampus Hof 5 2I-O1-12
  • Thursday 26.11. 11:00 - 14:00 Seminarraum Koreanologie 1 UniCampus Hof 5 2I-O1-12
  • Friday 27.11. 09:45 - 14:15 Seminarraum Koreanologie 1 UniCampus Hof 5 2I-O1-12

Information

Aims, contents and method of the course

The course aims to introduce the topics of nationalism, ethnicity and religion and the problematic of their relationship in the context of Japan. The lectures concentrate on the approaches of social sciences towards these phenomena and they focus on the relevant issues in social, cultural and political history of modern Japan. The lectures will be given in English.

Course Topics
1) Nationalism, ethnicity and nation formation in social sciences: The development of the concepts of nationalism, nation formation and ethnicity, primordialist and instrumentalist (modernist) approaches, theories of Ernest Gellner, Benedict Anderson and Anthony Smith.
2) Nationalism, ethnicity and nation formation in social sciences II: The development of the concepts of nationalism, nation formation and ethnicity, primordialist and instrumentalist (modernist) approaches, theories of Adrian Hastings and Eric Hobsbawm.
3) Religion in social sciences: New theoretical and methodological approaches of the study of religions towards the concept of "religion": anthropological, sociological and cognitive approaches.
4) Religion and nationalism I: Religion, nationalism, ideology. Theories of Mark Juergensmeyer and Peter van der Veer.
5) Religion and nationalism II: Is nationalism a religion? CIVIL RELIGION Nationalism and the concepts of "implicit religion", "political religion" and "civil religion".
6) Ethnogenesis in Japan: Japanese nation - ethnogenesis in Japan, historical formation of Japanese ethnic community.
7) State Shinto and the concept of Japanese nation until 1945: Development of so called "State Shinto" as the state ideology from 1868 to 1945, origins of the modern concepts of Shinto.
8) Politics and religion in post-war Japan I: Religion and politics in contemporary Japan, the issues of religious freedom and Japanese constitution, the concept of "religion" in Japanese context.
9) Politics and religion in post-war Japan II: The Yasukuni issue.
10) Final summary and discussion and/or projection of the documentary movie "Yasukuni" by Li Ying

Assessment and permitted materials

Grading: Final essay (approx. 5 pages)

Minimum requirements and assessment criteria

Examination topics

Reading list

Anderson, Benedict: Imagined Communities. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994.
Befu, Harumi: Hegemony of Homogeneity: An Anthropological Analysis of Nihonjinron. Melbourne: Trans Pacific Press, 2001.
Breen, John (ed.): Yasukuni, the War Dead, and the Struggle for Japan's Past. New York: Columbia University Press , 2008.
Gellner, Ernest: Nations and Nationalism. Ithaca NY: Cornell University Press, 1983.
Hardacre, Helen: Shinto and the State, 1868-1988. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989.
Hudson, Mark: Ruins of Identity. Ethnogenesis in the Japanese Islands. Honolulu:University of Hawaii Press, 1999.
Juergensmeyer, Mark: The New Cold War? Religious Nationalism Confronts the Secular State. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993.
Morris-Suzuki, Tessa: Re-Inventing Japan: Time, Space, Nation. New York: M.E. Sharpe 1998.
O'Brien, David M. - Ohkoshi, Yasuo: To Dream of Dreams: Religious Freedom and Constitutional Politics in Postwar Japan. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1996
Smith, Anthony D.: National Identity. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1991.
Veer Peter van der - Lehmann, Hartmut (eds.): Nation and Religion. Perspectives on Europe and Asia. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999.

Association in the course directory

WM4, 1000, JBA M16, JMA M5.1, JMA M5.2, JMA M9

Last modified: Mo 07.09.2020 15:35