HIST 249 - Postwar Japan through Music and Film

Semester Offered: Second Semester
Full Course
Credits: 4 credits
Attribute: 4SS, CD

This course examines Japan’s postwar period (1945-2011) through the lens of popular music and film, including documentary film. From the reconstruction of the nation after defeat in 1945 into a post-imperial age marked by affluence and a national ethic of egalitarianism, through to the collapse of the financial bubble of the 1980s and subsequent “lost decades” of the 1990s and 2000s, this course maps how music and film responded to and shaped the course of postwar Japanese history. Specific themes include: politics of space and sound; globalization of popular music, war memory, anti-U.S. military movement in Okinawa, and anti-nuclear movement after Fukushima.

Enrollment Limit: 25
Instructor: E. O’Dwyer

Cross List Information: Cross listed with EAST 248