EAST 250 - The Great Wave: A Maritime View of Japanese History

FC SSCI CD

4 credits
This course will examine the ways in which the perspective of the sea enhances and, at times, challenges the prevailing land-based approach to charting the course of political, social, economic, and cultural change in Japan between 1300 and 2011. Topics include maritime commerce in the late medieval age; celebrations of the sea’s bounty in Edo-era visual arts, territorial acquisition and resource exploitation during the 20^th century age of empire, the WWII transformation of the Pacific into a battleground, as well as contemporary concerns ranging from pollution, over-fishing, and natural disasters such as typhoons and tsunami.