Postgraduate Course: Japanese Religions in the Modern Era (ASST11074)
Course Outline
| School | School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures |
College | College of Humanities and Social Science |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate) |
Availability | Not available to visiting students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | The course aims to give students a clear outline of modern Japanese religions by looking in detail at representative phenomena and questioning them from a number of standpoints. The course also draws on the substantial amount of material gathered by the course organiser over three decades, mainly photographic but also video material and paraphernalia, a goodly proportion of which features in the Living Buddhism project.
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| Course description |
1. Introduction: Meiji (1868¿1911) neologisms, shu¿kyo¿ ¿¿ and religious activity
2. Kami (gods) and hotoke (buddhas): Never shall the twain meet again ' Meiji attempts to purify Japan's religious roots
3. The religious response to the Meiji Restoration
4. Buddhism goes west: Shingon Buddhism at the British Museum
5. Shugendo¿: Society and its peripheries
6. Forms of pilgrimage in Japan
7. Buddhism in crisis: Institutions, clergy, and finances on the ground; Excursus: The cemetery at Ko¿yasan
8. KanZeOn: Two film-makers look at the state of Japanese religion (a showing of KanZeOn (2011, 80 minutes), followed by discussion)
9. Aum Shinrikyo and the question of religious terrorism
10. The Yasukuni Shrine: The souls of the dead and the international politics of the living
11. Japanese religions: Inside, Outside ' A reappraisal (short student presentations); Having begun the course by questioning our understanding of religion in Japan as a social and historical phenomenon, this session will give students the opportunity to propose and defend their revised presuppositions and approaches in the form of short presentations of precise theses.
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
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Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | None |
Course Delivery Information
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| Academic year 2015/16, Not available to visiting students (SS1)
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Quota: 10 |
| Course Start |
Semester 1 |
Timetable |
Timetable |
| Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) |
Total Hours:
200
(
Seminar/Tutorial Hours 20,
Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 4,
Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours
176 )
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| Assessment (Further Info) |
Written Exam
0 %,
Coursework
100 %,
Practical Exam
0 %
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| Additional Information (Assessment) |
One essay not exceeding 4,000 words, to be chosen from a list of topics in the course handbook (100%) |
| Feedback |
Not entered |
| No Exam Information |
Learning Outcomes
- Solid understanding of the major developments in modern Japanese religions (from c.1868), including the social and political background to those developments;
- Critical assessment of sources, documents and fieldwork related to Japanese religions in the modern era and the ability to form judgements about pertinent issues, against the background of relevant secondary literature;
- The ability to use the extensive electronic on-line resources on Japanese religions
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Reading List
D. Lu, Japan: A documentary history contains important primary sources in translation; as does R. Tsunoda et al., Sources of Japanese tradition, vol. 2.
I. Reader, E. Andreasen, and F. Stefánsson, Japanese religions: past and present. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1995. [Relevant primary texts from the above works will be prescribed for pertinent topics.]
Murakami, Shigeyoshi, Japanese Religion in the Modern Century. Tokyo: Tokyo U.P., 1980.
J. Breen and M. Teeuwen, A new history of Shinto. Blackwell brief histories of religion, Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010.
I. Reader, Religion in contemporary Japan. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1991.
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Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
Not entered |
| Keywords | Not entered |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Ian Astley
Tel: (0131 6)51 1358
Email: |
Course secretary | Mr Iain Sutherland
Tel: (0131 6)51 3988
Email: |
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© Copyright 2015 The University of Edinburgh - 27 July 2015 10:41 am
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