Subject Area: Asian Studies
This course can also be studied in the following specialisations: History, Japanese Studies, Women's and Gender Studies

The course extends from Japan's imperial restoration of 1868 to after the Pacific War. It features cultural, social and gender history topics, for example on marginalized groups and movements of resistance; on the 'new woman', and café culture and sexwork from the 'roaring twenties'; prewar radical literature; and postwar popular culture. Political history topics include western-style modernization and its discontents; nationalism and emperor-system ideology; and Japan's wars and empire. A particular focus is on Japan's heterogeneity stemming from class, gender and regional differences. Ample attention is paid to historiography, to debates about Japan's history and cultural identity, and the interdisciplinary conceptual paradigms informing them. A central theme is the ambivalent nature of progress (Japan's modern 'miracles' and their 'down-sides'), and contending representations of Japan and its place in Asia and the modern world.