JAPN 233: Japanese Popular Culture and Media (Spring 2025)

Examines how media are rooted in popular cultures and popular cultures in media. Students will draw on media theories from Japan and elsewhere, critically evaluating those theories and applying them to a range of primary materials, including Japanese graphic narrative, literature, animation, film, song, and music as a way to think about the ideologies that affect how popular cultures and media interact. Students will articulate their own positions about the contexts that inform the creation, circulation, and consumption of representations in and of Japan.