Education About Asia: Online Archives

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Feature Article

Cutting-Edge Samurai Theater: Noh Then, Noh Now, Noh Tomorrow

by Matthew R. Dubroff

Noh is the sung, danced, masked dramatic form of Japan. The performers depict stories where the shite, the main masked actor, interacts with the waki, a side actor, and the kyogen, an interlude performer. A Noh stage is a roofed pavilion (even indoors) that has an entry bridgeway and a back wall with a painted pine tree. The orchestra consists of two or three drummers and a flute player at the back of the stage in full view during performance, along with an eight-member chorus that sits to the s...

Book Review, Resources

Pot Shards: Fragments of a Life Lived in CIA, the White House, and the Two Koreas

by Michael J. Seth

Donald Gregg had a remarkably long career spanning almost six decades, most of it connected with Asia. He served as a CIA officer in Japan, Việt Nam, and Burma, and was the CIA station chief in Seoul from 1973 to 1975. From 1989 to 1993, he was the US ambassador to South Korea. After retiring from government service, he headed the Korea Society in New York and made six trips to North Korea to promote better relations with that country. In between, he served on the National Security Council. Du...

Resources, Teaching Resources Essay

Lesson Plan: “On Leaving Asia”

by Aaron Pickering

Editor’s Note: This lesson plan was developed in a National Consortium for Teaching about Asia (NCTA) professional development program funded by the Freeman Foundation and the Japan Center for Global Partnerships. The complete primary source for the lesson is available in the online supplements for this issue. Lesson Title: “On Leaving Asia (Datsu-A-Ron)”: Meiji Reforms and the De-Asianization of Japan Name: Aaron Pickering, Oak Ridge, TN High School STANDARDS Advanced Placemen...

Online Supplement

“Teaching Multiple Asias: Confessions of a Europeanist Teaching World History” Syllabus

by Alexander Maxwell

This course addresses two themes in global history: commodities and ideologies. One half of the class will discuss the relationships between human beings and commodities, notably silver, sugar, rubber, cotton, and oil. The other half will examine changing ideas of political legitimacy, including divine kingship, nationalism, imperialist racism, socialism, and political Islamism. The course provides broad geographic coverage, introducing examples from Africa, North and South America, South, East,...

Online Supplement

“Ancient Chinese Science and the Teaching of Physics” Syllabus

by Matthew Marone

Francis Bacon thought that printing, gunpowder and the magnetic compass were inventions that changed the world. He did not realize that they all shared a common origin in ancient China. Few people in the Western world know of the great scientific achievements that occurred in ancient China; many of which predated European science and the Renaissance. We shall explore these discoveries in their historical Chinese context and through the lens of our current scientific understanding. The Chinese...

Online Supplement

“Shadow R & J and The Girl Who Flew: Introducing Asia through Theater in an Interdisciplinary Honors Program” Syllabus

by Adam D. Frank

Since Aristophanes wrote the first “anti-war” plays for Athenian audiences attending the Dionysian Festivals around 400 B.C., theatre has frequently been created in the name of social justice. Using Aristophanes as its starting place, the first half of this course draws upon dramatic literature and theatre history to provide a broad context for the use (and abuse) of theatre and performance in the name of social change. The second half of the course will be devoted to the creation of our own...

Online Supplement

“Shadow R & J” and “The Girl Who Flew”: Introducing Asia through Theater in an Interdisciplinary Honors Program

by Adam D. Frank

Readers of Education About Asia who have no background in Asian theater should take heart that they, too, can incorporate Asian theater as a tool for teaching about Asia. The caveat is that when one adopts a form of theater that traditionally takes decades to master, one must openly embrace ignorance, value hybridity, and measure success not in terms of whether students have rendered a style authentically, but whether they have captured some spirit of a particular style in order to tell the stor...

Online Supplement

“Cutting-Edge Samurai Theatre: Noh Then, Noh Now, Noh Tomorrow” by Matthew R. Dubroff and “In the Noh: Using Samurai Theater in the History Classroom” by Eric G. Dinmore Syllabi

by Eric G. Dinmore, Matthew R. Dubroff

This two-semester seminar for entering freshmen in the Honors Program will trace the rise and fall of the samurai in Japan, as well as the distinct impact these warriors left on Japanese and global culture. We will draw from a range of academic disciplines, including history, literary criticism, theater studies, religion, and the visual arts. This fall, we will focus on the historical transformation of the samurai from loosely-knit bands of provincial warriors to a powerful political elite. In t...

Online Supplement

Lesson Plan: “On Leaving Asia” Primary Source Document

by Aaron Pickering, Fukuzawa Yukichi

Editor’s Note: The following primary source accompanies “Lesson Plan: On Leaving Asia” by Aaron Pickering from the spring 2016 issue (vol. 21, no. 1, p. 66-67). Datsu-A Ron “On Leaving Asia”—from the Jiji shinpō newspaper, March 16, 1885 (Published anonymously but generally attributed to Fukuzawa Yukichi) International communication has become so convenient these days that once the wind of Western civilization blows to the East, every blade of grass and every tree in the ...

Online Supplement

Walk Like a Samurai Using Japanese: Performing and Martial Arts to Teach Historical Inquiry Syllabus

by Tim Cooper

This course will introduce students to the history of Japan from earliest times to 1600, including the Classical, Medieval, and Warring States eras. Traditional Japan lays the foundation needed for a richer understanding and appreciation of Modern Japan, offered the following semester. Students are encouraged (though not required) to enroll in courses sequentially. Readings and discussions will focus on politics, culture, religion, and social life in premodern Japan. All readings are in English....

Book Review, Resources

Daughters of the Samurai: A Journey from East to West and Back

by Daniel A. Métraux

Deep in the western suburbs of Tokyo in the city of Kodaira lies Tsuda College, a private school of about 2,500 students where, since its founding in 1900, female students have received a broad education in the liberal arts and languages. It is a beautiful, leafy campus with an abundance of impressive trees and flowers. It is a rare treat to visit in late March or early April, when the cherry trees are in full bloom. My own school, Mary Baldwin University, has a long tradition of receiving excha...

Feature Article

Democracy in Asia

by Clayton D. Brown

In June 2015, Utah State University hosted a graduate-level workshop for teachers on “Democracy in Asia: A Universal or American System?” Eight Asia specialists from three universities convened to share their expertise with local educators. Recognizing that a brief article cannot do justice to a weeklong workshop, we are still committed to extending the fruits of that local outreach to a broader community. What follows are a few highlights from each workshop session, including suggested sour...

Book Review, Resources

Confucianism as a World Religion: Contested Histories and Contemporary Realities

by Robert André LaFleur

Is Confucianism a religion? In one way or another, this question has been asked for as long as Westerners have tried to make sense of China—from the earliest translations done by the Jesuits half a millennium ago right up until the present. It can even be argued quite persuasively that thinkers from China and its East Asian neighbors have asked a similar kind of question almost since Confucius’s Analects began to be distributed in the centuries after the sage’s death. The broader matter th...

Columns, Resources, Web Gleanings

Web Gleanings: Major Universities in Asia

by Judith S. Ames

For those who wish to study at a university in Asia, there are thousands of choices. To narrow the choices, it is helpful to consult with sites that rate the universities on a number of factors. Below are several important evaluation sites: A) Best Global Universities in Asia Source: US News and World Report URL: http://tinyurl.com/jap4d6x B) QS University Rankings: Asia 2015 Source: Top Universities URL: http://tinyurl.com/j4tgchc C) Asia University Rankings 2015 Source: Time...

Feature Article

Kim Dae-jung’s Cyberinfrastructure Legacy

by Hang Ryeol Na

In the Western Pacific region, there are typically four stages in the development of a tropical cyclone, classified by their maximum sustained wind speed—typhoon, severe tropical storm, tropical storm, and tropical depression in the descending order of wind speed. On November 1, 1991, for example, a tropical depression was identified in the western Pacific Ocean with estimated winds of forty-five kilometers per hour (km/h) (thirty miles per hour [mph]). Three days later, it was upgraded to a t...

Feature Article

Walk Like a Samurai: Using Japanese Performing and Martial Arts to Teach Historical Inquiry

by Tim Cooper

In his Winter 2010 EAA article, “Can Samurai Teach Critical Thinking? Primary Sources in the Classroom,” Ethan Segal offers several constructive methods to help students discern truth from fiction regarding the historical samurai. Woodblock prints of Saigō Takamori garbed in Western military uniform; images from the Mongol Invasion Scrolls depicting the disorderly chaos of samurai warfare; and the historical fiction of The Tale of the Heike, which for centuries passed as historical fact, al...

Feature Article

In the Noh: Using Samurai Theater in the History Classroom

by Eric G. Dinmore

I teach Japanese and East Asian history at a 240-year-old, all-male liberal arts college known as an institution where the Old South lives on and students revere Virginia’s military heritage. Unsurprisingly, one of the most popular seminar topics I have offered over my nine-year career at Hampden-Sydney College has been Warrior Culture in Japanese History. As I developed my approach to the topic, I profited from reading Ethan Segal’s Winter 2010 article in this journal, “Can Samurai Teach ...

Feature Article

Indonesia, Asia, and the World: An Interview with Leonard C. Sebastian

by Lucien Ellington

Leonard C. Sebastian is Associate Professor and Coordinator of the Indonesia Program at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS). He received his PhD from the Australian National University in 1997. Dr. Sebastian is author of Realpolitik Ideology: Indonesia’s Use of Military Force (Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2006) and has been published in a number of journals, including The Journal of Strategic Studies, Indonesia, Defense & Security Analysis, the Cambridge Revie...

Feature Article

Ancient Chinese Science and the Teaching of Physics

by Matthew Marone

The scientific accomplishments of ancient China provide an exciting foundation for the teaching of introductory physics. Traditional physics classes are almost always taught from a Eurocentric point of view that rarely exposes students to the scientific accomplishments of other cultures. At Mercer University, I am experimenting with a new method of teaching physics that infuses Chinese culture, while at the same time, exposes our students to the principles and practice of modern experimental sci...

New to EAA?

Before viewing the full archives, view Editor’s Choice Articles, handpicked by EAA Editor, Lucien Ellington, which provide a good overview of EAA and introduction for new readers.