Roundtable Japan

Hi, my name is Nathan Hopson.

I'm an associate professor
at the University of Bergen, Norway,

and the founder and organizer
of the Japan Roundtable podcast,

which is sponsored in part by the Toshiba International Foundation.

This is our second episode in
which we present a discussion

of the challenges of teaching and
learning about Japan in Japan,

especially in EMI or English instruction
courses and programs.

In this episode, Yanis Gaitanidis, who is
an associate professor at Chiba University,

will moderate a panel with Professor
Sachiko Horiguchi of

Temple University's Japan campus,

Professor Gregory Poole of Dōshisha University,

and Associate Professor Satoko Shao-Kobayashi

of Chiba University.

Based on their experience in diverse institutional contexts,

the host and guests will address a number of

the most salient issues facing Japanese studies in Japan today,

including, for example, the nebulous and shifting terms

international, or kokusai,

Japanese studies and the realities

of translanguaging in the classroom,

as well as the significance of generational change

in the scholars and educators involved in these efforts.

公益財団法人、東芝国際交
流財団のご提供でお届けする

Japan Roundtableの
第2エピソードでは、

日本における日本研究の課題と、そして
その対応についてもお話をいただきます。

私は、ノルウェー国立ベルゲン
大学順教授のホブソンと申します。

どうぞよろしくお願いいたします。

今回、千葉大学のヤニス・カイ
タニデス順教授がホストを務め、

テンプル大学ジャパン
キャンパスの堀口幸子教授、

同志社大学のグレゴリプール教授、

そして千葉大学の小林幸子准教授の
3名のパナリストをお迎えします。

多様な経験や経歴に基づき、国際日本研究の
国際という茫然とした概念、

日本研究の教育現場における
トランスランゲージングという現実、

そして、こうした取り組みに携わる
学者や教育者の世代交代の意義など、

今日の日本における日本研究教育が直面する
いくつかの重要課題について意見を交わします。

All right. Hi, everyone. This is one of the
Toshiba International Foundation podcasts.

My name is Yanis Gaitanidis.

We're here today with my colleagues Sachiko Horiguchi,

Gregory Poole, and Satoko Shao-Kobayashi to talk about

navigating the challenges of Japanese studies pedagogy

at universities in Japan.

Before we move on into more
detailed self-introductions,

including the details of our institutions,

I would like to just explain a bit
how we came up with this topic.

Perhaps some of you know that
more than 15 years ago,

the Japanese Ministry of Education

started the Global 30 project,

which encouraged universities in Japan to accept

more international students and was followed by a

series of other projects that led to an increase

in English medium instruction,

the so-called EMI,

and also to newly designed English-taught programs,

the ETP, and the hiring of many scholars with doctoral degrees

from non-Japanese institutions.

During this long period of more than 15 years,

the term Kokusai Nihongaku,

sometimes translated as
International Japanese Studies,

other times as Global Japanese Studies,

became a sort of floating signifier

for several types of
Japanese studies curricula,

offered either as standalone study programs

or as embedded programs in a variety

of liberal arts and area studies degrees.

This podcast, with my colleagues today,

aims to discuss several
challenges that these conditions

have raised in terms of what it means to teach

Japanese studies in Japan in these conditions,

and how are the challenges that we face

in our divergent institutions today.

With no further ado,

I just would like to first of all
introduce the speakers today.

I will be the moderator.

I'm Yanis Gaitanidis from Chiba University.

I was born in Greece, but I did my

undergraduate degree and postgraduate degrees in

Japanese studies in the UK. I have been teaching

at Chiba University since 2013,

and with my colleague who is here today,

Satoko Shao-Kobayashi, and others at this university,

we developed originally a Japanese studies curriculum

that was meant for students across
faculties at Chiba University.

Then three years later, so in 2016,

we joined the newly founded

Liberal Arts and Sciences College,

which in Japanese is translated
as Kokusai Kyōyō Gakubu,

where we also teach Japan-related classes,

but there will be more about this
by my colleague Satoko later on.

Before that, let me pass the
mic to Sachiko for her self-introduction.

Thank you very much, Yanis,

and thank you for giving me this great opportunity
to join you for an exciting discussion.

I'm Sachiko Horiguchi from
Temple University Japan campus,

based in Tokyo.

I'm originally from Tokyo, Japan,

and I've been trained in social anthropology of Japan

in the postgraduate program in the UK.
I have done long-term research on hikikomori,

or socially isolated individuals in Japan,

and have taught anthropology Japan courses here in Japan.

At Temple University Japan campus,

I teach Japan courses as part of
an Asian studies major,

and I've been doing that since
2010. And in our program,

we have students majoring in Asian studies,

as well as students from various majors,
from international business

to communications, taking courses on Japan with me.

At Temple University Japan campus,
or TUJ as we call it,

all courses are conducted in English,

except for the Japanese language courses offered.

And this means that there's no
Japanese language required

for our students enrolling in our institution.

Our student body is diverse.
We have 30 to 40 percent American students,

30 percent Japanese. Some of them
have been educated fully in Japan,

while others have been educated in international schools,

or have been abroad, being returnee,

and also some others have been transferred from
community colleges in the US, etc.

And then we have students from 80 different countries.

The students come, therefore,
with varied levels of Japanese

and also exposure to Japan.

Some students are here just for
one semester on study abroad programs,

while many others are Japan-admitted students

that would be spending at least three, four years here in Japan as well.

The Japanese students
do come from quite varied backgrounds

and share with us quite varied language levels

and, again, knowledge of Japan as well.

Now I'll move on to ask Greg to follow me with their introduction.

Great. Thank you, Sachiko.

Yeah, I'm very excited to be here with you and Yannis and Satoko today.

I'm originally from the US. I grew up in New York.

I did my undergraduate degree
at two different arts programs in the US.

My graduate work I did in the UK. I'm trained in social anthropology

and I've done ethnographic work in higher education

preschool, and also translanguaging
is one of my recent projects.

I've been a permanent member of academic staff
at four different universities in Japan,

both private and national.

In 2011, I moved from Tsukuba to Dōshisha

to help as a core faculty member

at the newly-established at the time,

Institute for the Liberal Arts,
or ILA as we call it,

which was part of the G30 initiative that Yannis spoke about.

Like in Sachiko's case,

the ILA is an ETP
and our major is liberal arts,

so we're not a Japanese studies program

and we have no Japanese language requirement.

One sort of confusing fact about our program is that

we are in between six different Gakubu,

so our students are each shouzoku'd
or placed into one of the Gakubu,

but all of their pedagogy, all of the
administration of the program is

is done through the Institute for the Liberal Arts.

30 or 40% of our students, I would say,

just estimating have some sort of Japanese heritage

or some sort of connection to Japan.

They might have family in Japan,

they've been to Japan during their summer vacations,

but they have never lived here.

Other students are totally bilingual

I would say that multilingualism
really is the norm at the ILA,

since we have people who are first-time residents of Japan, but

also long-term residents, and I would say over 45 different

passports have been represented at any one time at the ILA.

So I'll pass the mic then on to Satoko.

Hi, I'm Satoko Shao-Kobayashi,

and I'm born and raised in Japan.

but I was trained in linguistic anthropology and education in the U.S.

I taught Asian-American studies
there for six years in the U.S.

and came back to Japan to work at Chiba University

and teaching Japanese studies courses

there within the framework of a general education.

So Chiba University is a national university.

Most of the students are locally grown,

but we are pushing the
internationalization of the university,

so we have a lot of international students

and pushing local students to study abroad, etc.

So the Japanese studies courses that I teach,

I use both Japanese and English

and some of the courses
are taught only in English.

So the Japanese studies here we are doing

is a series of collaborative learning classes

for home and international students,

but it's not an area study, so to speak.

So there are some interesting, sort of confusing

facts about our university on Japanese studies.

So we have a lot of international students.

The exchange program for incoming international students

is separated into Japanese studies,

Nihon Kenkyū, for rather advanced Japanese speakers,

but the other one is for Japanese
language learners beginner level,

the Japanese language speakers, and that's called
liberal arts, Kokusai Kyōyō.

So that's for an
international students program,

But there is also a university-wide minor
called Kokusai Nihongaku,

which our university translates
as Global Japanese Studies,

And then the college that Yanis and I
are in are called Kokusai Kyōyō.

The English translation that they put
is Liberal Arts and Sciences,

and within this college that we work for,
there is a Contemporary Japanese Studies,

Gendai Nihongaku major.

So that's one of the three majors
that we have within the college.

Oh yeah, that's pretty confusing.

But anyways, so what is Japanese
studies is a big question to us.

So yes, I'm very looking forward to this
conversation today. Thank you.

Thank you Satoko and everyone for these introductions,

and hopefully listeners can
understand that we have basically

three different institutional contexts represented today.

So we have a public
or national university

where Japanese studies is explicitly offered as a minor

within a curriculum open to all
undergraduate departments, the EMI,

but also within departmental curricula in liberal arts.

We have a private university, so Dōshisha University

where Japanese studies courses are offered

implicitly within a generalized liberal arts curriculum

taught in English, so an ETP.

And we also have an American university where

again, we have an ETP where
Japanese studies courses are embedded

in a specialized area studies undergraduate curriculum.

So a different context, but we identified at least three challenges.

And with no further ado,
I would like to start the conversation on the first

challenge that we identified, and which
has to do precisely with this word kokusai.

So when we discussed about this in advance of the podcast

we thought that there are questions
risen as to how student audiences

and class content have actually complicated
the meaning of the word kokusai,

which is now a multivocal word,

when it is employed as a
signifier for Japanese studies,

for liberal arts, and also for many
top-down strategies of internationalization

at our higher education institutions.

So which of us will share our thoughts on this?

And the first speaker for this,
I think, we decided was Satoko.

Okay, so yeah, I just talked about how Japanese studies
has multiple meanings within our university,

but international is also, we have
a lot of different definitions, I feel like.

So Japan University, as I mentioned,

has been pushing internationalization

largely because of the government's special funding

that we always need to seek in order to keep going,

you know, that the hires and the classes and all that funding

the university needs.

So kokusai, so we called it kokusai before
because it was how the government,

Ministry of Education called it kokusai,

and then now we are saying it's
global for the past decade,

and that's what we use in our university as well.

What's funny is that I was hired as a foreign faculty member.

Like I said, I'm from Japan, but because I received a degree overseas,

they put me in this category of a foreign faculty member

because it helps universities internationalization,

like kokusaika, that helps, you know, to earn their points.

Anyway, the word kokusai and global are used very interchangeably.

One of the symbolic examples is Kokusai Nihongaku,

a university-wide minor that's translated as
Global Japanese Studies, as I mentioned

whereas undergraduate college Kokusai Kyōyō Gakubu
is translated as Liberal Arts and Sciences.

So there's no international or global
when we translate liberal arts,

you know, the Kokusai Kyōyō Gakubu,

They omit the word international
or global from the name.

So and then we also have a graduate program, Sōgō Kokusai Gakui program,

that's also created, pushed by the Ministry of Education's push,

and that's also translated as Graduate Degree Program
of Global and Transdisciplinary Studies.

So yeah, there's a lot of non-translated kokusai

and translated kokusai into international and global and all that.

That's a bit confusing, right? I mean
Yanis, you are in the same university

I think you have more to say to it.

Right, yeah. I mean, there is a lot of meanings in global, right?

Not just even in Japanese, but even within English,
perhaps the global can mean various things.

And in regards to how Japan
is as a pedagogical frame is implemented,

the global also changes its meaning.

And that is quite interesting when we look at
what you've just mentioned across the university,

whether Japanese studies is
implemented as a cross-faculty curriculum

or whether it is inside a department's curriculum,

the global even changes as much meaning as the Japanese studies.

So it is often the case that
programs become global

because there is a Japan-related classes
involved or included in them.

So implicitly, these notify students that we have Japan-related classes,

so obviously the rest of the classes are not Japan-related.

Maybe it's not obvious, but sometimes it implicitly means that.

So in combination with the rest of the components of this curriculum,

we have something that looks global.

So in our case, the case of our college,

which is called Kokusai Kyōyō Gakubu,

but in English it's Liberal Arts and Sciences,

we have a minor that is,
as you mentioned at the start,

Contemporary Japanese Studies, and we also
have another minor, which is Global Studies.

The problem, as I see it, is methodological.

So on one hand, we have a Japanese studies component,

which we have to take as a starting point,

but by taking Japanese as a kind of given,

we lose the globality of the content.

And on the other hand, which is also more interesting is

is we also lose the potential of the adjective global,

which instead of meaning something,
everything, or worldwide, or Japan and the rest,

could be actually, and is actually used in our classes,

Satoko's and mine, and other colleagues,

in more precise terms, in terms of global interactions,

or exchanges, or mutual influences.

And I think that's perhaps
something that

more liberal arts types of departments are keen on,

and perhaps Greg has more to say about this.

Yes, well what Satoko and Yannis are relating has lots of parallels at Dōshisha as well.

We struggled in the beginning to sort of
disentangle our institute from the international,

so the eye of institute from
this eye of international

Since originally our name had been designated by the university administration

as Kokusai Kyōiku Institute.

And so Kokusai Kyōiku was, we felt problematic

because we're
not an educational studies degree,

and also we didn't really want to focus on the sort of
kokusai, the international, that was the norm.

And so we wanted our students to be accepted as Dōshisha students

and not as ryūgakusei or international students.

And there were some quirks that came out of this.

We even had one incident where some of
the institute students were not invited to a party

because it was only for international students,
and they happened to have a Japanese passport.

In the beginning, we had to sort all of this out,

and the university was very helpful with this.

But we might think, though,
about what international means, right?

We're talking about this multi-vocal symbol
of kokusai, right, of international.

And I tend to think that it's sort of a gloss for innovative

like, we should read
it as innovation or innovative.

And I think the MEXT is often
thinking of international programs

as perhaps ways to help universities innovate.

On the other hand, there's constraints
that we have in terms of the curriculum,

in terms of the content. For example,
we might think about

how our students are still kind of
under the thumb of the vestigial

year-long coursework curriculum,

where we didn't have semesters in Japan.

It wasn't that long ago at Japanese universities

that we didn't have semester systems.
So that meant that when you enrolled in a class,

that class met for the whole academic year.

Now that we've divided into semesters, it means

logistically that actually students have to average
more than eight classes a semester, sometimes

10 or 12 even to sort of graduate on time.

So I tend to feel the coursework
is sort of a huge burden for students,

since it takes away from their time
to actually study, if you will,

because they're in class so much, right?

Or I like how in Britain,
like you don't major in something,

you read for a degree, right?

It means that you have time to actually go to the library and read, right?

Or maybe not the library these days,

but just to sort of summarize, I think our
international programs are in some ways

prevented from being
as innovative as they could be,

largely because of MEXT requirements
that are going to take time to change,

or at least interpretations or invocations
of these requirements

that our universities have sort of taken on
as their position in terms of kokusaika.

So I'm really curious to hear how
our examples at Japanese universities

Japanese institutions compare with what
Sachiko has to say about TUJ.

Yes, thanks, Greg.

Indeed, my university, Temple
University Japan campus is rather

unique and it positions itself in that way

because we are an American institution

providing an American university degree.

But here in Japan,

we position ourselves as what we call,

quote, truly global institution,

with the assumption that
these Japanese universities

are struggling in truly globalizing

and that globalization might be somewhat

limited in Japanese universities.

And the context that I think
Yanis, Satoko and Greg explained

shows these struggles that
might certainly be there.

And we say that we are
providing a kind of truly

international education for all students
coming from all over the world,

including, of course,
a big number of American students

who come to study Japan. And for them,

the Japanese experience becomes
something of an international

global experience of some sort.

Having said this, does America make it global?

Of course, is an important question.

And being trained in anthropology,

I am, as a faculty member that
teaches anthropology to students,

I do have to be somewhat critical
about this American imperialism

that plays out perhaps in our institution.

There actually are a number of faculty
who come from

all over the world and not
necessarily from the United States,

which makes it somewhat critical

of the American centrism in our institution.

But we still are American.

So we need to unpack this assumption that,

for example, speaking English

might have to do with being global or international.

What if our American students don't pick up

as much Japanese as we wish
because we don't run a program

that requires Japanese, for example?

And these are questions that I think are quite

important to address in thinking about

how we might think about a global,

international, in an anthropological sense,

and challenging Anglo-centrism,

American centrism. Another challenge that
we have is that because we are so unique,

we also are struggling to make connections

and also have impact on Japanese higher education.

Although I think we are making better efforts,

we have much more partnerships
with local prefectures,

et cetera, than before. But rather trying
to connect with their sense of global,

like Chiba or Dōshisha,

we try to say that we are different

is the common rhetoric that we have.

I guess the next conversation
might be about language, Yanis?

Right. Yeah. So I mean,

as you already pointed out,

this idea that American universities

are everything is supposed to be

taught in English and everyone
is supposed to be

almost native speaker,

whereas our universities,

we are supposed to have
only Japanese native speakers.

But as I think Greg also mentioned,

this is definitely not the case,

at least not anymore.

And therefore we have to
deal with another of the challenges.

This is our second challenge,
which is the reality in class.

So even if perhaps Japanese language is being
traditionally associated with Japanese studies,

and English language also to some extent

problematically associated
with internationalization,

the reality in class is that there is a

trans-languaging happening
and students don't

necessarily use these languages in a way that

the curriculum requires from them.

So could you say a bit more
about this in the case of

the American university,
where the frame looks more defined,

but might not be, Sachiko?

Thanks. Yes. As I mentioned earlier,

we operate as an American
university and we do try to sort of

create an all English sort of
atmosphere actually on campus.

So not just within classes actually,

but also in the faculty conversations
with students,

outside of class, etc.

We're supposed to be
using English all throughout,

except again for the Japanese language teachers.

So this English language requirement
on campus

is there that discourages
maybe trans-languaging,

although of course in an official sense,

although of course the students come from

quite multilingual backgrounds.

Actually we have students from
80 different countries

and for many of them English
is not their first language,

but English kind of dominates,

I would say, on our campus.

Informally, of course, students
might talk in their own languages,

might code switch,

but on my side, for example,

even if I'm
talking with a Japanese student,

I'm supposed to be
doing everything in English.

And that's posed challenges
when we try to teach

Japan because inevitably our
teaching becomes Anglo-centric.

For example, I cannot assign
readings in Japanese,

although I can recommend those.

And I do think that this is
a problem when we try to

encourage students
to learn about Japan

with a caveat that they can only use
maybe English language sources.

And as I mentioned earlier,
as an anthropologist,

this English imperialism,

American imperialism is something
that we hope to challenge.

I do bring that into my own classroom,

but this is not something that's
always shared across the university.

It's a local challenge

of some sort that I try to bring into the classroom,

which I think our students appreciate

because of, again, like our students actually
come from many non-American backgrounds,

Quite a few of them,
majority of them indeed.

So what about the situation
at Dōshisha, Greg?

How do you see the trans-languaging?

So we don't quite have the same explicit

language policy perhaps that TUJ has.

So I would say that

in terms of the hegemony
of English in the classroom,

that there's different interpretations

that different faculty members have

around the idea of trans-languaging.

Some see it as a resource
and it allows students

to engage with their entire linguistic repertoire.

Well, others try to prohibit it,
thinking that's better

for the students because it's a
more level playing field, right?

But even if it's prohibited,

I think even the lecturers,

the instructors themselves fall
into code switching inadvertently.

So we have the funny case
where students

did a little bit of research
on their own classroom experience

and they realized that there was a bit

of a gap in what was being ideologically proposed

and what was actually being practiced.

Which is not surprising.

So we have some different
pedagogy styles, I would say.

But on the other hand,

there's a very high level of
language competence required

to actually enter our program.

I would say on average,

most of our students have at least

a hundred on the TOEFL,
so they're very bilingual.

And I think there's rarely confluence

of teaching English as
a second language, as an L2,

with the teaching in English, right?

So we're certainly a
program that we teach in English.

And there's really very little misunderstanding

even among students
coming into our program,

because in their interview,

if they say,
'Oh, I want to improve my English',

we quickly say,
'That's not the point of our program.'

So I think there is pretty much a common
understanding from that perspective.

And finally, just to think about
the Japanese as a second language,

in our program, although we
strongly encourage it as a subject,

I would say that practically speaking,

because of the intense nature
of the credit requirements to graduate

and the very stringent demands that we
place on our students in terms of coursework,

that practically speaking,

most students aren't able to put the time into

studying Japanese that they perhaps had hoped to,

which is a little bit of a challenge that we have.

It's hard to justify in their eyes sometimes

formal language studies,

because they only get one credit
as well for language classes,

which is half the number of
credits they get for other classes.

Even though there's certainly not half the amount,

as any of us who have taken second languages know,

it's not an easy subject.

How does this relate then to the
situation at Chiba, would you say, Yanis?

As you mentioned, the Japanese studies,

originally this idea of kokusai nihongaku was

almost necessarily attached
to English language learning,

implicitly or explicitly.

And it was the case for us as well.

So when we originally developed
this minor for Japanese studies,

which was supposed to target students

from all departments at the university,

the main kind of point objective was that

the students would come and learn about Japan

in English. So it was a package, let's say.

And as always, packages
are very difficult to manage

and control and actually succeed.

So the idea that we have
Chiba University students

or home students, if you want,

who are supposed to know about Japan
and then take the same class in

English with international students who are

supposed to know more English
but less about Japan,

already from the start didn't really work

because a lot of the students who come

have some sort of Japanese studies training.

Some of them come from Japanese studies departments.

So in the conversations,

they sometimes happen to know
or seem to know more about

Japanese society or politics
than the home students,

which then turned these classes

into a very difficult for
the native Japanese speakers,

because there is the double disadvantage

where they seem to know less and
also have to use English language.

For us, the fortunate thing
was that from the start,

we had this also directive
to try to develop

and we did with Satoko courses

where the teacher uses both languages

and all the information is provided
in both languages,

so that there is at least
a fairness in a sense

based on the material that is provided.

And of course, students are free to
use any of those languages and more,

as Satoko will probably
talk about in a moment.

So there are ways to turn this around

and I think we have
in some ways succeeded

in this at Chiba University.

Perhaps Satoko, you can
share more about this.

Right, there is definitely

something that went well and then also

some struggles as Yanis mentioned,

especially because Ministry of
Education and Chiba University always

seem to believe English equals
internationalization and globalization.

And then I am also part of the fantasy

because I can only use Japanese and English,

but I feel bad because I try to
learn Spanish and I try to learn Mandarin.

It didn't really stick, but I'm still trying.

In class, I do explain to my
students that it is my limitation

and not students.

I can only do classes in Japanese and English.

And then because sometimes,
as Yanis mentioned,

students feel that they are
incapable because of the language.

But they're not. And then even
ask how much score do I need

to participate in this class
or study abroad program, etc.

or how much English do I need to know.

And a lot of the times they are so concerned
about English language level

and then that becomes
a huge mental hurdle for them.

And on the other hand,

sometimes there's a student
who can speak English fluently

and then become a hijacker
of a group discussion

and not really giving
a floor to other students.

Like Yanis and I have been trying to work on

is that how can we make a sort of safe
environment for students to share their ideas

and not so much about proper
language proficiency per se,

but then conveying the idea using
different kinds of communicative methods.

We use a lot of visuals,

like we have good and bad,

but then that's how we reflect our own language
and that share with students.

And that's what we do in our classes.

And as you mentioned,

a lot of this has to do
with the fact that we are not

native English speakers either.

So the fact that a lot of our
faculty teach in English without

having been themselves English
learners solves some of the issues,

but also obviously creates

new challenges, how to frame
this for prospective students.

Sachiko, would you like to
mention something?

Yes, I did want to sort of
note what Satoko mentioned

about how the English speakers

or the speakers who are confident in English

can sometimes take over conversations.

And then like those who don't
speak English as the first language

feel a little bit inferior.

And I do spot that our own institution
may be even stronger

because English again dominates
more in our program.

And I think the US trained students are

encouraged to speak up
and maybe students from

elsewhere might feel like they're not good enough.

When we look at what they produce,
they do very well.

But I do try to bring
in an extra kind of element

of the points that Yanis
you just mentioned

about, like how many of us are
not first language speakers.

And I encourage the American students

to think about like, what if this class
was all in Japanese?

How would you survive the situation?

It is a hypothetical question.

I try to ask them as educators.

We do, I think, have to
look at this in a critical light.

No, you're right.

I mean, and especially in the sense,

I mean, it's not just the variety
of our backgrounds,

it becomes a kind of a strategy
to improve our classes, right?

And it's not just the language,

it's also our disciplinary backgrounds.

I mean, just among the four of us,

I'm the only one who has
a Japanese studies degree.

And it's often the case at I think
a lot of Japanese universities

that many people don't have a background
in Japanese or area studies

And that's a good thing, which is,

this leads us to the third challenge,
because we think that

this variety of disciplines and backgrounds

of the faculty members
who teach Japanese studies

or end up teaching the Japanese studies

and universities in Japan
has helped us overcome

issues associated with what
we call the Japan explainers.

And perhaps Satoko can say
a bit more about this.

The Japan explainer is such a great,

you know, terminology. Most of our students,

a whole lot of students went
through education in Japan.

And that's based on the national curriculum.

And especially after the revision of
the Basic Act of Education in 2006,

which strengthens government
involvement in education policies.

One of the big emphases is on
our Japanese tradition and culture,

but sort of essentialize the image of Japan.

So whereas many faculty members teaching
Japanese studies at our university

receive education in
English-speaking countries

in different disciplines. This is particularly
true because being able to give a lecture

and publish in English are the
crucial decisive factor for new hires,

especially funding and all that.

that has something to do with
universities and rankings and evaluation.

And that has something to do with,

you know, allotment of national funding.

So it's so much more complicated.

So when I was told to teach Japanese studies,

and my background is not
Japanese studies, like Yanis mentioned.

And then also because I have
some background in anthropology,

'What do you mean by Japan?'
is first thing that came out, right?

Japanese studies, do I teach about Japan?

I can't teach about Japan.

I don't know what Japan is.

That was a long conversation
that Yanis was really patient.

We discussed days and days about that.

And then we were thinking like
what Japanese studies is

and what Japanese stands for and what we

envision for our Japanese studies would be or

should be. So teachers with different disciplines do

not necessarily have the same understanding

per se. So we ended up you know,

we should just focus on
using Japan as an example,

teach basic concept in our speciality
and not to teach what Japan is per se.

So that was one of the things

that kept us moving with our program.

How is it in Dōshisha, Greg?

Yes, what you just mentioned, Satoko,

it really resonates
with what we have come up with.

And that is,

we're teaching the liberal arts
through the lens of Japan.

So we're not teaching what Japan is,

but we're using Japan
as an example, exactly.

That being said,
and we do have Japan explainers.

So not everybody buys into that necessarily.

And even though a large portion of our faculty

have experience outside of Japan,

so they have experience to
not only nihonjinron views,

but the sort of antithesis to that,

I think quickly it's our students
that challenge us, right?

So if we come up with a phrase that sounds
rather suspicious to our students,

'Sensei, isn't that nihonjinron?'

So they have the tools,

we try to give them the tools
to unpack assumptions about Japan.

And it's very exciting

when they actually use
those tools in the classroom

to challenge us when we either purposefully or

inadvertently fall into a Japan
explainer sort of mode of operandi.

And I would say that even though
our program is not Japanese studies,

as I've mentioned,

again, the mode of inquiry
is to use Japan as a lens.

And there's certainly many
different interpretations of

what Japanese studies is at the ILA.

. Our center of ideological gravity,

to sort of sum up would be this sort of

multi-vocal notion of Japan,

inverted commas, challenging us
then to explain Japan,

or not explain Japan, but rather
to focus on ways to interpret, right?

So not explaining Japan,

but interpreting Japan is really where our

center of gravity is implicitly or explicitly

inhabited, not only by us,

but by our students,

to reiterate. They seem to
laugh off attempts,

again, by some instructors
to sort of explain Japan.

So maybe I'll give the mic to Yannis.

Yeah, I mean,
the critical perspective,

this is something we've been
doing at Chiba U also for a while,

to the point that we have renamed
our Japanese studies methods,

critical Japanese studies. But it is also funny
that since we've been doing this for so long,

we also have had students
expecting it in our classes,

and perhaps more than
we are actually engaged into it.

So we have people now expecting
us to criticize Japanese stereotypes

in every single class that we do.

And perhaps that also is
a good reaction to it.

But on the other side,

those teachers who do not

take that particular approach
or do not pick on

every stereotype they hear
from the students in class

may seem then in comparison to us,

more lenient or even,

dare I say,

more open-minded,

in inverted commas.

So there is an interesting,

let's say, context here where
we also have been

engaged in the past in doing
faculty development seminars

to try to share our methods so that
we are not the only, let's say,

group of teachers who explicitly
engage with criticizing stereotypes

in our classes.

So in the end, thinking from that perspective,

their classes are called Japanese studies,

but they're basically methodologies classes.

So we try to, as you, I think,
mentioned before, Greg, that

the idea of how do you
overcome these essentialist discourses?

And if methodological nationalism doesn't work,

what other ways are there to think
about these topics and how to

understand nationalistic
tendencies in order to

subvert them with more
innovative and collaborative

strategies that Satoko mentioned earlier?

So that's, I think, the big difference with

the Japan explainers
is that the Japan explainers

usually don't talk about
methodology in class

or how they came up with
these explanations, and we do.

And I think that's the big difference.

What do you think, Satoko?

I do share the kinds of,

I think, concerns, experiences.
Although I think

our program is kind of unique,

I would agree, I think, with most of
the points that you have

mentioned. So in our program,

most faculty in Asian studies,

where Japan courses are taught,

promote critical, nuanced
understanding of Japan,

I think, from various disciplinary perspectives,

maybe political science, history,

literature, religion, etc. And
we do think that our program

or like the way we teach
Japan should be different

from how Japan is taught in mainland US or like,

let's say, our main campus in Philadelphia,

although the titles of our courses are going

to be the same,

because the students do live in Japan.

And I think we do take the idea that

we should really sort of have a bottom-up

understanding of what happens in Japan,

challenging stereotypes, as everybody said,

I think, is something that we,

I think, will try to promote. So our program
incorporates a mix of anthropological,

sociological, historical, literature
-based religious approaches.

Plus, I think there's a number of faculty doing

political science, etc., and also
economy and things like that.

The Asian studies

major sort of operates in an interdisciplinary way.

But having said this,

there are a lot of students

outside of the Asian studies major

that really like to take Japan courses,

because they just

simply want to learn about
Japan because they are here.

But that poses another challenge,

because they might not get the holistic sort

of interdisciplinary kind of understanding

that the students in Asian studies
majors would get.

So there's a bit of a limitation there.

And also, another challenge that
we find is that there's nobody,

I think, in the Asian studies

program that are trained in Japanese graduate school.

So they're all trained sort of overseas,

typically in the West.

And many faculty don't engage much

with Japanese or maybe local academic

communities. And I'm one of the
few faculty that's connected

to these Japanese academic communities

and also publish in Japanese as well.

So we do stay a bit in a bubble.

So there's a strong

American smell that I think we can find when

we go into a building and everything is going

to be in English.

And that bubble is also affecting the way

that we struggle to make connections

with local Japanese institutions or
Japanese scholarly communities.

And also, unfortunately, we don't

really discuss that much about the connection

between Japanese language courses
and the content

courses in the Asian studies program,

which I do feel is necessary going forward as well.

But these are maybe issues
that might be found in English

mediums that have Japanese programs

in Japan, as well as elsewhere.

And I hope we can continue to
address this issue going forward.

Thank you for this.

So we're almost reaching an hour for

this podcast and we won't stay longer.

But talking about bubbles,

we hope that this conversation
will also reach people beyond Japan.

The discussion about navigating the

challenges of Japanese studies pedagogy

definitely go beyond what we
experience at Japanese institutions.

And we hope that actually

many of those who will listen to
this podcast will be nodding along,

even if they are not teachers
in Japanese institutions

and even if they are not teaching

in liberal arts or Japanese studies curricula.

If anything, it seems that
today more than ever,

world events and the rise of AI-generated content

ask us to talk with our students more about

methodology and the basic ethics of
searching for appropriate information

and building an argument around it

rather than the content of
the argument itself,

even if the argument obviously
is as important.

It seems also that the methods
of how arguments are built,

are produced, are not self-evident,

or at least not anymore perhaps.

And therefore, all content must be

accompanied by a record
of the path that led to it.

Some of the publications that we have

recommended in the list of
sources accompanying this podcast,

I hope offer ideas on how to do this.

Thanks again to my colleagues
who joined me today

and thanks for listening.

Thank you very much.

Thank you. Yes, thank you for your time today.

It was a pleasure.