SSC 496 - Field Study Abroad - Socio-Cultural Analyses of The Tale of Genji

Aug 26, 2026

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SSC 496 Field Study Abroad examines Lady Murasaki Shikibu’s Genji Monogatari through Kencho Suematsu’s foundational English translation, situating the work within Japan’s 11th-century cultural and socio-historical context. Learning combines field excursions to museums, shrines, and temples with online virtual tours of East Asian collections, plus a live Noh performance that highlights period-influential performative practices. The course applies sociological, anthropological, historical, and cultural-studies frameworks to analyze high-context culture, Tang-era legacies, and Heian court aesthetics, culminating in a three-part final project linking social institutions, roles, and parenting strategies to educational objectives.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryLiterature

FormatPDF

Pages12

Reading Time18 min

AccessFree to download

Course Description and Overview

Field Excursions and Virtual Collections

Theoretical Frameworks and Cultural Analysis

Key Topics and Weekly Progression

Confucian, Buddhist, and Shinto Interactions

High-Context Cultures and Transmission Strategies

Tang, Nara-Muromachi-Heian Japan, and Goryeo Korea Comparisons

Heian Aesthetics and Social Discourse

Miyabi, Symbolic Devices, and Yūgen

Assignments and Final Term Project

Court Life Properties and Semantic Codes

Three-Part Field and Synchronic/Diachronic Exercises

Parenting Strategies, Educational Policy, and Becoming Genji

SSC 496-Field Study Abroad Socio-Cultural Analyses of The Tale of Genji (4 credit hours) Japanese Language & Culture Study Abroad Program – Spring Semester, 2025 The Japan Center for Michigan Universities (JCMU) Hikone City, Shiga Prefecture, JAPAN Instructor: Dr. Jacqueline Jackson, PhD MSU Course Designation: SSC 496, Section 755 Instructional Days: TBD Office: Academic Building, Room TBD Office Hours: TBD Office Phone: TBD E-mail: TBD Course Description: Welcome! Social behavior and cultural processes of Japan builds on an in-depth examination of Lady Murasaki Shikibu’s Genji Monogatari, The Tale ofGenji. Course Overview: Field Study Abroad facilitates an investigation into the cultural materials, practices and sensibilities presented throughout Kencho Suematsu’s inaugural translation of Lady Murasaki Shikibu’s classic work Genji Monogatari, translated into English as The Tale ofGenji. The Tale holds special importance to JCMU’s home prefecture of Shiga, as Lady Murasaki is known to have written significant portions of the work in temples and cities along Lake Biwa, especially in and around Ishiyama. This course builds from studied consultation with the epic text and seeks to inform and situate The Tale in its specific Japanese context through field excursions to museums, shrines and temples, online virtual excursions through the rich collections of East Asian cultural objects in major museums, and a live Noh theatrical performance which presents material content and performative practices influential to and contemporaneous with the period and space in which The Tale exists. We will also give appropriate attention to Japan’s setting in East Asia with respect to its earlier cultural and political influences and exchanges with China and Korea, leading up to the time of Lady Murasaki’s novel in the 11th century CE. The first week opens by establishing the ideological messaging of The Tale through an abbreviated consideration of Confucian education and values, and the syncretism of Confucian-Buddhist cultural elements in discussion with the indigenous Japanese system of Shinto belief and practices. Next, a selection of theorists are introduced from the theoretical and applied traditions of sociology, anthropology, history and cultural studies which add interpretive frameworks to the preceding enterprise, along with the expectation that students maintain an accounting of synopses and any insights garnered from traditions commonly associated with Marxism, Structuralism and Functionalism by way of Theoretical Summaries. Afterwards, we advance a cadre of articles about High-Context Cultures as prelude to understanding the inherent cognitive enrichments of the setting of Japan, its subtleties, and as preemptive to perhaps grasping the transmission strategies enacted in Heian Court life. Necessarily, the term forwards a Cultural Analysis of The Tale’s principle sociocultural and socio-historical influences through staggered review of the aesthetic achievements and sensibilities of Tang-era China, Nara-Muromachi-Heian-era Japan, and Goryeo-era Korea through examination of several premier online collections of period artifacts hosted by numerous acclaimed museum institutions. Thereafter, the course will inquire into the question of wholesale adoption or relative adaptation of Tang-era sensibilities during the Nara, Muramachi and the Heian periods, from the perspective of color and the manner and facility with which it was wielded as symbolic device in Nara and Heian Court Cultures. Within the Heian sociocultural milieu, social discourse was transmitted through an ecosystem of artful dialogue consisting of all manner of Miyabi (i.e. courtly elegance) or correct taste and high aesthetic principles, including in poetry, music, painting, handwriting, fragrances, scented paper, costume, the language of gesture, knowledge of color, and its combinations and corresponding meanings with respect to religious, political

FAQs

What is the central focus of SSC 496 Field Study Abroad?

The course centers on socio-cultural analyses of Lady Murasaki Shikibu’s Genji Monogatari, using Kencho Suematsu’s inaugural English translation as the primary lens.

How does the course connect classroom learning with real cultural environments?

Students engage in field excursions to museums, shrines, and temples, complementing them with online virtual excursions to major museums’ collections and a live Noh theatrical performance.

What is the structure and purpose of the final term project?

The final project has three parts: a field-based exploration of material culture in cultural institutions, a synchronic functionalist comparison of social institutions and roles, and a short diachronic exercise linking Heian-valued knowledge and behaviors to parenting strategies and formal educational policy objectives.

Aug 26, 2026

Upload by Quinn