Course Description: This course explores the samurai tradition from the beginning to the end to survey changing roles and philosophy behind its existence. The survey of the samurai will be extended to modern periods to analyze why concepts of samurai are still popular, how and why the stereotypical images of the samurai were created through media and school education, what kind of roles the samurai as a cultural icon played in reconstructing national identity after WWII, etc. The course separates the samurai tradition into four periods (1.Heian/Kamakura, 2. Azuchi-Momoyama 3. Edo 4. Meiji to Heisei) and employs ancient war tales (including the Tale of the Heike), historical documents and paintings, maps, articles, literary books, different genres of samurai films, photographs, and videos to fully examine one of the most popular Japanese cultural icons. Taught in English.
Course Narrative: In JAPN 212: Samurai spirit I learned about the origin of the samurai and their role throughout history. Because of modern media we see samurai as fearless, honorable, katana wielding warriors loyally serving their lords. While some of these are true to an extent, especially of samurai during the Edo/Tokugawa period, the first samurai were nothing more than hired mercenaries. Within the course we read through legends of the samurai and reflected our readings through essays. We also watched several movies depicting different life for samurai during different eras of Japan's history. Through this course I learned how samurai went from being hired mercenaries, to highly sought after military clans, and eventually becoming the leading class of society in Japan for almost 250 years. This semester I was also taking JAPN 302 which is about Japanese history as a whole and for a brief couple weeks the content of both courses seemingly overlapped perfectly. Learning about the overall picture in Japanese in JAPN 302, as well as the more specific history of samurai in English was very helpful to really comprehend the material.