Assignments

before class on Thursday 29 Nov
See this page for an opportunity to rewrite your essay on honor

before class on Thursday 15 Nov
Look at Jesse Zink's project on China's One Child Policy. Make a log entry with your comments on

• how well [or not-well] you think this project meets the assignment for the project in this class --how would you evaluate it if you were me and it was done for this class? and
• what do you need to do with your project to make it better than Jesse Zink's?

before class on Tuesday 13 Nov
This one will be for a GRADE --think of it as like a midterm, worth about about 1/6 of the final altogether (half of the third under 'various Assignments'):

Chushingura is often said to be about honor, and Buruma makes a lot of the version of honor that is called giri in Japanese (sometimes it's translated as 'obligation'). Obviously, giri and the Washington & Lee model of honor are NOT the same thing, but they certainly do overlap --they share some of the same semantic space, deal with some of the same issues and challenges, and are believed by participants (samurai and W&L students) to be essential in some way to their identity. Use the materials available to you (including any of the various links on my Chushingura page that seem useful) to construct an essay in which you explain how giri and W&L's honor are (1) alike and (2) different. At one point toward the end the Chamberlain says "To know what is right and to do it are two different things." This might be a good place to start your ruminations.

during the week of 5-9 November
You should be working on your Project, adding material to the pages you're constructing. I'll evaluate your progress on Thursday evenings --tonight (1 Nov) and a week from now (8 Nov)-- and anticipate that you'll do a lot!

before class on Tuesday 30 Oct
Refine and extend your Introduction to your Project, and create a section on books that are truly useful as background. Draw upon what you found when you did your Annie searches, and make annotations for the two you think are most useful. An annotation could include some quotations, but should indicate why somebody should look at these books.

before class on Thursday 25 Oct Make sure you've done the things on Tuesday's page and refine (edit, augment) your summary on your project.html page.

before class on Thursday 18 Oct
Consider how your chosen Project is expressed in space: is there a geographical dimension? Are there maps you can imagine that would clarify or extend your Project? For some people the answer may be 'no'... but for many of you I can imagine possible maps. Make an entry in your log file summarizing your thoughts and conclusions. IF your answer for your Project is 'no', identify some aspect of what we've talked about (or that we might talk about) in East Asia that you can imagine yourself making maps of.

before class on Tuesday 9 Oct
...make more log entries to record your progress with your project, but this time also choose from what you've found [1] two 'best' Web sites and [2] the 'best' article and write brief summaries of what they contain and why somebody should choose to look at them. Link them if possible (i.e., if the article is available online)

before class on Thursday 4 Oct
Your explorations of JSTOR and the books you found via Annie should have helped you to focus (limit, broaden...) what you think you want to work on.

1. Make a log entry summarizing the terms and concepts that seem to you to be appropriate descriptors for your project (search terms, concepts, phrases)
2. Try out Bibliography of Asian Studies and at least two of the other sources you'll find links to under 'finding information' on the course page, and record useful things you find, and then
3. Make another log entry summarizing as clearly as you can in a paragraph or two what you now think your topic has become.

before class on Tuesday 2 Oct

1. Do some searches on your developing topic using JSTOR (www.jstor.org), using the Asian Studies journals and any other categories that seem relevant. REPORT your search terms and make links to what you find in your log file, with your comments on the process. If you seem to find nothing, try to make more general searches (and report the terms). If your topic is shifting focus, summarize what you're thinking in the log file. Don't hesitate to ask for my help (I'll be in my office Monday pretty much all day and Monday evening), and take a look at a page of suggestions I'm building.

2. Read the excerpt from Amélie Nothomb's Fear and Trembling and make notes for yourself on things in the 3 pages that have and don't seem to have analogs in American culture as you've experienced it. REMEMBER that this is a novelist writing, and take it as a Rashomon-like approximation to reality, one person's crystallization of great cultural complexity --and she's an outsider to what she's describing. Please bring your notes and thoughts of this text to class.

before class on Thursday 26 Sept
READ the handout material on Rashomon and the text on my Rashomon page, and come to class with questions in mind --about the events and characters in the film itself and about the culture it seems to depict, and decide what you think is the real message of the film. I'll have you do some in-class writing, and we'll explore what it all means. The video is available in Leyburn --VIDEO PN1997 .R24 1986 (at the Circulation Desk)-- in case you want to see it again, but PLEASE don't keep it any longer than you need to, so that others can get at it if they want to. It's also available at Blockbuster.

By 6PM on MONDAY 24 Sept:
IMPROVE your narrative of the Annie search, using your inspirations of classtime on Thursday to guide you. Clean up your /anth/index.html page so that it's as orderly and easy to navigate as you can make it. And extend your narrative by doing some Web searching on your evolving topic --report the search terms you used, make links to especially useful sources. THIS version of the Narrative is what I'll assign a grade to.

Before class on Thursday 20 Sept:

1. Work on your index.html for the course --fancy it up, make sure it has working links to at least the following: (a) assignments (you might want to move them to a single page), (b) a page on your Project idea(s) which will be augmented as they develop, and (c) a file called log.html which you'll use to keep track of things (Web pages, books, ideas...) you encounter as you explore.

2. Start the process of Project topic development by searching Annie to see what our Library has on (and near) what you think your Project is about. What I want is a narrative of your search process, including the search terms you used and Annie records (in the 'short' form --e-mail them to yourself and copy-paste them into your narrative) for things you found that look like they'd be useful. If you seem to be finding 'nothing' you might be asking inefficiently --don't hesitate to ask me for help if you're baffled. Be selective in what you report (i.e., don't include EVERYTHING you find, just the good stuff), and combine Annie searching with visits to the shelves to LOOK AT THE BOOKS and to see what's nearby books you found with your search. Plan to spend a couple of hours on this task, and end the narrative with a paragraph summarizing how your Project ideas have evolved because of what you found via your search. I'll grade this assignment, looking for effort and clarity. I respond positively to overkill.

Before class on Tuesday 11 Sept:
Explore the "On the Study of the Anthropology of East Asia" page, to get an idea of the sorts of things we'll be doing this term. Look at the linked materials (at least some of them), and then write a few paragraphs (save the file in your /anth folder --and make it a Web page if that's something you know how to do already) in which you

• introduce yourself
• describe your interests and experience (including travel) in things East Asian (if you have them --otherwise, say what you are interested in and experienced with)
• identify two things mentioned in "On the Study of..." that seem especially interesting to you