In 1854 Commodore Perry of the U.S. Navy forcefully opened the doors of Japan to American influences.
In this seminar we will follow Captain Nathan Algreen's discovery of the "Last Samurai" (USA, 2003) who teach foreigners the ideas of bushido in an increasingly Westernized Japan. We will follow Julie Otsuka's picture brides across the Pacific to meet their husbands and experience life as Issei, first generation immigrants in California. With Nissei George Takei, we will remember what it meant to be removed to internment camps in the aftermath of the Japanese attacks on Pearl Harbor. Sadako will teach us hope in the era of nuclear arms race - and how to fold 1001 origami cranes for the hibakusha - before American fears return with a vengeance when the "Rising Sun" arrives in the USA in the 1980s.
From Godzilla to Pokemon, from cosplaying Sailor Moon to claims of whitewashing "Ghost in the Shell" (2017), from the American military presence in Okinawa to Golf Diplomacy between Trump and Abe: Japan and the USA have shared over 150 years of cultural contact(s) that merit a deeper look at how two countries that seem to symbolize Eastern and Western cultures have clashed, come to terms with each other (perhaps) and even created visions of a shared future such as the transcultural San Fransokyo in "Big Hero 6" (USA, 2014).
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