Special Topics on Cultural History of Japan

Lectures consist of the following themes:
- indigenous cultural world before contacts with China: material culture, organization of society, aspects of the thought world in Kojiki, Nihon shoki and Man'yoshu
- contacts with the continent; new thought culture, architecture, art, writting, new thought currents: early Buddhism, Confucianism and Taoism;
- nativization of continental influencies during Heian period; material culture, literacy, art;
- change in political organization of Japan during Kamakura period and its consequencies for spiritual culture and organization of society;
- Muromachi period and the development of new cultural practices: theater, tea ceremony, achitecture, birth of cities
- First contacts with the West: new influences in material culture and warfare, print;
- Invasion of Korea and the influx of new cultural influences from the continent:
- Edo period: development of cities, elite culture and mass culture, spread of printing, the development of protocapitalism, effects on the development of art, literature and theater
- Meiji period: modernization and conservatism, centralization and colonial expansionism, traditional culture and reoccurence of contacts with the West, effects on material and spiritual culture
- Emergence of mass media and standardization of language and writting
- First globalization of indigenous culture – reception in the West
- Japan as an imperial power: export of culture into colonies, cultural assimilation;
- Discovery of folk tradition and material culture: Yanagi Muneyoshi and Yanagita Kunio;
- Japan after World War II – culture of mass consumption during the period of rapid change.