学部後期課程
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最終更新日：2026年10月16日
授業計画や教室は変更となる可能性があるため、必ずUTASで最新の情報を確認して下さい。
UTASにアクセスできない方は、担当教員または部局教務へお問い合わせ下さい。
最終更新日：2026年10月16日
授業計画や教室は変更となる可能性があるため、必ずUTASで最新の情報を確認して下さい。
UTASにアクセスできない方は、担当教員または部局教務へお問い合わせ下さい。
国際日本研究演習I
Course Title: Tokyo Reimagined: An Exploration of Folklore, Place, and the Spectral Metropolis
Tokyo was once Edo — a city shaped by waterways, unique social hierarchies, and urban rhythms very different from those of the modern capital. Though renamed and transformed, Edo remains present in Tokyo’s landscape(s), place names, and moreover, its folklore. This course uses the term Edo-Tokyo to highlight the city’s multilayered history and its complex role as a generator and incubator of folklore. Edo’s urban fabric provided the setting for all manner of site-specific tales of curses, spectres, and supernatural entities. From haunted tunnels to shape-shifting spirits, Edo-Tokyo continues to be full of stories that reveal how people make sense of place, memory, and socio-environmental change. By exploring these tales, we will uncover how geography and narrative work together to shape the city’s past(s) – and its possible future(s).
This interdisciplinary and exploratory course explores Edo-Tokyo through the lenses of folklore and cultural geography to reveal how the interaction of spatiality, narrative, and belief informs urban identities and captures the ‘biography of place’. Students will examine how urban space, cultural memory, myth, and storytelling shape the lived and imagined city, looking at how these things may be combined to explore the complex experience of Tokyo life. Combining lectures, seminars, field trips (interventions), and creative/collaborative research, students will critically engage with how folklore is embedded in the geographies of Edo-Tokyo and investigate the various ways in which these fantastic and often unsettling narratives continue to shape experiences of the cityscape today.
By the end of the course, students will be able to:
1.Identify and interpret folklore in the urban landscape.
2.Analyse the spatial dimensions of culture and folk narrative.
3.Conduct field-based research and site-specific analysis.
4.Collaborate across cultures and disciplines.
5.Create an innovative, research-informed group project tied to Edo-Tokyo’s cultural geography and folklore.
1.Identify and interpret folklore in the urban landscape.
2.Analyse the spatial dimensions of culture and folk narrative.
3.Conduct field-based research and site-specific analysis.
4.Collaborate across cultures and disciplines.
5.Create an innovative, research-informed group project tied to Edo-Tokyo’s cultural geography and folklore.
時間割／共通科目コード
コース名
教員
学期
時限
08C403401
FAS-CA4V35S3
国際日本研究演習I
THURGILL James Christopher
水曜2限
マイリストに追加
マイリストから削除
講義使用言語
英語
単位
2
実務経験のある教員による授業科目
NO
他学部履修
可
開講所属
教養学部
授業計画
Week 1 Class introduction: Folklore-Narrative-Place:Introduction to class thematics, assessment and schedule.
Week 2 Edo-Tokyo: The Layered City: Lecture & discussion on the supernatural history of Edo-Tokyo offering examples of folklore.
Week 3 Folklore and Urban Space: Lecture on urban myths and spectral geography. Workshop: mapping urban legend. Students will share their own urban legends and consider their spatial features.
Week 4 Local Hauntings/Borders and Boundaries: (re)discovering place through folk narrative: Short folklore-themed scavenger hunt around Komaba/Shibuya area.
Week 5 Mapping the Haunted City: Lecture and discussion on the ‘mappability’ of folklore and the visualisation of narrative.
Week 6 Intervention 1: Honjo-Nanafushigi (Walking and exploring the Seven Mysteries of Honjo): Site visit to Sumida Ward. Students to locate and map sites from the legends using field recording and collaborative observation.
Week 7 Media Lab ①: Story & SoundWorkshop: audio/visual storytelling. Introduction to podcast/zine/film. Group work begins.
Week 8 Intervention 2: Shinjuku’s Spiritual Cartography: Group pilgrimage and photographic walk to Shinjuku’s seven lucky shrines.
Week 9 Tengu, Syncretism and Marginal Mythologies: Lecture on Tengu, mountains, margins. Workshop: dissecting myth components and spirituality. Trip briefing.
Week 10 Intervention 3: Mt. Takao and the Tengu Temple: Takao-san hike + Yakuōin temple visit. Photo, poetry and audio capture activity.
Week 11 Media Lab ②: Narrative in Practice: Group work, peer feedback + editing workshop.
Week 12 Final Preparation: Final project work + presentation practice.
Week 13: Showcase & Reflection: Group presentations: podcast/zine/film/photo exhibition. Wrap-up discussion: What next? Edo-Tokyo futures.
Important notes on classes.
*Fieldwork is subject or rescheduling. In some cases, it may be necessary to alter location.
** Due to timing and distance from campus, some classes involving fieldworks may need to take place during evenings or on weekends. This will be negotiated with students.
*** Travel expenses to be paid for by students.
授業の方法
Classes will revolve around lecture and discussion, fieldwork, creative tasks, multi-media work, and presentations.
All course reading materials will be provided by the professor.
Due to the shortening of class times, 15 minutes of additional reading and/or self study time will be included in homework tasks.
成績評価方法
Students will be assessed on the following:
3 x Fieldwork Reflection Essays (approx. 300-500 words each) (20%)
Creative Group Project (film, zine, podcast, exhibition) (40%)
Final Showcase inc. presentation (20%)
Participation (20%)
*Students must complete all tasks in each category in order to pass this course.
履修上の注意
1) If the number of applicants is high, we may need to set a limit on the number of students (Max. capacity 30 students)
2) Priority will be given to students who are already enrolled or plan to enroll in the programs GS/GSA.
実務経験と授業科目の関連性
Professor Thurgill completed a PhD in Cultural Geography with a focus on place, folk narratives and experience. He has numerous publications on the subject of folklore and geography in academic journals and edited volumes. Professor Thurgill is a Fellow of the UK's Royal Geographical Society. He is the author of Unsettling Narratives: Folklore's Textual Geographies (2026) and co-editor of the "Literary Geography: Theory and Practice" book series by University of Wales Press.
