グローバル教養科目（Japan As They Saw It）

In this course, we will examine and discuss the impact of international tourism and travel on perceptions and representations of different countries and cultures. The starting point of our discussions will be “Japan As They Saw It,” an online anthology of descriptions of Japan in the 19th and early 20th centuries by visitors from the United States and Britain. We will assess how foreign tourists and residents viewed Japan and how they chose to describe the country to readers in the books and letters they wrote. We will then move to the present day and examine how Japan is presented to the world today by tourists and other visitors, particularly online and through social media. Through our discussions, we will attempt to develop a systematic understanding—a theory, perhaps—of how different countries and cultures are perceived and portrayed.