This seminar course is designed to help students cultivate analytical lenses through which to view the multifaceted state of contemporary Japan in historical terms. The intention is not to provide an exhaustive overview of Japan’s historical path but to equip the registered students with key concepts, ideas, and themes, such as Orientalism, modernization, nation/empire-building, colonialism, imperialism, trans-Pacific racism, gender, war, “base Okinawa,” the Japan-U.S. security system, Cold War Japan, the Anpo, post-Anpo Japan, and a wide range of social activism in postwar and contemporary Japan. Background knowledge of Japanese history can be helpful, but it is not required to attend the course. The chief objective of this course throughout the semester is to observe and discuss the trajectory of modern Japan from a global perspective and learn how to historicize its present for the globe’s better future.