Response paper #2: Religion and Culture in Early Modern Japan

Please address the topic below in a short paper of around 800 words (approx. 3 ½ double-spaced pages, but it is easier to keep track of word count on your word processor—being over or under by 100 words or more will negatively affect your grade). Because these papers are short, they need not conform to the standard five-paragraph essay format. You can be inventive with style or format if you wish. However, the papers must be well thought-out, clearly written, and carefully edited. All papers must contain an original thesis argument (see previous handout for “three tests for a good thesis), and must refer directly and specifically to relevant assigned readings in order to sustain your argument. Lecture material may also be incorporated where necessary. NO outside research should be necessary (in fact I discourage it—you should have all you need in the assigned readings alone). Regarding style and format basics, see separate handout on “Stylistic conventions that matter.” Read it. Follow it. Implement it. Really.

TOPIC:

(Note: we will discuss many issues directly relevant to this topic in class on Tuesday, Feb. 16th).

Early modern Japan was, technically speaking, a developing country. And yet, it avoided almost all of the major impediments to economic growth and well-being that we have seen in other developing countries in the modern period (e.g.: high population growth, high fertility, high mortality/low life expectancy, low levels of education, low per capita income—early modern Japan experienced none of these phenomena. Indeed, as we have discussed, it experienced the opposite). There are many ways to explain how and why the early modern Japanese managed to avoid these typical impediments to growth. Some of the scholars whose works we have read emphasize the nature of early modern Japan’s ethical and religious belief systems (Confucianism, Buddhism, Shinto, syncretic beliefs) as one possible explanation for early modern growth and well-being. Some emphasize more secular developments (family structure, family continuity, desire for prosperity, rationalist thinking, improvements in material culture). What, in your opinion, best explains the distinctive growth profile of early modern Japan? Is it primarily spiritual, primarily secular, or some combination of both? Or neither? Refer specifically to assigned readings to make your case.

Sources to cite:

Hanley, Susan B. Everyday Things in Premodern Japan. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999 ISBN: 9780520218123

LaFleur, William. Liquid Life: Abortion and Buddhism in Japan. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994. ISBN: 9780691029658

Vaporis, Constantine N., ed. Voices of Early Modern Japan: Contemporary Accounts of Daily Life During the Age of the Shoguns. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2013. ISBN: 9780813349008

Response paper #2: Religion and Culture in Early Modern Japan

Please address the topic below in a short paper of around 800 words (approx. 3 ½ double-spaced pages, but it is easier to keep track of word count on your word processor—being over or under by 100 words or more will negatively affect your grade). Because these papers are short, they need not conform to the standard five-paragraph essay format. You can be inventive with style or format if you wish. However, the papers must be well thought-out, clearly written, and carefully edited. All papers must contain an original thesis argument (see previous handout for “three tests for a good thesis), and must refer directly and specifically to relevant assigned readings in order to sustain your argument. Lecture material may also be incorporated where necessary. NO outside research should be necessary (in fact I discourage it—you should have all you need in the assigned readings alone). Regarding style and format basics, see separate handout on “Stylistic conventions that matter.” Read it. Follow it. Implement it. Really.

TOPIC:

(Note: we will discuss many issues directly relevant to this topic in class on Tuesday, Feb. 16th).

Early modern Japan was, technically speaking, a developing country. And yet, it avoided almost all of the major impediments to economic growth and well-being that we have seen in other developing countries in the modern period (e.g.: high population growth, high fertility, high mortality/low life expectancy, low levels of education, low per capita income—early modern Japan experienced none of these phenomena. Indeed, as we have discussed, it experienced the opposite). There are many ways to explain how and why the early modern Japanese managed to avoid these typical impediments to growth. Some of the scholars whose works we have read emphasize the nature of early modern Japan’s ethical and religious belief systems (Confucianism, Buddhism, Shinto, syncretic beliefs) as one possible explanation for early modern growth and well-being. Some emphasize more secular developments (family structure, family continuity, desire for prosperity, rationalist thinking, improvements in material culture). What, in your opinion, best explains the distinctive growth profile of early modern Japan? Is it primarily spiritual, primarily secular, or some combination of both? Or neither? Refer specifically to assigned readings to make your case.

Sources to cite:

Hanley, Susan B. Everyday Things in Premodern Japan. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999 ISBN: 9780520218123

LaFleur, William. Liquid Life: Abortion and Buddhism in Japan. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994. ISBN: 9780691029658

Vaporis, Constantine N., ed. Voices of Early Modern Japan: Contemporary Accounts of Daily Life During the Age of the Shoguns. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2013. ISBN: 9780813349008