26994		1:00-2:15	TR			KEIRSTEAD
Above section carries culture studies credit
A portion of the above section reserved for majors
Above section open to undergraduates only

This course will tell the story of the peoples living in the islands
we now call “Japan” from earliest times until about 1650.  We’ll pay
particular attention to the flourishing aristocratic culture of
ancient Japan, to the social, political, and economic ferment of the
medieval period, and to the crystallization of an urban, samurai-
centered polity in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. We will
try to attend as well to the lives and experiences of people usually
neglected in history books—ordinary peasants and city dwellers,
outcasts, beggars, thieves and other marginalized (but interesting)
groups. Since history is not simply a record of what happened in the
past, but the interpretation of past events and processes, we will
also examine how Japan has been viewed by historians—to discover how
historical understanding of Japan has changed and why.