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2026-2027 Academic Year

Fall 2026

FMST 101 Intro to Film Studies
An introductory study of the preeminent art form of the 20th Century. The course will focus upon the fundamentals of film study as an academic discipline, including formal analysis of film narrative and cinematic technique (the art of film), contextual approaches to film, study of various film genres, and rudimentary experience with film production. Students will be exposed to aesthetically and historically important films from a number of cultural traditions.

EASN 305 War & Memory EASN Lit & Film
Cross-listed with FMST 310-02. This class examines Japanese, Chinese, and some Korean and Taiwanese representations of the war fought in Asia between 1937 and 1945. This conflict affected the lives of millions and irrevocably changed the landscape of foreign relations in the region. We will investigate questions of collective (and contested) memory, victimization and responsibility, as well as how artists attempted to represent experiences that stretched the boundaries of imagination. Many of the issues we will discuss remain heated topics of debate in domestic and international politics today. This investigation into collective memory will involve in-depth engagement with fiction and films as well as scholarship relating to the war. By the end of the semester, students will gain experience expressing their ideas using the analytic and research tools that we practice in class. Students will evaluate responses to historical controversies in the realms of academia, politics, literature, film and popular culture, and consider how these debates shape the ways in which we remember and understand past conflicts.

FMST 310 War & Memory EASN Lit & Film
Cross-listed with EASN 305-01. This class examines Japanese, Chinese, and some Korean and Taiwanese representations of the war fought in Asia between 1937 and 1945. This conflict affected the lives of millions and irrevocably changed the landscape of foreign relations in the region. We will investigate questions of collective (and contested) memory, victimization and responsibility, as well as how artists attempted to represent experiences that stretched the boundaries of imagination. Many of the issues we will discuss remain heated topics of debate in domestic and international politics today. This investigation into collective memory will involve in-depth engagement with fiction and films as well as scholarship relating to the war. By the end of the semester, students will gain experience expressing their ideas using the analytic and research tools that we practice in class. Students will evaluate responses to historical controversies in the realms of academia, politics, literature, film and popular culture, and consider how these debates shape the ways in which we remember and understand past conflicts.

JPNS 360 Stories and Translation
This course focuses on continuing to develop students' Japanese proficiency to an "advanced low" level on the ACTFL proficiency scale. Potential topics may include current events and/or prominent literary and historical texts of the 20th and 21st centuries. Class sessions will be based on written and oral discussion of the texts in Japanese, along with in-class reading and translation in order to facilitate comprehension. Throughout the semester, students will also complete a range of related writing, presentation, and translation assignments to further enhance their Japanese language skills.

Spring 2027

JPNS 202 Intermediate Japanese
The aim of this course is the mastery of the basic structure of Japanese language and communicative skills. The student will have an opportunity to get to know more of Japanese culture. Prerequisite: 201 or permission of the instructor. This course fulfills the language graduation requirement.

EASN 205 Nature & Env in Japns Fic & Fm
Cross-listed with FMST 210-01. This course explores the relationship between humanity and nature in Japanese literature and film. Though we will draw from earlier examples, the majority of the course will be focused on the modern era (post 1868). Some topics for exploration include: the role of animals in Japanese culture, nature as a reflection of the self, natural and industrial disasters, and nature in the imagination. As we move through the class, we will also work to understand and apply "ecocriticism" as an approach to cultural texts in relation to the science of ecology.

FMST 210 Nature & Env in Japns Fic & Fm
Cross-listed with EASN 205-01. This course explores the relationship between humanity and nature in Japanese literature and film. Though we will draw from earlier examples, the majority of the course will be focused on the modern era (post 1868). Some topics for exploration include: the role of animals in Japanese culture, nature as a reflection of the self, natural and industrial disasters, and nature in the imagination. As we move through the class, we will also work to understand and apply "ecocriticism" as an approach to cultural texts in relation to the science of ecology.