Religion 270 Fall 2005

Japanese Buddhism: Ancient Japan through the 19th Century

Jamie Hubbard (jhubbard@smith.edu)

Seelye 303, x3449

Office Hours: Monday & Wednesday 4:00-5:00 and by design

Content

This course examines Buddhism and other religious traditions in Japan from prehistory through the 19th century. Topics include doctrinal development, church/state relations, and the diffusion of religious values in Japanese culture, particularly in the aesthetic realm (literature, gardens, tea, the martial arts, etc.).

 

Goals

By the end of the semester I expect that you will be able to:

·       Explain major themes in Japanese religious life and where they can be found in the historical development of doctrine, practice, and institutions of pre-modern Japanese religion; here we are concerned with constructing frameworks that can be used to help us interpret specific ideas and practices. Sometimes these frameworks of understanding will fit our material perfectly and other times they will be illuminating for just how distant our topic seems to be.

·       Identify the major protagonists in pre-modern Japanese religious life and explain how their religious vision fits or defies those themes, that is to say, how it both continues yet modifies the tradition; here we are particularly interested in the individual’s religious vision, its practice and philosophical expression.

·       Use the vocabulary of Japanese religious life to discuss Japanese aesthetic expression; here we are interested in poetry, literature, and the arts as an arena of religious experience.

·       Explore the virtual and actual terrain of Japanese religious life and critically relate what you discover out there to the themes that we encounter in our class readings; here I want you to just experience as much of the dizzying variety of Japanese religious life as possible without actually traveling to Japan.

 

Strategies for accomplishing our goals:

Non-graded assignments:

We will use BlackBoard and a blog for our work. At present there is little more available on-line than the syllabus, the E-Reserves, and this info on requirements, etc., but this will change rapidly as we begin to share the following assignments and add our own materials (further how-to instructions will be given in class):

·        “Surfing for Buddhism:” Your job is to regularly surf the web looking for sites, materials, images, news items, and the like related to our course and then submit the links to me for posting to our class blog: Buddhism in Premodern Japan. For each class for which you submit links you will receive one point, for a maximum of twenty points (we meet 26 times over the course of the semester); although you surely may submit multiple links for any given class, you cannot receive more than one point for each class; in other words this will count for a total of 20% of your final grade. In order to count, the links must be submitted by noon on the day of the class. More information on this assignment will be given in class.

·        Attendance and participation: regular attendance and prepared participation is expected and will count 10% of your final grade.

 

Graded work: Exams

·       There will be a mid-term (30% of the final grade) and final exam (40% of the final grade); both will be in-class exams. The in-class exam will be true/false, fill in the blank, and the like; before the exam I will distribute a selection of questions for your review and preparation and the in-class exam will be comprised solely of questions that come from the previously distributed review questions. All of the questions will come directly from your class readings.

 

OPTIONS:

·        Final 12-15 page research paper: In consultation with the instructor you may choose any topic that interests you in the field of pre-modern Japanese Buddhism and write a research paper in place of the two exams. If you choose this, you must submit your proposed topic with tentative bibliography no later than Monday, October 17th; the completed essay is due by the last day of the exam period. The paper will count 70% of the final grade.

 

·       Two research papers: In consultation with the instructor you may choose to write a shorter, 7-9 page research paper, in place of either the mid-term exam, the final exam, or both. Each essay will carry the same weight in terms of the final grade as the exam for which they are substituted. The proposal for a mid-term paper must be submitted by October 12th and the completed essay by October 24th. The final essay proposal must be submitted by December 5th and the completed essay by the last day of the exam period.

 

 

Extra Credit:

·        Extra Credit #1: Go somewhere and do something (or, go sit on your butt and do nothing). There are a number of interesting places and organizations in the Valley related to our area of study and I can arrange for students to take field trips to a Japanese Zen center, a tea hut (w/ tea ceremony, of course), a Buddhist-influenced karate center, activist Buddhist peace pagoda, Shin Buddhist ceremony, and more. Students who are interested would need to get together a group of 3-5 and we will work out the arrangements independently. Each student who goes and writes a short response (to be shared on Blackboard) will get an extra 2-3 points towards her total grade. You can also attend the weekly zen meetings here at Smith or elsewhere—for every two times you sit and write a short response you can get one point of extra credit. Attendance at relevant public talks, conferences, workshops, visits to museums, etc. can also earn extra credit. All extra credit must be approved in advance.

·        Extra Credit #2: Achieve Enlightenment JJJ.  I have a very interesting and historically accurate computer game titled, “The Cosmology of Kyoto: A Visual Mindscape of Old Japan,” an amazing adventure game set in 900 AD Kyoto. Ghosts, angry spirits, courtiers, old hags, warriors, monks and nuns—you’ll meet them all in and around Kyoto. Your own actions will determine your karma (as it should be, of course) and your next birth in samsara, or, better yet, in the realm of a fully awakened Buddha. Get enlightened and get 3 more extra points! No cheating allowed (i.e., getting the road map from somebody already “there”—and besides, if you remember about the karma thing, it’s not such a good idea to lie about your spiritual achievements.

 

You may receive a maximum of 12 extra credit points.

 

Required Texts:

Varley, H. Paul.                        Japanese Culture. University of Hawaii Press.

Takeuchi, Heisig, O'leary, and P. Swanson, eds.           Buddhist Spirituality II: Later China, Korea, Japan, and the Modern World

CoursePack                            Available at Paradise Copies (app. $40.00). All of the readings from the CoursePack as well as the supplementary readings are also available for free from the E-Reserves on-line in Blackboard by clicking on the title in the on-line syllabus.

 

Recommended:                      Kitagawa, Joseph. Religion in Japanese History. Columbia University Press; on reserve in the library.