Course Introduction

Class location:

NYU: Rm. 602, 53 Washington Square South (King Juan Carlos Bldg.)

Columbia: Rm. 901, International Affairs Bldg.(118th St.& Amsterdam)

History is distinguished from other disciplines by its primary concern with time, particularly with change over time.  Recent theoretical considerations of temporality, narrative, and historywriting have chal- lenged us to rethink this fundamental historical category, both in regard to the historicity of modern conceptions of time and to the ways in which we use time in our historywriting.

This course explores conceptions of time in history and historical practice in the case of modern Japan. It combines three approaches: theoretical readings on modern temporality, exemplary new scholarship in modern Asian history, and selected Japanese texts in transla- tion as primary material.  After a brief theoretical introduction, the exploration is divided according to two main historical forces which created what we now know as modern time: capitalism and the nation-state.