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The Global Japanese Studies Model Unit of Waseda University\u2014supported by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (Top Global University Project)\u2014invited Senior Lecturer Sarah Olive of the University of York to Waseda University\u2019s Toyama Campus and hosted a lecture by her entitled \u201cShakespeare and Citizenship Education in Japanese Higher Education.\u201d The event took place on January 10 earlier this year. This lecture considered from various standpoints propositions that have long been frequently questioned by those involved in university education. In more specific terms, Dr. Olive considered the question, \u201cWhat effects are brought about by Shakespeare in Japanese university education?\u201d based on multiple reports on actual practices. Dr. Olive related the contents of courses as described by educators who submitted articles that were published in Issue 6\u2014a special issue on Japan\u2014of Teaching Shakespeare<\/em>, a publication of the British Shakespeare Association. It was apparent that, because the Bard’s works are read within a historical context, Shakespeare is often presented as a \u201cclean\u201d author in Japan, with his more bawdy depictions avoided. A characteristic of how students are involved in courses was evident; the lecture provided glimpses into the struggles of educators teaching courses in the Japanese students-as-spectators style (in which course attendees do not raise hands or otherwise have opportunities to speak). Dr. Olive also considered important matters and difficulties encountered when giving expression to Shakespeare’s works on the stage so that they are made something witnessed rather than read; she reported on courses that aim to present the Shakespeare that only comes to exist within the mutual relationship formed with an audience. It was clear that various attempts at this kind of presentation of Shakespeare have been made even in Japan.<\/p>\nApproaches taken with Shakespeare often merely introduce him to students or use him as one part of the liberal arts canon taught in higher education. By contrast, Dr. Olive concluded by recommending that both the heroes and villains given birth to on the page over 400 years ago be understood as examples of humanity and that the ideal models for citizens in contemporary society can be discerned by viscerally experiencing Shakespeare’s wide cast of characters.<\/p>\n
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After Dr. Olive’s talk concluded, Professor Fuyuki described Shakespeare-related courses currently in progress. There is a seminar course that is conducted with a small number of students and that focuses on close reading. Multiple versions of the modern editions are compared, and the students produce their own Japanese translations, aware of the differences in each published translation. A fairly different teaching style is employed in a lecture held in a large classroom. Reportedly, videos and other media are utilized to provide beginning students a comprehensive introduction to Shakespeare. Professor Fuyuki also presented actual examples of the real world and the world of plays overlapping, notably the young lovers known as the \u201cRomeo and Juliet of Sarajevo,\u201d who perished in the conflict in Bosnia and Herzegovina. This seemed very relevant, indeed, to Dr. Olive’s advocacy of the act of learning about model citizens through Shakespeare.<\/p>\n
There were questions by undergraduate students, among the others in attendance, during the question and answer session that followed the two speakers\u2019 talks, and the lecture event ended on a lively note.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cShakespeare and Citizenship Education in Japanese Higher Education\u201d \u00a0Lecture with Senior Lecturer Sara […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":3215,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[97,111],"class_list":["post-3216","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-en","tag-en-gj","tag-report-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/sgu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3216","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/sgu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/sgu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/sgu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/sgu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3216"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/sgu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3216\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3258,"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/sgu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3216\/revisions\/3258"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/sgu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3215"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/sgu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3216"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/sgu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3216"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/sgu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3216"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}