Modern Japanese Foodways

Fri 17:00-18:40, Fall 2023

Prof. Tsu, ajk06710@kwansei.ac.jp

Course Description
This course explores the development and characteristics of Japanese
foodways in modern times within and outside Japan. Emphasizing the dynamic
interplay of continuity and change, it challenges students to examine such
theoretical issues as identity, global trade, and social change in Japan and around
the world through the prism of Japanese food.
By taking this course, students will gain a critical general understanding of
modern Japanese foodways as well as their relations to history, politics, economics,
and culture.
This course adopts the format of a “flip class.” There will be no lectures by the
instructor. Instead, each class will consist of students sharing their postings
(submitted to LUNA before class) and their views on the readings.

Assessment
 11 weekly postings (240 words each): 11 X 9 = 99% (1% bonus point)
 Each posting must be orally presented in class and submitted in hard copy
to receive a score. No late submissions.
 Each posting should have 2 distinct parts: a summary & a commentary.
o The reflection will have 3 paragraphs.
o The summary should have no more than 40 words (1st paragraph). It
should highlight the main points of the reading.
o The commentary should have 200 words (2nd & 3rd paragraphs, each 100
words). It should explain 2 of your own views on the reading. This part
should not be a summary.

Class Schedule
1 9/22 Explanation of Syllabus & Introduction

2 9/29 Perspectives I
 Read: Smil & Kobayashi. 2013. Old and New Foodstuff. In
Japan’s Dietary Transition, 1-5, 12-18, 36-44, 48-54.

3 10/6 Perspectives II
 Read: Cwietaka, K. 2014. From malnutrition to radiation:
reviewing food security and food safety in Japan (1945-
2013), Rethinking Nature in Contemporary Japan, 95-102.

4 10/13 Sushi I
 Read: Rath, E. 2021. Earliest sushi.
 Posting #1.

1
 5 10/20 Sushi II
 Read: Rath, E. 2021. Early modern and modern sushi.
 Posting #2.
6 10/27 Beef
 Read: Kramer, HM. “Not Befitting Our Divine Country”: Eating
Meat in Japanese Discourses of Self and Other from the
Seventeenth Century to the Present. Food and Foodways 16.
 Posting #3.
7 11/3 Ramen
 Read: Solt, G. 2014. The Untold History of Ramen, 57-71.
 Posting #4.
8 11/10 Japanese-Chinese Cuisine
 Read: Tsu, T. 2010. Fat, Spices, Culture and More: Chinese
Food in Modern Japanese Gastronomic Discourse. Asian
Studies Review 34.
 Posting #5.
9 11/17 Global Japanese Cuisine
 Read: Yamashita, S. 2020. The “Japanese turn” in fine dining
in the US, 1980-2020.
 Posting #6.
10 11/24 Global Japanese Cuisines II
 Read: Nakano, Y. 2014. Eating One’s Way to Sophistication
Japanese Food. Transnational Trajectories in East Asia, 106-
129.
 Posting #7.
11 12/1 World Heritage Washoku
 Read: Cwiertka, K. 2018. Serving the country: the myth of
washoku. Consuming Life in Post-Bubble Japan, 89-106.
 Posting #8.
12 12/8 Global Japanese Food-print
 Read: Longo, S. 2011. Global Sushi: The Political Economy of
the Mediterranean Blue Fin Tuna Fishery in the Modern Era.
Journal of World-Systems Research 17.
 Posting #9.
13 12/15 Food Sovereignty
 Read: Walravens. 2019. Recalibrating risk through media:
two cases of intentional food poisoning in Japan. Food and
Foodways 27.
 Posting #10.
14 1/12 Food Citizenship
 Posting prompt: The 3 things I learned in this course.
 Posting #11.