Anthropology 254 | Writing Assignments

First Course Essay

In this opening unit of the course, we are exploring several basic concepts that have shaped images and representations of Japan and the Japanese for a long time, including national character, gender, culture, modernity, globalization, and tradition. We are reading a combination of academic essays and press dispatches to illustrate how these concepts have been applied to Japan.

For this first essay, I would like you, as a budding Japan scholar, to compose a 750-word letter to the editor of the New York Times in response to one of the NYT articles we've read in this unit. I don't mean to set up academics against journalists and to try to demonstrate that we are more insightful and more profound than the working press (in the second unit of the course, in fact, our text will be a book by a journalist which is certainly the equal of anthropological monographs). However, this first unit's readings have been chosen to juxtapose short press articles about Japan topics with longer analytical essays. This assignment is to allow you to explore just how and how much such analytical essays expand the necessarily brief accounts of the reporters.

In writing this assignment, you may wish to imagine yourself to be one of our academic authors, responding to one of the news articles. Thus, you could be Tetsuro Kato responding to Michael Shapiro or Susan Chira; Peter Frost responding to Edward Fiske's report; James Stanlaw writing in response to Kristof on kogyal lingo; George Lewis or Yuko Ogasawara responding to Catherine Rosair; Harold Bolitho responding to David Sanger or Ken Belson; or William Kelly responding to Andrew Pollack.

As you know, letters to the editor are generally written to object to the tone or the message of a newspaper article, but you need not be entirely critical. Most of our academics would probably find the newspaper reports to be somewhat shallow and incomplete and even faulty in their logic, but your letter can also amplify and enrich the news dispatch you address.

So what kind of writing is a letter to the editor? It is certainly not itself an academic article or term paper, but for the purposes of this assignment, simply write it with the basic conventions of composition: organized with an introduction, body, and conclusion; giving the reader (the editor) a clear sense of your argument and how it relates to the dispatch; and offering support for your position with relevant materials drawn from our readings.

NB: You may wish to use direct quotations in your letter; if so you can simply insert a brief reference at the point of quotation. Thus, As Stanlaw writes, "QUOTE..." (p. 39)

This essay is due on Thursday, September 25 by 11:30 a.m.  It is worth about 20% of your overall grade.  Please note now my policy on late assignments as defined in the syllabus.  Both the TAs and myself are happy to talk with you about ideas and difficulties you may have before the paper is due.