Week 12: Warring States towards Unification

April 12 and 14

Back to your regular scheduled fare of warriors, war, and now with some added extra exotica in the form of the first Europeans with their strange religion named Christianity…

Table of Contents

Slides

Readings and class details

Wednesday

Ettinger 212, 11am

Textbook or alternative (one of the two options to bring you up to speed)

  • Japan Emerging: Premodern History to 1850, edited by Karl F. Friday. New York, NY: Routledge, 2018. https://muhlenberg.on.worldcat.org/oclc/787849954.
    • Part 4: Chapters 22 (Warriors, Warlords and Domains) and 28 (Diplomacy, Piracy, and the Space Between).
  • Premodern Japan: A Historical Survey, edited by Mikiso Hanen and Louis G Perez. Second ed. Boulder: Westview Press, 2015. https://muhlenberg.on.worldcat.org/oclc/895428280
    • Sections in Chapter 5: “The Ashikaga Period and the Emergence of the Daimyō”: The Onset of the Time of Troubles; The Rise of the Daimyō and the Warring States; Section in Chapter 6: “Contact with the West” and “Christianity in Japan”

Primary Sources (do both)

  • “Denial of Traditional Authority”. In David John Lu. Japan: A Documentary History, 174-186. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1997. (PDF)
  • “Japan’s Christian Century”. In David John Lu. Japan: A Documentary History, 199-201. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1997. (PDF)
    • Questions: What do the Christian missionaries think about the Japanese? What impressions did the readers of these documents in the sixteenth century form about the Japanese people? What do the missionaries, in your informed opinion, understand correctly? Which of their remarks seem to be incorrect?

Friday

Ettinger 212, 11am

Textbook or alternative (one of the two options to bring you up to speed)

  • Japan Emerging: Premodern History to 1850, edited by Karl F. Friday. New York, NY: Routledge, 2018. https://muhlenberg.on.worldcat.org/oclc/787849954.
    • Part 5: Chapter 29 (The Sixteenth Century Reunification)
  • Premodern Japan: A Historical Survey, edited by Mikiso Hanen and Louis G Perez. Second ed. Boulder: Westview Press, 2015. https://muhlenberg.on.worldcat.org/oclc/895428280
    • Sections in Chapter 6: “Oda Nobunaga”, “Toyotomi Hideyoshi”, “Hideyoshi’s Domestic Policies”.

Primary Sources (do both)

  • Oda Nobunaga. “Letter to the King of Korea”. In Sources of Japanese Tradition, Vol. 1: From Earliest Times to 1600, compiled by Wm. Th. de Bary, Donald Keene, George Tanabe, and Paul Varley, 465-67. Second edition. Introduction to Asian Civilizations. New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 2001. (PDF)
  • Haboush, JaHyun Kim, and Kenneth R Robinson. A Korean War Captive in Japan, 1597-1600: The Writings of Kang Hang. New York: Columbia University Press, 2013. (PDF)
    • “1: Encounters with the Adversities of War”: Selection from the chapter. I have indicated a few passages for focus using red brackets, but you may of course read the entire chapter. For Show and Tell 4, you can read more sections of this book.
    • This is the diary of a man who was taken prisoner during the invasion of Hideyoshi in 1597, and brings out an individual’s voice in what otherwise threatens to become a set of numbing statistics about people killed, maimed and taken prisoner. Questions: What strikes you in this account? What do you find strange, remarkable, interesting?

Assignments

1. Blog post (content week 11)

5 points, due Tue April 11, 11:59PM [adjusted to allow for Easter break]

Write a blog post exploring themes or ideas based on your reading. You do not need to have all the answers. In fact, learning to ask good analytical or research questions is a skill you can develop during the semester. Remember the description of the assignment from the syllabus.

  • Length: approx. 400 words. excl. list of materials consulted.
  • Add the list of materials consulted at the end of the post, in Chicago notes and bibliography style.
    • TOP TIP: Just copy the bibliography information from the Reading list on this webpage, do not add the descriptive notes I provide for your information.
  • Add the words “Week 11” in the title.
    • Please use this exact phrase, so your post will show up in the blog stream.
  • Include a relevant image, and add a caption with the source/credit, and an Alt text description
  • Post on your website, and add to the category hst267.

When you’re done, read this declaration carefully and then fill out the Canvas quiz to collect your points.

Declaration
– I wrote a post of approximately 400 words in response to the readings.
– I included the bibliographic references for the materials I used for my post.
– I indicated which Exploration Pack I chose [if applicable].
– I included an image, and I provided a caption and credit (source), and an Alt text description for the image.
– I use the words Week 11 in the title, and added the post to category hst267

2. Feedback with Hypothes.is

3 points, due April 13, 11:59pm

Below you find links to three blog posts from your fellow students. If one of the websites is your own, or it is twice the same person’s, refresh the page, and you should get new sites. Any of the posts that appear here are fair game for commenting, even if they are about earlier weeks: those posts came in after the first deadline.

  • Post 1:
  • Post 2:
  • Post 3:

Leave feedback, questions, thoughts, insights about the contents of the posts of your fellow students using Hypothes.is group HST267. You can ask for clarifications, point out similarities and differences with the material you covered, or with your interpretation. This should encourage you to dive a bit deeper in the materials, or visit those you did not read at first.

Use tags in Hypothes.is: question: If you have a question; answered: if you gave an answer to a question; info: if you provide more information, looking up additional facts, drawing on knowledge from other classes; and other tags you can think of. This will help us to navigate more quickly to the questions that still need answering.

Use the “Architect’s Model” of giving feedback, and engage with concrete issues. Go beyond “Yeah, I agree,” “I like” or “I think the same”, and instead explain why you have that reaction, or if you disagree, you can try to persuade the original poster of your idea or interpretation.

Remember that Hypothes.is allows for hyperlinks, e.g. to materials that support your argument, or you can include pictures (memes! [yes, there she is again]), videos etc. that help the original poster to learn more.

When you’re done, read this declaration carefully, and then fill out the Canvas quiz to collect your points.

Declaration
– I commented on three fellow students’ weekly blog post on Week 11 materials, using the Hypothes.is group HST267.
– I made sure to leave substantial comments that help the writer to improve the post, or to identify their strengths.
– I left comments that I would like to receive myself: thoughtful, helpful, kind, but also pointing out errors so they can be fixed.

3. Blog post (content week 12)

5 points, due Mon April 17, 11:59PM

Write a blog post exploring themes or ideas based on your reading. You do not need to have all the answers. In fact, learning to ask good analytical or research questions is a skill you can develop during the semester. Remember the description of the assignment from the syllabus.

  • Length: approx. 400 words. excl. list of materials consulted.
  • Add the list of materials consulted at the end of the post, in Chicago notes and bibliography style.
    • TOP TIP: Just copy the bibliography information from the Reading list on this webpage, do not add the descriptive notes I provide for your information.
  • Add the words “Week 12” in the title.
    • Please use this exact phrase, so your post will show up in the blog stream.
  • Include a relevant image, and add a caption with the source/credit, and an Alt text description
  • Post on your website, and add to the category hst267.

When you’re done, read this declaration carefully and then fill out the Canvas quiz to collect your points.

Declaration
– I wrote a post of approximately 400 words in response to the readings.
– I included the bibliographic references for the materials I used for my post.
– I indicated which Exploration Pack I chose [if applicable].
– I included an image, and I provided a caption and credit (source), and an Alt text description for the image.
– I use the words Week 12 in the title, and added the post to category hst267

Heads-up: Show and Tell 4

Due date shifted to April 18 — details for options and additional materials of interest coming soon!

Extra Credit tasks

EC12-1: Introduce an image

3 points, due by Sunday April. 16, 11.59pm

All the details on this webpage, incl. a link to declaration quiz.

EC 12-2: Rewrite a post

3 points, due by Sunday, April 9, 11.59pm.

Unhappy about a post you wrote? Feeling you can do better now than a few weeks ago? Had a bad week and rushed to get it in but now you’re ready to do something you can be proud of? Now you can rewrite that post and get some extra credit for it!

  • Pick one post from a previous weeks (not the Cat post) and use the comments you received, and your new insights, to rewrite it.
  • Add a brief paragraph at the end explaining how you rewrote the post: which comments did you address, how did you go about the process (e.g. starting from new blank page vs. tinkering; focusing on structure or word choice or adding/correcting facts,…), and what you learned through the process of rewriting.
  • tag the post with extra, and add “rewrite” to the title
    • (Note: it should already be in the category hst267)

Read the following Declaration carefully, and then head on over to Canvas to collect your points in the Declaration Quiz:

Declaration
I selected a post from a previous week and rewrote it, using feedback and insights I gained since writing it.
I added a brief paragraph at the end explaining what I did to rewrite the post, and what I learned about rewriting
I added the tag extra to the post, and added the word rewrite to the title.
I made sure the post is still in the category hst267.

Where to get assistance?

  • Tea Room on in person or on Discord:
    • open anytime for you
    • I will be hosting Tue 2PM-3PM; Wed. 1-2PM, or at other times by appointment via Google Calendar (usually a 15-20min appointment is enough). You can also find me in my office during Tea Room times.
    • Private room for confidential chat available on request.
  • Discord Text Channel #hst267
  • DLAs: Digital Learning Assistants: check the schedule!
  • Writing Center: Sunday-Wednesday: 3:30 – 5:30 pm and 7-11 pm; Thursday: 3:30 – 5:30 pm and 7-9 pm
  • Trexler Library Course Subject Guide: our own dedicated subject guide for the course 
  • Safety on/around campus: report an incident