Session 3 - August 6, Lynne Miyake, Pomona College

[Scott Craig]

I think your connection of the two is really great. I would like to do some kind of activity where my students compare the two and look at the various views on women. It would be a great activity to help my students get ready for the AP World exam.

[Scott Craig]

I agree completely! Professor Miyake gave some awesome suggestions for incorporating this into our curriculum. One of the skills I have to teach my students is the ability to look at the voice and audience of a written document. This activity would be a great practice for them to seek out various nuances to see the writer's perspective.

[Donna Jamshidnejad]

Professor Miyake mentioned feminist movements in Japan from both the 1870s and 1980s. Although she did not cover these periods in her lecture, she did speak to me about these movements before her presentation. In World History, I end the year with a 2 week unit on a topic of interest or current events. My discussion with Professor Miyake inspired me to change this last unit to a historical overview of feminist movements with case studies around the world. I’d like to read into the 1870s and 1980s in Japan and include this in the unit. In addition to Japan, I can include China during Mao’s rise to power through today, and women’s strikes in South Korea. I am brainstorming how to organize this unit. I may want to start with an overview of vocabulary and introduction to feminism, and then organize stations for students to dive into different countries. I can also teach students about one feminist movement, then create a “data dump” of primary and secondary sources for a handful of regions/movements, and allow students to select a region of choice to focus on.

[Nelson Ta]

In Professor Miyake's lecture, she discussed in detail about the Kabuki dances and the onnagata that stylized "the woman dance". I found this interesting because there seems to be a continual inclusion of androgynous characters within various animes and mangas that I have seen in the past. When I was younger, I watched quite a bit of Pokemon and to a later extent, Naruto. In Pokemon, the main antagonists are members of Team Rocket, Jesse and James. There were many times where these characters needed to dress in costume and for whatever reason, they would also dress opposite of the conventional gendered norms; James would wear dresses while Jesse would wear suits. As a child in 1998, this was a very confusing experience. Miyake's lecture was very enlightening because it revealed a strange paradox within the Japanese culture (at least viewing through the ethnocentric America eyes). Obviously, gendered norms are very different in Japan. As mentioned later in the day in Jung's lecture, there is a softening of features for men in East Asian with the rise of "flower boy" culture.  The paradox I see is the acceptance of androgyny within art and culture, but the rejection of LBGTQ within the dominant society. 

[Nelson Ta]

I have already incorporated several graphic novels in my unit, but I hope to explore mangas and animes as another source, especially as a comparison. The approach of animes and American cartoons in terms of art, characters, and story is vastly different. Professor Miyake made a point to say that there isn't a clear distinction of black and white within anime. Characters are never wholly good or wholly evil. There are ambiguities and ambivalence within the characters (which adds to the idea of blurred gendered lines).  

[Frederic Vial]

Thank you for sharing this practice.  It's given me something to incorporate in my own classroom as an event students can look forward to for each civilization we cover.

[clay dube]

A bit dated, but still useful is a book by a Japanese American anthropologist Matthews Hamabata, Crested Kimono. He discusses at length the power of Japanese women in leading business families.  

[Monica Munguia]

Yes, I must agree that the process is gradual.  Unfortunately most minority roles are still protrayed by non-ethnic actors, protrayed incorrectly, or are stereotyped.  As in your example, Mickey Rooney was given the role because that is what was acceptable at the time.  As in today's film Late Spring, we discussed among ourselves that we thought the main actress resembled an American woman.  We concluded that this could have been the style of the time, this is the only way she would have been accepted, or the director was trying to once again promote the American life style.  

[David Ojeda]

Monica,

I see your perspective. One has to take historical context into play when discussing narratives and commentaries of the past. It can be challenging to partake in the latter when one reflects on the current norms, standards, styles, and what we have learned about, as you said, what was accepted in the past. Very challenging, and I wonder how we as educators can help our students understand that context.

[David Ojeda]

The discussion of androgyny also caught my attention. I wonder if it is acceptable and allowed in art, shows (you mentioned Pokemon), films, and so forth because these are mediums that are representative of life, giving an impression of it and not the actual reality. I wonder if we as a society are more accepting of androgyny, LGBTQ members, and differences in general when its a representation in lieu of a reality standing in front of us.

I would love to learn more about the unit you mentioned!

[Jonathan Tam]

I really appreciated how Professor Miyake went into the gendering of the language as well as how folks like Murasaki Shikibu made strides to subvert cultural norms and wield language as a weapon against the patriarchy. In the first part of the seminar, something that really resonated with me was how poetry can be used as a way of telling the story of men and women from this time. Poems of love and war captured the psyche of people living there at the time in a way that historical accounts couldn't. A question I definitely had was if we have any poems about love during the time where warriors began to take a larger role. I think of it almost like the transition from Blues to Jazz to even Hip Hop. As new genres flourished, people still created music in older genres. Were there love poems during the time of increasing war and what might they have sounded like?

[Sophia Kang]

Seeing the gendering of female and male roles in Japanese theatre, I would like to have my students study men playing female roles in various theatrical formats such as Shakespeare, Japanese theatre, and drag--how there seems to be a clear definition of how women act and talk in all three types of plays. Learning female mannerisms as a new language also seems to be a lens to study how the standard female language becomes defined. 

[Sophia Kang]

Thank you for sharing this! This reminds me of a time I heard a poem written about economic status read from two different perspectives--the rich and t he poor. I'd like to hear two different students at opposite ends of the classroom read a poem on the same topic to reveal how the male and female perspectives, let's say on the topic of "money" differ.

[Gerlinde Goschi]

Prof. Miyake introduced us to the Heian literary genre that included the 31 syllable poem, the tanka.  The authors of these poems were often women who took advantage to learn during this period. I can incorporate one of these poems into my lesson about poems.  Students would be able to compare the 5-7-7-8 poem to the haiku which I teach every year. I would use the poem from Prof. Miyake’s presentation as an example and then allow students the freedom to create their own.

 

Love. Topic unknown

What is it that fades

Without a change in color?

It is the flower 

In the heart of those who love

In this world of ours

 

[Ann Huyhn]

According to Professor Miyake’s lecture, Japan’s history is deeply entrenched in gendering the roles of males and females.  Not only were the roles gendered, but that women were the ones who left behind writings that historians can use to help them try to reimagine Heian Japan.  That is unique because often time history is written and told by the males’ point-of-view. Poetry was also heavily used to describe the conditions of Japan.  I would like to look closely at one poem and have my students create a drawing based upon the words that they hear. It would be interesting to see what they will create.   

[Author]

Posts