AS 201 Prompt for Final Paper

In the spirit of this being a "Gateway" course, for the final paper, I would like students to think and write about some aspects of what happened when East Asian countries encountered western imperialism and struggled to "become modern" like them. Obviously the contemporary state of "Environmental Issues in Asia" makes for a natural paper topic. More on this below.

The paper will be Due on Thursday May 3rd by 2:00 pm. You can drop a hard copy by my office or submit an electronic one by using the Dropbox on WISE or just emailing it to me. Length is as in the first two papers, around 6-8 pages.

Final Paper Topic: Sustainability in Asia.

Both China and Japan have traversed their different pathways to becoming modern, and with modernity have come all the problems associated with industrialization and economic growth: urbanization, population increase, environmental problems, pollution cases, resource limitations and so forth.  I would like you to write an essay on the environmental and sustainability challenges currently being faced by either China or Japan. You could draw on the more historical writings by Mark Elvin, Robert Marks (China) and Conrad Totman (Japan), or the more contemporary focused writings of Judith Shapiro, and The Economist for China, or Karan and Kingston for Japan.

The topic or focus of your paper is not locked in; there should be plenty of room for students to come up with their individual "takes." For example, as the Economist writers note, China

...is a late developer, it should be able to learn from the mistakes of others—and not build energy-guzzling cities. China has a huge domestic market, cheap capital and sunny, windy deserts: the ideal environment to build a zero-carbon energy system. It is the silver lining of a very dark cloud.

Why is the cloud so dark for China? What can it do in the coming decades to improve its own and the global environment? Does the ideal of a zero-carbon energy system appeal to you? A July 2016 article on Japan discusses how Japan is moving toward "smart cities" as well. Maybe there is something to explore here.

Or, if Japan is your interest, how does Kingston assess Japan’s current situation?  Some of what Japan does looks very good on the surface, but what if we drill down a bit?  Also, we know that Japan has a record of pollution incidents going back to the late 1890s and recurring in the 1950s and 1960s—the Ashio Mine case, the Minamata Pollution Case, etc.—and as Pradyumna Karan notes, it has also witnessed the growth of grass-roots citizen-movements.  He lists up some 10 examples of citizens' movements; are these hopeful signs? How do they work and what do they accomplish? What do you think of the citizen movement against resumption of nuclear power plants captured by Eiji Oguma in his film, "Tell the Prime Minsiter"?

Whaling. Japan’s approach to whaling annoys many people in the rest of the world, but Japan seems to feel like a victim. Why is that? What are some of the issues at stake here? Information on the infamous Minamata case is widely available on the internet; what if you looked into this case and tied your discussion in with current environmental challenges in Japan?

Here is an interesting article about "Abenomics" and environmental policies: http://www.japanfocus.org/-Andrew-DeWit/3965/article.html

If Wildlife and Conservation are something of interest, you can see an article by Catherine Knight, http://www.japanfocus.org/-Catherine-Knight/3292/article.html

Or you could do something with all the notions about Edo as a model of sustainability. What do these arguments have to say and how valid are they? You could read some of the links from the syllabus and then put together a summary of what their arguments are and offer some critical reflection.

If these environment-related topics hold absolutely no appeal for you, and you want to propose a different topic, feel free to come and talk to me about it. One other thing I thought about was that if you like Art and its depiction of aspects of ordinary life, you could go back and explore what the "Along the River During the Qing Ming Festival" Scroll has to offer its viewers. I am no expert on this topic, but I have numerous links from the Syllabus that offer ways to work with the material.

For example, a couple of articles by Yale scholar Valerie Hansen are linked from the Harvard site. I think to do this project, you should probably have a strong interest in Art or Art History.

 

What else might appeal to you?

 

At any rate, by April 24, you should come to class with a brief written statement of your topic that you can leave with me--1 or 2 paragraphs explaining what your topic is and why it is worthwhile--and refer to the sources on which you plan to base your paper. This is by no stretch a "Research" paper, but you can feel free to move from the assigned readings to some external sources if you like.

A couple of points:

1. Again, we will want to have a solid Introductory paragrph or two where you clearly state the topic of your paper--what you want to discuss and why. e.g.

China's environmental crises seem to arise on a scale as sweeping and epic as the vast nation itself: Thousands of dead, bloated pigs floating down the river that supplies Shanghai with its drinking water. This paper will explore two very signficant challenges: the first is......the second topic this paper will explore is....

Then go about your business and make your arguments in the body of the paper, and finish with a Conclusion.

2. Note: When you Indent a Block Quote, you do NOT use quotation marks. Just indent the quote and follow it with a citation. , e.g.

China now burns 47 percent of the world's coal, roughly equal to the amount used by all other countries of the world combined, the New York Times reports. (NYT Feb. 27, 2013)

So, it should look something like this.

 

2. Commas and periods go inside quotation marks." Colons and Semi-colons, "outside";.