Undergraduate Course Pages > Case Studies II

January 8: Final considerations, and second drafts of theses turned in. Students are reminded that the official drafts of theses, with my signature on the cover sheet, are due in the Faculty office tomorrow, January 9.

The last homework of the seminar: be sure that I have an electronic version of your thesis by Sunday evening, January 11. Even though the deadline for submitting the thesis to the Faculty office is January 9, changes may be made beyond that date. I shall review the final drafts in electronic form, and e-mail any suggestions or corrections.

Ruriko Okada has kindly agreed to coordinate the publishing of the theses by the Faculty office, and so all students who want to see their thesis in the collection should be in touch with her.

Some of the theses will be published also in the student work section here. I hope to have them up by the end of January.

December 18: Presentation by Go Murakami about the results of his two-year investigation into the degree of correlation between unemployment and anti-immigrant public opinion in Australia.

December 11: Thesis drafts were presented by most students. I’ll hope to have these back with comments in the December 18 seminar.

For students who have not turned in the draft: Rather than e-mails about whatever the difficulty is I would prefer to receive the papers. I’ll next be at the Tama campus early in the afternoon on Tuesday the 16th and shall expect to find your (late) thesis in my mailbox when I arrive.

December 4: Explanation and discussion of the documentary form required in the graduation theses.

November 27: Discussion of particular questions raised by particular students about graduation theses.

November 20: The common errors workshop was completed. In the November 27 seminar we’ll have a presentation by Go Murakami about his recent research, and we'll begin a workshop on documentary procedures and practices.

November 13: Beginning of a two week workshop in avoiding common errors in the presentation of an English thesis.

November 6: Student presentations on graduation thesis topics were successfully completed.

October 23: Successful presentation by Eri Watanabe on the gap between government promises and government action in dealing with stray cats in Neoporisu.

October 16: Successful presentations by Aya Yanagawa on foreign exchange students in Japanese higher education and by Yuki Tanaka on the construction of gender identity in Japanese children’s tales.

October 9: Succesful presentation by Yukari Himeno on services provided or not provided by Kanagawa Prefecture for the children of foreign residents.

October 2:Successful presentation by Mari Sewaki on the relation of kindergarten dress codes and the construction of gender identity.

September 25: Re-introduction to the seminar. Discussion of graduation thesis proposals. Announcement that since the FPS deadline for submission of graduation theses is January 9, the deadline for submission of a complete draft to me, in order to ensure time for my copy-editing and your final draft, will be December 11.

Formal presentations of 20-25 minutes begin next week, with Mari Sewaki discussing the ways that kindergarten dress-codes construct gender identity, and Miki Erihara discussing the relation of popular music and society.

July 10: The last seminar meeting of the term was led by Go Murakami and Yumiko Nakayama, who discussed graduation theses and took the class to the library for a review of resources available there. In the autumn term the seminar will begin with a series of 20- to 30-minute student presentations on thesis topics.

July 3: The class was cancelled. We'll meet July 10 to wrap up the first half of the seminar and plan for the second.

June 26: Go Murakami led the seminar in discussion of the process of constructing a thesis, identification of data sets, collection of data, and related matters. Student presentations of 15-20 minutes on thesis topics will begin July 3.

June 19: Workshops continued. The June 26 class, I hope, will include a library tour and instruction in the use of Lexis-Nexis and other on-line resources by Go Murakami. Student presentations on thesis topics will begin July 3.

June 12: Workshops in finessing thesis proposals and the data sets they predict continued, with the help of Go Murakami.

June 5: The presentations were informal and adequate. The seminar continues to finesse graduation thesis topics and data sets. This will continue for another two or three weeks. The aim is that one month from now each student will be able clearly to articulate in a single sentence what she proposes to explain or to discover, and will have collected and begun to describe the data set needed to do so. We’ll begin the June 12 seminar with discussion of Yukari Himeno’s sentence developed in this June 5 meeting.

May 29: Workshop in deriving the research data set, particularly the primary data set, from the thesis topic proposal. Homework: prepare a 300-500 word written summary of one important source from your data set, and a 20-minute oral presentation on the same material. Presentations will begin next week.

May 22: Further discussion of graduation thesis proposals and the data sets they predict. Discussion of the importance of identifying, collecting, and analyzing a set of primary materials.

Homework: frame your thesis proposal as a single sentence, beginning with either “I want to explain that . . .” or “I want to discover whether . . .”. Note that either of these sentences requires both a noun and a verb for grammatical completion. These sentences, and the data sets they predict, will be the subject of the May 29 seminar meeting.

Students are reminded that graduation thesis topics are due in the faculty administrative office sometime soon. Please check in the office for details.

May 15: Continued informal discussion of thesis proposals. Homework: begin trying key terms in the online databases noted here, in the aim of identifying major secondary studies (Japanese and English) related to your topic. Be prepared to explain what you have found in the May 22 class.

May 8: Discussion of reasons that Go Murakami and Yumiko Nakayama’s graduation theses from the 2002-03 seminar were outstanding, and what may be learned from them in the preparation of theses in this 2003-04 seminar. Miki Erihara, Aya Yanagawa, and Mari Sewaki presented acceptable initial proposals for a thesis topic. In the May 15 seminar we’ll hear propsals from Eri Watanabe, Yuki Tanaka, Rena Odagiri, and Yukari Himeno, and will begin discussion of the data set required to realize a successful thesis from each of these proposals.

Homework: Prepare in addition to your longer proposal a one-sentence version that begins with either “I want to explain that . . .” or “I want to discover whether . . .”. Consider what data will need to be collected and analyzed to explain or to discover what you propose.

May 1: The seminar had the rare pleasure of being able to discuss the text under consideration with its author. Go Murakami led a discussion of “The Emperor’s New Clothes: The Discourse of kokusaika in Japanese Higher Education.” Discussion, prior to Go’s arrival, of requirements for the graduation thesis, which include a positioning toward a topic that in a direct way responds to Edward Said’s notion of “speaking truth to power.”

Homework: if necessary revise your thesis proposal in reaction to today’s seminar. Continue preparation for discussion of Yumiko Nakayama’s “The Violent Nature of Japanese ‘shûshoku katsudo.’”

April 24: Discussion of the nature of the committment that fourth-year Japanese university students have to their studies given the ritual of job hunting. Texts provided: pdf files of last year’s graduation theses written for this course. Homework: 1) read Yumiko Nakayama’s “The Violent Nature of Japanese ‘shûshoku katsudo’ [ritual job hunting]”; 2) explore the home area of this website.

April 17: Assignment: bring a blank CD for a copy of last year’s graduation theses. Homework: read Go Murakami’s “The Emperor’s New Clothes: The Discourse of kokusaika [internationalization] in Japanese Higher Education”; prepare a 200-word proposal (typed, standard manuscript form) for your graduation thesis.

Individual conferences to be scheduled next week.