Module manager: Jieun Kim
Email: j.e.kim@leeds.ac.uk
Taught: Semester 2 (Jan to Jun) View Timetable
Year running 2024/25
EAST3702 Religion in Japan
This module is approved as a discovery module
This module explores how death opens up an arena where critical religious, ethical and social questions are raised and debated in Japan. Drawing on ethnographic and historical accounts, we learn how the uncertainties of death and the afterlife have been handled by various religious traditions and ritual practices in Japan. Special attention is paid to the ways in which particular forms of death, such as suicides, martyrdom, abortions, war deaths and street deaths, have been problematised or glorified by religious beliefs. The module then moves on to consider how religious organisations today cope with the diversifying demand for alternative funerals and burials to secure ‘good death’ in the context of super-ageing, globalisation and digitalisation. This exploration will lead us to critically reflect on how religious attitudes surrounding death and the afterlife betray concerns over social and cosmological orders and varying intentions to (re)settle them.
This module aims at understanding how death and the afterlife have been construed and handled by various religions and rituals in Japan through reading ethnographic and historical accounts. Introducing anthropological concepts to analyse religious rituals and beliefs concerning death and the afterlife, this module is designed to foster critical awareness of the role of religion in addressing concerns over the uncertainties caused by death.
1. identifing the key historical events, state policies, social changes and religious organisations and beliefs related to rituals and practices concerning death and the afterlife in Japan.
2. applying anthropological concepts to analyse religious rituals and beliefs concerning death and the afterlife.
This module covers a range of topics including conceptions of death and the afterlife, taboos related to death and blood, spiritual concerns over death and dying, religious practices of voluntary death and sacrifice, controversies over commemorating the dead, the changing roles of religious organisations and beliefs in death rites in Japan.
| Delivery type | Number | Length hours | Student hours |
|---|---|---|---|
| Seminars | 10 | 1 | 10 |
| Lecture | 10 | 1 | 10 |
| Private study hours | 180 | ||
| Total Contact hours | 20 | ||
| Total hours (100hr per 10 credits) | 200 | ||
1. Background reading and preparation for seminars (5 hours per taught week, 50 hours)
2. Research and writing for the final essay (100 hours)
3. Preparation for seminar presentation (30 hours)
Progress is monitored through performance in seminars. Once the essay assignment is set in week 4, students will also prepare an unassessed detailed outline (1 page) due in week 7. Feedback from this will help students work on the final essay.
| Assessment type | Notes | % of formal assessment |
|---|---|---|
| Essay or Dissertation | 3,000 words | 70 |
| Presentation | In-class presentation | 30 |
| Total percentage (Assessment Coursework) | 100 | |
Normally resits will be assessed by the same methodology as the first attempt, unless otherwise stated
The reading list is available from the Library website
Last updated: 5/3/2024
Errors, omissions, failed links etc should be notified to the Catalogue Team