Bachelor in Japanese Literature and Culture

Senshu University

Location

Japan

Study Format

On Campus

Study Fields

History, Cultural Heritage, Foreign Languages and Literatures

Degree

Bachelor's Degree

Tuition Fee

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Program Description

The Department of Japanese Literature and Culture offers a curriculum with numerous elective courses that students can choose according to their interests. The courses include classical and modern literature, traditional culture, theater, movies, and animation. The department also offers creative instruction by active authors, editorial instruction by experienced publishers, and theoretical instruction in the traditional art of Japanese calligraphy (shodo). Faculty in this department support each student by helping them find research topics and develop their research while broadening their understanding of Japanese literature and culture.

About the School

In 1870, the Meiji government ordered various local governments to send "persons qualified for positions of authority in government" to developed nations as overseas observers or students. The swift absorption of Western academic practices and knowledge was necessary to further Japan's modernization.

The founders of Senshu University, Nagatane Soma, Inajiro Tajiri, Tanetaro Megata, and Shigetada Komai were among those sent to the US at the expense of the central or local governments. While studying overseas, Soma and Megata deepened their friendship with other Japanese students studying in similar circumstances, and together they formed a study group called "the Japan Law Company". Tajiri and Komai, on the other hand, studied economics and public finance, and together began translating academic papers on public finance into Japanese. Later Soma and his legal study group and Tajiri and his economical group met at Yale University and discussed the prospect of founding a college in Japan in which economics and law would be taught.

After returning home, they founded Senshu College in 1880, the first school in Japan comprising Economics and Law Departments to systematically offer a specialized educational curriculum in the Japanese language. The Economics department was the first institute of higher learning in Japan to offer training in economics. The Economics Department was independent of the Literary Department as well as the Law Department. Our system was one step ahead of the U.S. educational system at that time. That college was the forerunner of today's Senshu University.