Module JPNS2181: Introduction to Anime: Aesthetic, Technology, Seriality

Department: Modern Languages and Cultures (Japanese)

JPNS2181: Introduction to Anime: Aesthetic, Technology, Seriality

Prerequisites

• None

Corequisites

• None

Excluded Combination of Modules

• None

Aims

• To acquaint students with a major genre of non-Western serial media in its historical technical and cultural dimensions.
• To acquaint students with the specificities of anime’s visual aesthetics in its historical development, from early 20th century optical technologies to present-day digital productions.
• To examine the technology behind anime’s global proliferation.
• To offer students an introduction to key concepts in Japanese animation studies, media theory, and visual culture and material culture.
• To engage students in a collective project tied to formative exercises and summative assessment.

Content

• A variety of anime and anime-related artifacts, physical and virtual.
• Theoretical texts in animation studies, media theory, visual culture and anthropology.
• A practical teaching session on anime production materials to be held at the Durham Oriental Museum.
• The module is organised in lectures and a series of interactive seminars. The lectures are designed to introduce students to key Japanese and international perspectives on anime, focusing on the development of animation in Japan since the early 20th century to recent trends in digital animation. The seminars will offer an opportunity to put knowledge into practice through interactive discussions and a group research project to be developed incrementally week by week.

Learning Outcomes

• By the end of the module, students will have an understanding of the historical, technical and cultural dimensions of Japanese animation from the early 20th century to present days.
• By the end of the module, students will be familiar with production structures and practices in the contemporary anime industry.

• By the end of the module, students will be equipped with tools from media theory, animation studies, and visual and material culture that will allow them to understand and analyse Japanese animation-based media in a global age.

• By the end of this module students should have enhanced research, communication and argumentation skills, written and oral.

Modes of Teaching, Learning and Assessment and how these contribute to the learning outcomes of the module

• The module is taught and assessed in English. English translations of required reading or audio-visual materials in Japanese will be available.
• Single-term delivery either in Term 1 or in Term 2, i.e. 1x lecture (weekly); 1x seminar (weekly).
• Summative Assessment: Students will be assessed via a collaborative research project inclusive of written (20%) and oral (20%) components (weighting 40% in total) and a 3000-word critical essay (weighting 60%).
• Formative Assessment: Students will engage in a group project to be developed during the seminars each week.
• Seminars will focus on discussions of the learning materials and in the collective research project, with students working together toward the creation of an original anime proposal to be pitched to an imaginary production committee.

Teaching Methods and Learning Hours

Summative Assessment

Formative Assessment:

Research for group project

■ Students who do not attend monitored activities shown under Teaching Methods and Learning Hours, or who fail to complete the summative or formative assessment(s) specified above, may be subject to the Academic Progress procedures defined in the University's General Regulation V, and may be required to leave the University.