A Compilation of Essays Written by Students in the ALESA Program Pensado

April 2021 Issue 8 PensadoA compilation of essays written by students in the ALESA Program Pensado Cover Image Matsudaira Toshogu Shrine (detail) Photo by Bong Grit CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 Source: Flickr Editors Eric Vanden Bussche John Pazdziora Editorial Assistant Chloe Anastasia Lim ALESA Faculty (2020) Naomi Berman, Ph.D. Britton Brooks, Ph.D. Alex Bueno, Ph.D. Greg Dalziel, Ph.D. Richard Dietz, Ph.D. Natsuno Funada, Ph.D. Candler Hallman, Ph.D. Catherine Hansen, Ph.D. Diana Kartika, Ph.D. Akiko Katayama, Ed.D. Daisuke Kimura, Ph.D. Raquel Moreno-Peñaranda, Ph.D. Rajalakshmi Nadadur Kannan, Ph.D. John Pazdziora, Ph.D. Shang-yu Sheng, Ph.D. Aurora Tsai, Ph.D. Eric Vanden Bussche, Ph.D. Joanne Yu, Ph.D. ALESA Program Center for Global Communication Strategies (CGCS) College of Arts and Sciences 4th Floor, KIBER Building, Komaba Campus The University of Tokyo 3-8-1 Komaba, Meguro-ku, Tokyo, 153-8902 Japan 153-8902 東京都目黒区駒場3-8-1 東京大学教養学部附属グローバルコミュニケーション研究センター駒場国際教育研究棟 4階 ALESAプログラム http://ale.c.u-tokyo.ac.jp [email protected] (03) 5465–8221 The copyrights to the individual research papers published herein are retained by the original authors. All other text is Cop- yright © Active Learning of English for Students of the Arts (ALESA) Program + Center for Global Communication Strat- egies + Department of English Language, College of Arts and Sciences, The Univer- sity of Tokyo, Komaba . All rights reserved. 2019 In This Issue 4 A Word From the Editors to ALESA Students Sho Kuno 5 Thinking by Writing as Much as Thinking to Write Nagisa Kanokogi 8 Haussmann and Art: Modern Beauty in Paris in the Late Nineteenth Century after the Reconstruction Yuki Tanaka 13 René Sieffert’s Role in the History of the Understanding of Noh in France Mayu Takeda 17 Is Japan’s Education Towards Foreigners Sufficient? State Intervention Versus Community Support Kanano Yokogawa 21 Teacher Gender Balance: Why Japan Has the Smallest Proportion of Female Teachers in Senior High School among OECD Countries Kanami Konishi 24 Fashion Moving Beyond the Gender Binary Nobuya Aoki 28 Current Problems with Braille Blocks in Japan and Possible Solutions Shuhei Onozaki 32 The Role of the Internet in the Umbrella Revolution Yuki Ito 35 The Role of ICT in Africa’s Sustainable Development Luana Ichinose 38 Should Sri Lanka Hold a Referendum to Determine Its Future Relationship with Chinese Investment? Naho Komuro 42 Human Rights in a Data-Driven Society Yuki Matsuura 47 The Conservation, not the Elimination, of Great White Sharks for the Marine Ecosystem Pensado 2021 A Word From the Editors to ALESA Students he 2020 academic year was marked by adjustments in the late nineteenth century, the introduction of traditional T in teaching and learning triggered by the COVID-19 Japanese theater in France, Africa’s sustainable development, pandemic. This issue of Pensado, the eighth in the series, and Chinese investment in Sri Lanka. Some essays draw atten- speaks to the uncertainties of the current times through tion to broader challenges affecting the globe, such as the interwoven essays that examine the broader themes of tran- threat of surveillance technologies to socio-political institu- sitions and transformations. These essays, penned by first- tions in one-party states and Western democracies, as well year students in the ALESA program, critically engage with as the dangers that the possible extinction of the great white complex and provocative topics in the humanities and social sharks could pose for marine ecosystems. Controversial social sciences through a diversity of disciplinary lenses, methods, issues are also examined, such as teacher gender imbalance and genres, adding their authors’ voices and sophisticated in Japanese schools, gender nonconformity in fashion, digi- insights to the current academic debates. They are the prod- tal activism in protest movements, and the need for greater uct of the rigorous but rewarding processes that students levels of support for people with disabilities. Students will develop in the ALESA classroom: evidence-based research, learn a great deal about academic writing from these essays writing, peer feedback, and revision. Through this collection, if they carefully consider the similarities between them and new cohorts of first-year students will gain an understand- note the ways they articulate different perspectives through ing of the structure and stylistic elements of an academic evidence-based research and analysis. essay and begin to recognize the breadth of research meth- odologies and modes of engagement with different kinds Selecting the essays for this issue proved a wonderfully of sources. challenging task. Pensado received a record number of high-quality submissions, a testament to the hard work of The essays in this issue showcase multiple approaches to the students and instructors during the difficult pandemic critical inquiry and academic discourse, but at the same time year. Amid global upheavals and the frustrations of online are conversant with one another. Spanning wide geographical university in a pandemic, ALESA students studied, thought, and temporal scope, these essays consider societies in transi- and wrote with intelligence about the world as they saw it tion and change. They investigate topics such as the relation- around them. We hope that these essays will encourage ship between French art and the urban modernization of Paris students to research and write with curiosity undimmed. Eric Vanden Bussche John Pazdziora 4 2021 Thinking by Writing as Much as Thinking to Write Sho Kuno Practicing the Concept of “Reportage” Abe lists “the analytical inclination” (13: 145), “the literary uniqueness, that is the recognition based on sensibility” (146), “the involvement of denial” (147) as the main factors of “Reportage,” all of which the novel fulfills. Anten’s experience of self-disunion into a raccoon dog and eyeballs happens parallel with the author’s analysis of “writing.” On the other hand, Abe fascinates the readers by the nonsensical, humor- ous style of the novel and creates a virtual “exterior reality that works on to destroy the balance [of readers]” (146). As a result, readers actively participate in Abe’s thought experi- ment where surrealism is denied and “Reportage” necessarily Figure 1. “Various imaginations and plans derive from those equa- replaces it. tions” (Abe 2: 85). Taken by the author, on November 14, 2020, at CALZEDONIA Tokyo Shibuya, with all permission. Analytical Inclination of the Novel. The remarks by Anten, the narrator, from a meta-viewpoint reflect Abe’s self-projec- Introduction tion into him. Anten is aware of the readers when, on the n the second sentence of the article “Hand of Computer for first encounter with the raccoon dog, he requests the read- I Heart of Beast,” Abe Kobo declares, “I will write the method ers, “would you please simply take a look at the next picture, of writing a novel, which is there is no such thing as a method rather than my describing [its appearance] verbally” (Abe 2: of writing a novel1” (13: 105). This apparent intellectual bank- 86). Here, Abe built a direct relationship between Anten and ruptcy is solved in one of his written works. In “Raccoon Dog the readers. In “The Crime of S. Karma,” Abe “made an effort of the Tower of Babel [バベルの塔の狸]” written in 1951 (Toba to depict him as specifically along his actions as possible, 306), Abe depicts the process of creating, writing in his case. It while at the same time, portray the route with which he puts is a practiced artistic creation that records the thoughts about his idea into action… I [Abe] attempted to make [the novel] novel writing that Abe constructed in parallel with the writing a comedy… by depicting the subject as it is. The first-person process. Confirming the parallelism between the novel and narrative is a form adopted necessarily” (206). The novel was Abe’s concept of artistic creation is followed by exploring the written two months before “Raccoon Dog of the Tower of novel’s characteristic as a paradigm of “Reportage” by Abe’s Babel” (Toba 306), and Abe states “these three parts [‘The definition, and unravelling Abe’s thought on the relationships Crime of S. Karma’, ‘Raccoon Dog of the Tower of Babel’, and of writer with reader and novel. ‘Red Cocoon’ in Wall] …were written under a generally consis- tent purpose” (qtd. in Toba 118). Similarly, Abe depicted Anten The Raison d’etre of the Novel as a “poor poet” (Abe 2: 85) who pursues the ideal image of “Raccoon Dog of the Tower of Babel” is a record of Abe’s writ- a creator on his behalf. This way, he succeeded in objectively ing process in which he recursively pursues the ideal artistic depicting the relationship between writer and reader. creation through creating a novel with such a theme. Mean- while, it provokes the active participation of readers to follow Abe depicted Perseus as “the ideal image of a creator” his experience of the exploration. Abe defines artistic creation (Munegumi 22) that realizes the “dialectic unification of writer as “something that cuts the homeostatic state [of readers] and reader as confronting beings” (Abe: 13 119). His “cool between language and reality, the safety zone of stereotype mind that is never moved even by the beauty of Medusa” surrounded by a wall called language, and create a novel (Abe 2: 85) and the nature as “an invisible poet” (100) are system of language (which is needless to say the discovery of compatible. A raccoon dog introduces himself to Anten as the new reality at the same time)” (15: 190). In this sense, Abe “your will, your behavior, your desire, your raison d’etre” (99) introduced “Reportage” as “one of the most modern artistic and deprives him of the shadow to have “grown up, become movements” (13: 144), which is a realized unification of “analyt- independent, and achieved to have my own will and behavior” ical feature” (145) and “recognition based on sensibility” (146), (99), making Anten’s body invisible except for the eyeballs.

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