New Online Curriculum: Imaging Japanese History

The Program for Teaching East Asia at the University of Colorado announces a free online curriculum designed to enhance students’ visual literacy while deepening their understanding of Japanese history. Imaging Japanese History contains five modules:

Heian Japan through Art: Dour Great Emaki

Medieval Japan through Art: Samurai Life

Tokugawa Japan through Art: Views of a Society in Transformation

Meiji-Taisho Japan through Art (forthcoming)

From Postwar to the Present through Art: Tezuka Osamu and Astro Boy.

Each module includes an introductory essay and an interactive lesson that engages students in close readings of art as historical texts in order to better understand the period. Designed for secondary social studies and art history teachers, the modules touch on major questions and content from the National Standards for World History. This curriculum is funded through a grant from the Japan Foundation Center for Global Partnership. Four of the five modules in the series are currently available at http://www.colorado.edu/cas/tea/imagingjapan.