|
Robert Angel doesn’t require his students to purchase hardback textbooks for his courses in Japanese Domestic Politics and Japanese Foreign Relations anymore.
All the resources they need are on the Web, including his Web page, JapanConsidered.org, which he started a year and a half ago to provide a source of reference in English for people interested in Japan’s politics, economy, and foreign relations.
In addition to his students, the site is popular among other experts on Japanese politics and their students, along with governmental officials, though Angel tried to make it accessible to all levels of potential readership.
“I’m a Japan liberal arts area specialist and thought this would be a good way to connect with the larger Japan Studies community, which is big and growing in the American academic community, and around the world,” said the associate professor of political science.
Using computer skills he learned to create an extensive Web presence for the department’s John C. West Forum on Politics and Policy, Angel included links on his site to other Japan sites that he considers the best. The site also features a series of telephone interviews with other specialists on Japanese politics, economics, and foreign relations.
“I created the site intentionally to make it distinctive in two respects,” he said. “The first was to provide fewer links to other sites, which I’ve evaluated in a paragraph or two, and the other was the interview series.”
Angel records the interviews—usually evaluations and commentaries on the significance of key political events in Japanese domestic politics or foreign relations—edits them, adds pictures, and creates the sound files from clips using Flash movies. He also provides the edited manuscript of the interview.
On Nov. 18 he started podcasts on the site of 10 to 20-minute weekly audio broadcasts distributed through the Internet on a free subscription basis.
The site, which contains sections on such topics as foreign relations, military affairs, and police and public security, plus photos and biographies of student volunteers who have helped with the site, has been well received.
“People from all over the country have been very cooperative and people in Japan have offered support, advice, and help, and have used it,” said Angel, who is fluent in Japanese. “The site has made it possible to be an active, involved member of the larger area studies community of Japan even though as a department we’ve moved away from area studies.”
The site reflects a lifetime of Japanese study by Angel, who earlier in his career was president and chief executive officer of the Japan Economic Institute in Washington. His first exposure to the country was as an 18-year-old airman in the U.S. Air Force where he also met his Japanese wife. He holds five degrees from Columbia University with majors in political science, American politics, and Oriental Studies.
For his students, using the site makes it easy to find material for their coursework. “If they’re going to write about political parties, they can go to the site and find all of the English language sites of the parties, sites that critique political parties, and an evaluation of what’s there,” he said. “It isn’t as if it’s just a list and you don’t know what you’re doing.”
Angel is considering chairing a panel at one of the Asian studies national associations on implementation of communication technology to spread the word about his podcast interviews so that area teachers will know the resource is available and more of them and their students can subscribe.
Angel described Japan as “a very large, powerful society” that is of vital interest to the United States because it shares America’s primary political, cultural and economic values.
Both China and Japan welcome the continued involvement of the United States in Asian affairs, Angel said, knowing that it helps maintain a balance between the two countries, which America also must deal with.
12/05
|
Robert Angel, political science
