Sophia University

Tokyo, Japan

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www.sophia.ac.jp/eng/

Available Courses

This course is a survey of Japanese art from the prehistoric to modern period. We will explore a variety of visual works, such as sculptures, paintings, prints, architecture, and ceramics. We will also consider these works within their historical, social, and political contexts, and their roles in the formation of Japanese culture and history. The goal of this class is to develop skills in analyzing, discussing, and writing about various art forms. Examination on actual works in person is one of the important ways to develop these skills. Students will be required to conduct assignments by viewing images and objects at museums in Tokyo.

Other than short stories, students are responsible for obtaining all texts used in this course. Most are available in both print and electronic versions. Short stories will be provided to students by the instructor in PDF format.

The purpose of this course is to acquaint students with writers, trends, movements, styles, and themes in contemporary Japanese literature. While in this course you will be exposed to the works of currently living, working writers who have, for varying reasons, responded to the needs of the current generation of readers in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Our historical milieu will be Japan during the “bubble” economy, and beyond. Our writers will be concerned with issues of identity, communication, love, terrorism, and an increasingly powerful, yet strangely unresponsive, State power apparatus. In short, we will read stories about the actual, contemporary Japan in which we all live.

This course traces the development and cultural impact of the diverse religious traditions of Japan. It will focus on the role that folk traditions, Buddhism, Shintō and New Religious Movements have had in the formation of Japanese culture, as well as the ways in which these traditions have adapted to the unique social and historical circumstances found in Japan.

This is the introductory course on accounting. Often called the language of business, accounting is the system for gathering financial information and communicating it to its users including investors, creditors and management of companies. The course will introduce the basic accounting process: measuring, processing, interpreting and using accounting information for business decision-making.

The instructor of this course has work experience in external audit of listed companies in Japan and the US. Her knowledge of the actual practice of auditing shall contribute to the attainment of the pedagogical objectives of the course.

Prerequisite: None

Prerequisite: IBE200 (Principles of Microeconomics). Students must have solid understanding of microeconomics principles.

[Note: If you do not meet the prerequisite but still want to enrol in this course, please talk to (or email) the instructor PRIOR TO the first class. In general, you are not allowed to enrol in the course, but the instructor may give you a special permission if your background is deemed sufficient. Not obtaining a permission is a sufficient reason for receiving an F grade.]

In this course, we will explore how labor markets work, using standard economic theories. The course will cover various topics of labor economics: determination of wages and allocation of time between paid and unpaid activities, human capital investments (education and training), job mobility, immigration, unemployment, and discrimination in the labor market.

[Note 1: Prerequisite: IBE200 (Principles of Microeconomics). Students must have solid understanding of microeconomics principles. If you do not meet the prerequisite but still want to enroll in this course, please talk to (or email) the instructor prior to the first class. In general, you are not allowed to enroll in the course, but the instructor may give you a special permission if your background is deemed sufficient. Not obtaining a permission is a sufficient reason for receiving an F grade.]

This course introduces the main issues of development using economic analysis. We start with an introduction about how economists try to understand what anti-poverty policies “work”. Then, we cover topics like poverty, inequality, and human development. In the second part of the semester, we explore some essential economic theories to understand comparative economic development.

“Culture and Nature” is an introductory level course that gives an overview of how human culture shapes and is shaped by the natural environment. Designed for first and second year undergraduate students, the course is a survey of key concepts and concerns in the social sciences (with a focus on anthropology and geography) and environmental studies.

Its goal is to introduce students to the study of the natural environment, through anthropology and other related fields. The course will cover the basics of ecology, the relationship of ecological systems to human society and culture, and the most pressing problems facing the world today, such as climate change, water and food shortage, and the energy crisis.

This course covers the history of the peoples living in the Japanese archipelago from prehistoric times to the nineteenth century. Though dominated by the political structure of the elite, the course also explores the cultural context which the elites shared with others.

Sociology is a discipline analyzing issues in society. This course introduces students to some major social theories and concepts in sociology. Topics include a review of sociology as a discipline, culture, socialization, social interaction, education, social stratification, networks, work, economic life, body and health, urbanization, population, environment, and globalization. It is a theory-oriented course. However, it addresses empirical questions such as (1) What is society? (2) How is society organized and structured? (3) Who are individuals and their roles in society? (4) How do individuals and society affect each other? The goal of this course is to provide students with conceptual tools for understanding society, thereby some inspirations of how individuals may live meaningful life.

This course explores the making of the global agro-food system and its role in shaping international relations of food and transformation of agrarian societies from a multi-disciplinary perspective. We focus on questions relating to who are the winners and losers from contemporary patterns of global economic change. This includes the analysis of relevant conceptual approaches to these questions (including international trade, comparative advantage, food regime theory, regionalism, economic governance, development and post-development, etc) as well as close examination of the key institutions (WTO and WB) driving these changes. In so doing, this course aims to develop the ability to think critically about how and why our everyday relations to food (from production to consumption) have dramatically transformed over the last century and how this transformation affects the environment.

This is a multidisciplinary course that focuses the key technologies of useful tools for environmental research and the science behind them, the key technologies which changes our environmental conditions better, and so on. Besides, students will gain knowledge of science and technology being useful for environmental research. The objective of the course is to develop a better understanding of complex social problems related to the environment.

<Expected Competencies>
To develop a better understanding of environmental issues and useful tools for chemical, geological, and environmental researches. In addition, the objective of the course is to develop human resources who can contribute to finding solutions to complex social problems related to the environment.

This course covers the fundamentals of Chemistry from a physico-chemical point of view. Properties at equilibrium and kinetics processes are studied in detail. The class will include a substantial amount of problem solving, assignments and a final examination.

<Expected Competencies>
The student should be able to understand basic concepts of chemistry and solve problems of basic and intermediate level.

By developing a deep understanding of the basics of the field of the natural sciences, the student is expected to learn the ethos of the department of Science and Technology.

Additionally, an important theme of the class is to introduce the concepts to mathematical modeling to understand the relations between the observable (macro) and the theoretical (micro) sides of substances.

The aim of the course is to obtain fundamental knowledge of animal biology. On our planet, there are a wide variety of living organisms. In this course, students will study the diversity of animal kingdoms, and the physiology of animals.

<Expected Competencies>
Students will master basic knowledge in the field of animal biology. By exploring similarities and differences among the various organisms, students can understand and explain the unity and diversity of animals. Furthermore, students will understand how the organs and cells maintain life cycles. Students obtain the ability to systematically understand the fundamentals of life.

Cell is a fundamental units of life. To understand life, we should learn cells. Cell is not a simple bag of membrane, but it contains many kinds of structures constituted by proteins. In this course we will learn molecular components of cells and their function.

The topics include cell membrane, transporters, ion channels, intracellular transport of materials, cell signaling, cytoskeletons, and cell movements.


<Expected Competencies>
Students become able to describe molecular mechanisms of major events in cells, using basic technical terms.

This course is an introduction to electromagnetism (Electrostatics, which means electric charges are stationary). The topic includes electric charge, electric fields, electric potential, capacitance and steady-state electric current. This course is designed to provide students with a working knowledge of the basic physics principles mentioned above, as well as their applications, and to enhance their conceptual understanding of physical laws and mathematics behind them.

<Expected Competencies>
The objective is to obtain basic laws of electrostatics and understand electromagnetic phenomena.

In the class the students are asked to learn the subject through solving the example problems and exercise problems for understanding mechanics and to apply the knowledge on practical problems of maters.

<Expected Competencies>
The objective of this course is acquire the broad ability of addressing science and technology issues by studying the fundamentals of electrostatics.

1)Learn the basic knowledge in the field of mechanics.
2)Understand the force and equilibrium problem.
3)To apply basic mathematics to solve the mechanical problem.

Quantum mechanics is the fundamental theory of atoms, molecules, elementary particles, or matter in general, and even that of information. This course is intended to be a “modern” introduction to such quantum mechanics of matter and information. Traditionally, quantum mechanics is described by the wave function, “psi,” which obeys the Schroedinger equation, while an alternative description based on the density matrix is also possible, which is often employed in the field of quantum information. Here, we attempt to make a bridge between these two complementary descriptions of the quantum mechanics. The first part of the course is mainly devoted to introduction of the basic concepts, while in the second part, we will apply them to some concrete problems such as potential problems of the Schroedinger equation as well as to problems related to the concept of quantum entanglement.

<Expected Competencies>
Understanding of the basic notions of quantum mechanics and acquisition of practical techniques for applying it to some simple concrete problems.

In this lecture, I’m going to introduce several topics of physical chemistry along with “molecular approach” that starts with quantum chemistry and then progresses to statistical thermodynamics and classical thermodynamics.

This approach derives “empirical chemistry” learned in high school, assuming the first principle and mathematics, which means the provided lectures would evolve from micro-system to macro. Some people call it “quantum first.” The statistical thermodynamics would play an important role to connect the quantum world (micro) with classical thermodynamics (macro). The macro finally corresponds to several topics in our observable classical thermodynamics; probably students know well one of them is equation of state of perfect gas (pV=nRT) and so on.

Therefore, the equations would continue to be derived in this lecture, but I strongly think it should be demonstrated without any skipping the content, so please learn the mathematical procedure/how to derive theory. In particular, its mathematical procedure has become a strong tool used in all fields of physical chemistry.

<Expected Competencies>
Objective of this course is learning fundamentals of natural sciences for ability to solve various scientific and technological issues.

Natural or physical phenomena are often modeled using differential equations. To understand the phenomena it is important to know how to obtain mathematical solutions for the models. In this course, techniques to solve differential equations as well as geometric methods to obtain qualitative ideas for differential equations will be studied.

<Expected Competencies>
To know the usefulness of differential equations and gain the problem solving techniques. It is important to know when it is easy to find solutions and how they behaves, for further studies in computing, engineering, science, applied mathematics and other fields.

This course teaches basic concepts in the field of Informatics and Computer Science.

Students learn:
・How a computer processes and handles data
・How data is stored and manipulated in a computer

Students will learn to acquire the abilities required for fostering human resources who will use and create cutting-edge information technologies through courses ranging from basic engineering courses to applied courses incorporating social perspectives, in order to systematically understand various technologies associated with the generation, use, accumulation and circulation of social information contents.

<Expected Competencies>
By the end of the course, students will:

Have the ability to understand how the computer executes program.

Get the knowledge of the hardware and software characteristics of personal computers, and their usage.

This course aims at imparting a sound knowledge of a broad range of liberal arts and ethical values that can accommodate the advancement of globalism with an understanding of “information” in the broad context of modern society in terms of its significance, principles and theory, and daily applications in various fields of society, based on broad liberal arts studies and ethical values.