The "Christian Century," if such a conceit can be applied to a period of Japanese history distinguished by tumultuous events that had little to do with Christianity, may be read in various ways: as a catechism; as a political treatise dealing with clashes between systems of authority; as a commercial contract or, rather, as the script of a symbiosis that bound together the interests of Jesuit missionaries, Portuguese merchants, and Japanese magnates; as a manual of cultural misunderstandings and accommodations; as a debate on values, pursued at an uneven but on the whole fairly high intellectual level; and finally as a Jesuit drama composed by its own actors, who struggle for the greater glory of God against demonic forces, defy tyrants, win many souls for Christ, and in the end are crowned with the ultimate triumph of martyrdom. This course seeks to explore some of those dimensions of Japanese and intercultural history. Format: lecture/discussion. Requirements: classroom participation, a book review or other type of research paper (c. 10-12 pages), and a self-scheduled final examination. Groups C and D

Hour: ELISONAS