Teaching Sino-Japanese Energy Issues: A Case Study of Area Studies Survey Courses Contextualized Against Northeast Asian and Global Energy Relations

This paper is based on a localized case study of teaching Sino-Japanese energy issues in the area studies setting of Japanese studies through a historical perspective. It is based on the author??s four semesters of teaching at Chinese University of Hong Kong, the complexities of which are increased by the 11 March 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and the resulting discussions of energy issues in Northeast Asia. Five sub-topics related to energy are discussed here: energy transitions; history of energy fuel use in Northeast Asia; the scarcity of fossil fuels in the region; competition and cooperation for energy resources; and the potential and possibility of non-fossil fuel replacement resources. These five sub-topics are collectively discussed and contextualized in the post-311 or post-Great East Japan Earthquake scenario. The methodology used in analyzing the content approach to covering these topics and making them accessible to students fall into three main areas: the use of historiography to cover the major arguments, concepts and scholarly arguments/schools of thought in teaching these sub-topics; techniques in constructing historical overviews to make these topics accessible to area studies students and constructing literature reviews to stimulate student discussions on post-311 energy scenarios in Northeast Asia within the contextualized of the globalized energy industry and relations. Limitations of these approaches will be discussed through observation techniques. Textual analysis of textbooks covering these topics will also be analyzed based on the author??s bibliographic use in constructing the course materials for the above subject areas. Finally, some concluding trends, remarks and observations as well as implications of the above teaching experience are covered in the concluding section.