Assignment:
Every other week you will write a reflection paper on a film, plus reading, and our VR visit of temples, shrines, and or matsuris. In your reflection you must evaluate and make connections between the reading material, the film, and your perception of your VR visit. Because this is a lot of material to discuss you should not try to cover its totality. Rather select one or two elements you find particularly interesting and talk about it/them.
Choosing a clear focus will help you write an effective report because you must do more than merely describe what you saw; you must engage analytically with what you saw and felt, reflecting at a deeper level.
Research:
Please make sure to lookup the director of the films, extra information regarding the reading, and background of the temples, shrines, and or matsuris you choose to visit so that you have a better understanding of what you saw/experienced and any other information you deem useful for someone reading your paper.
Purpose: This assignment is designed to help you evaluate and understand how to move about in the aspect of Japanese spirituality you choose to investigate further. Traveling virtually will provide you with a more visual idea of temples, shrines, and or matsuris and how they relate to contemporary city life and Japanese people’s spirituality. Moreover it will help prepare you to create a research project at the end of the semester.
Audience:
You are writing your reflection papers to show to your Professor and classmates how a specific Japanese spirituality element in a film, a reading, and your VR exploring relate to your personal experiences and shape your understanding of class-related material. Although they are personal and subjective, you must maintain an academic tone and you paper must still be thoroughly and cohesively organized.
Guiding Questions:
The following questions are intended to help you but you are not limited to responding them:
How is the event, venue, neighborhood tied to class readings, films, virtual travels and discussions?
What were some of the common Japanese spirituality themes/issues in the film?
What is special about this aspect of Japanese spirituality?
How do they relate to the assigned reading material?
What similarities differences you saw while using VR to experience the places?
How is the neighborhood around the sites you visited with the VR googles?
How do the film, the temples, shrines, and/or matsuris, and the reading relate to one another?
