The West and the Resistance: Stakeholders’ Perceptions of Teaching Shakespeare for and against Westernisation in Japanese Higher Education

Abstract

This chapter explores the question ‘Is Shakespeare perceived as one of the powerful global icons through which local education is westernised?’ in Japan. It foregrounds the perceptions of people studying and teaching Shakespeare in Japan in the early twenty-first century. The chapter demonstrates that some of these perceptions around Shakespeare in Japanese higher education are predicated on a binaric understanding of Shakespeare as the ‘foreign’/’other’/west, distinct from the ‘indigenous’/‘our’/East Asian. His foreignness is perceived varyingly from positive to malignant, with reference to the nature and purpose of subject English; the use of western productions in the classroom; and the delivery of a westernized ‘world view’ through Shakespeare. However, other perceptions explicitly or implicitly trouble this supposed polarity, emphasising Shakespeare as (adapted to be) local, regional and Asian, in terms of perceptions of his bawdy humour, affinity with Japanese history and culture, and use of locally-made or -inflected resources.