German, Russian, and Asian Languages and Literature

• German
  • About the Program
  • The Faculty
  • Fall 2006 Courses
  • Bulletin Cours Listing
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• Russian
  • About the Program
  • The Faculty
  • Fall 2008 Courses
  • Courses through 2011
  • Bulletin Course Listing
  • Placement Info
  • Studying Abroad
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  • Links
• Chinese
  • About the Program
  • The Faculty
  • Placement Test
  • Fall 2006 Courses
  • Bulletin Cours Listing
• Japanese
  • About the Program
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  • Student Activities
  • Spring 2008 Courses
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• Contact Us
• Affiliated Programs
  • Russian and East European Studies
  • East Asian Studies
  • European Cultural Studies
  • History of Ideas
  • Comparative Literature
  • Center for German and European Studies
  • Women's Studies Program

History of the Program

Japanese language instruction at Brandeis University started in the Fall of 1988. At that time, the University offered two sections of both Japanese 10a and Japanese 20b, which formed a one-year sequence for beginning Japanese. Since there were almost no other courses related to Japan and Japanese culture at that time, the Instructors' office was located in a remote location within present day Shapiro Admissions building. Since 1992, Hiroko Sekino has taught all the courses in the four semester sequence of Japanese language offered at Brandeis. In 1994, the Japanese Program started to offer a three-year sequence in Japanese language instruction. In the Fall of 2002, the Chinese and Japanese Language Programs joined the Department of Germanic and Slavic Languages to form the Department of German, Russian, and East Asian Languages and Literature, after thirteen years of being housed within the Hebrew Program of the Near Eastern and Judaic Studies Department.

Japanese Program instruction is five days per week for the initial four-semester sequence of language courses (Japanese 10a, 20b, 30a and 40b) and three days per week for Japanese 105a and 105b. Japanese 105a and 105b also includes a one-hour weekly video session. Japanese 120a and 120b, fourth year Japanese courses that started to be offered during the academic year 2007- 2008 meets three days per week. Japanese 98a and 98b are also offered to students as Independent Study. The four-semester sequence of Japanese courses 10a through 40b, or its equivalent, fulfils the language requirement for the East Asian Studies major and minor.

Hiroko Sekino, M.Ed.

Senior Lecturer
Director of Japanese Language Program
Study Abroad Faculty Liaison

Hiroko Sekino received her Bachelor's Degree from Tsuda College in Tokyo. She was trained in Japanese language instruction at Harvard University and taught Japanese there from 1972, right after she received her Master's Degree in TESOL from Boston University. In 1988, she joined Brandeis University to teach Japanese 10, which was being offered for the first time at the University. Hiroko Sekino has been responsible for initiating, designing, developing, and implementing the Brandeis University Japanese Language Program over a seventeen year period from 1988 to the present. As an avid learner of new technology, she has been active in incorporating instructional technology, such as the WebCT electonic blackboard, into her Japanese language instruction. As the sole instructor of Japanese, she coordinates all the Japanese language activities, including peer tutoring for Japanese 10 through 40, the Study Abroad Program for Japanese, and extra-curricular activities related to Japan and Japanese culture.

Matthew Fraleigh, PhD

Assistant Professor of East Asian Literature and Culture

Matthew Fraleigh received his PhD in Japanese Literature in 2005 from Harvard University and joined the Brandeis faculty in the Fall of 2006.  He offers courses on Japanese literature from all periods (classical to contemporary), including courses on Japanese multicultural narratives and Japanese film and anime.  Professor Fraleigh’s research interests include travel writing, literary and cultural exchange in East Asia, and the place of classical literary texts in modern culture.  He is currently preparing a monograph that examines kanshibun (poetry and prose composed by Japanese writers in literary Chinese) in modernizing Japan through the works of Narushima Ryūhoku (1837-1884), Confucian tutor, connoisseur of urban culture, world traveler, pioneering journalist, and irrepressible troublemaker.  Professor Fraleigh has contributed a chapter on Ryūhoku to Modern Japanese Writers (Scribners, 2001), and has published two articles focused on him in Japanese journals.  In addition to his interest in kanshibun, Professor Fraleigh has written about early twentieth century theories of the novel, early literary responses to photography, and imaginative re-inscriptions of Don Quixote in Japan.  He has also published numerous translations of Japanese scholarship concerned with various dimensions of Sino-Japanese interaction.

For more information on Matthew Fraleigh, click here.

Hiroko Sai-Hardebeck

Lecturer

Office Hours (Spring 2008):
Mon. 1:00-3:00, Thurs. 11:00-12:00
Rabb 369
Phone: (781) 736-2069 (ext. 6-2069 on campus)
hsaihard@brandeis.edu