This course explores changing images and ideas that America (the West) and Japan (the East) have had of one another during the modern century (roughly 1850s - 1980s) and in the more recent period of post-modernity (1990s - present) of their interactions. It examines the cultural politics of representations - images, ideas, and discourses - between Self and Other by viewing mutual constructions of "America" and "Japan" as its paradigmatic example.