Japan TREK Info Session

Come learn more about this TREK for Summer 2026

TREK: The Social Lives of Commodities in Japan

May 20 – June 10, 2026

1 Wooster Credit

Instructors: Jim Bonk (East Asian Studies) and Margaret Ng (History) 

This TREK program, based in Tokyo, Kyoto and Osaka, uses the cultural lives of commodities—from tea to textiles—to explore developments in Japan from the 1600s to the present. What makes a thing a commodity, what gives it economic or symbolic value, how does this value change over time, how and when do things cease being commodities? To answer these questions, we’ll be visiting factories, gardens, workshops, department stores, museums, and garbage disposal facilities. Students will have opportunities to observe, try, taste, and interact with the commodities we’re studying.

By tracing commodities from their origins as raw materials to their production, marketing, consumption, and afterlives in museums or incinerators, students will gain insight into both how economic value is culturally constructed, and how culturally assigned value ties to imperialism, nationalism and other historical forces.