このセミナーは、和田・喜彦教授とヴァフトゥカ・ミヒャエル先生の京都で実施されたJoint Seminarをベースに、これまで習得した理論的な知識に実践的な側面を加え、自文化と他文化の比較・批判的思考能力を強化するものです。最初の3レッスンは講義形式で、参加する同志社大学とテュービンゲン大学の学生に(比較)文化研究および異文化間コミュニケーションの分野の基礎知識を与える目標で行います。また、この分野によく用いられる用語や概念に慣れ親しむことで、その後のディスカッション・セッションでクラスの共通用語として活用されます。このようにして一緒に習得した「文化」や異文化間交流についてどのように考え、どのように語ることができるかという理解を、エスノグラフィーの方法を使って実践していくことになります。第3回目の講義では、エスノグラフィーの観察原理とエスノグラフィーのテキスト作成原理を紹介し、エスノグラフィーの手法を使ったはこのセミナーの主な課題を詳しく説明します。同志社大学側の受講者の課題とは滞在中に日誌、あるいはジャーナルを作成することです。(ドイツ語の授業でも日記をつけることになるので、同じ日記を使うことが可能です。)このジャーナルにテュービンゲンでの授業時間外でもドイツでの日常生活の中で体験、観察されていることを(お好きな言語で)書き留めることが週ごとの課題となります。週に1回の記入が必須ですが、時間があって楽しいと思えば何回でもいいです。
日誌を書くたびに、まず民族誌的な文章作成の原則に従った上で、見つけたテーマについて自分の考えを展開することが大事なポイントです。例えば、カフェやレストランに座って1時間ほど過ごし、観察した行為について書くことが考えられます。この場合、それはサービス文化かもしれません。チュービンゲン市では、サステイナビリティーやとプラスチック廃棄物の削減などが大きな関心事とされているため、いわゆる「Unverpackt-Laden」(プラスチック包装のない食料品店)を訪問することもできます。観察したことを日誌に書き留め、深く考えて、たまに要に応じて調べものもすることがこの課題に含まれています。こうして洗い出されたトピックは、次のディスカッション・セッションでクラス全体と話し合うことになります。毎週のディスカッション・セッションに現役的に参加することも必須です。毎週のディスカッションは日本とドイツの比較に重点を置きます。
同志社大学の留学生にはドイツ語の授業に日本学部一年生の「バディ」がいるように、活発で実りあるディスカッションが行われるように、日本語の経験が豊富な上位学期の学生が参加します。留学の時間はより充実した、記憶に残る経験にするために、DUとUTの大学生さんが一緒に様々な場所を訪れたりすることを奨励します。

Building on the joint seminar course previously conducted by Prof. Wada and Dr. Wachutka in Kyoto, this course will strengthen the students’ abilities of comparative and critical thinking about their own and other cultures by adding a practical side to hitherto acquired theoretical knowledge.
The first three sessions are designed as lectures, providing the participating Doshisha and Tübingen University students with fundamental knowledge from the areas of (comparative) cultural studies and intercultural communication. The students will familiarize themselves with key terms and concepts from these fields, which will serve as common terminology among the students in the following discussion sessions. The understanding of how we can think and talk about culture and intercultural interaction acquired in this way will then be put to practical use, using the methods of ethnography. The third lecture will introduce principles of ethnographic observation and ethnographic text production, providing the students with a guideline for their main assignment: Keeping a journal on their stay. (As the students will have to keep a diary for the German language courses, too, this same diary can be used.) The students are tasked with writing down (in any language they like) observations they make during their stay. The observations will be done outside of the lecture, during daily life in Germany. One entry per week is mandatory, but if the students have time and find it fun, any number of entries is fine.
When writing, the students must first follow the principles of ethnographic text production and then develop their own thoughts about the topics they write about. For instance, the students can sit outside in a café or restaurant, stay there for at least one hour and write about the conduct they observe: In this case, it may be the service culture. In Tübingen, sustainability and the reduction of plastic waste are topics of great public concern, so a visit to a so-called "Unverpackt-Laden"(a grocery store where everything is sold without plastic packaging) is also possible. The weekly assignment is to take notes on the experience and reflect in detail about it at home, do some additional research, and write it in the journal. The topics thus identified will then be discussed with the whole course in the following session. The discussion of the topics will focus on comparison between Japan and Germany.
In the same way the Doshisha students will have a language "buddy" assigned to them individually for the language courses, Japanese Studies students from higher semesters with a lot of experience with the Japanese language will take part so that the discussion will be lively and fruitful. The Doshisha and Tübingen students are encouraged to visit different places together and facilitate the experience.

NOTE FOR UNI TÜBINGEN STUDENTS: The Tübingen students are not required to keep a journal. Instead, their overall contribution to the course will be evaluated. This includes active participation in the form of anticipatory acquirement of Japanese vocabulary according to the (likely) topics for discussion as well as helping - as their semester schedule allows - the Doshisha students when they need help with individual outings for observation, e.g. when going to the "Unverpackt-Laden" or visiting other places that DU students might find hard to go to on their own, due to a perceived language barrier or lack of familiarity with the system in place: Remember, for instance, the peculiar stressfulness of a sheet of paper handed to you on your first visit to a certain elaborate Ramen restaurant chain, where a lot of choices and taste nuances have to be specified on this detailed form before you can even sit down. Am I doing this right? How does this work? A lot of German stores and other places that we take for granted may seem equally confusing to a first-time visitor from Japan, so participants from the receiving university are asked to think ahead and offer help when they can.