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East Asian Legal Studies Center

Cross-Cultural Negotiations Course (2 cr. summer session)

Open to 1Ls and 2Ls; Includes one week field trip in Nagoya, Japan

 Eight UW law students, current 1L and 2L, and 6 students from Nagoya University Graduate School of Law and Nagoya City University will make up this 2 credit cross cultural negotiation course. The course is jointly sponsored by Nagoya University Graduate School of Law and the University of Wisconsin Law School’s East Asia Legal Studies Center. The course will be taught jointly by Professors Yoshiharu Matsuura and Ikuo Sugawara of Nagoya and Professor Susan Steingass of Wisconsin.

The class begins with training in Japanese cultural on May 19 presented by doctoral student Kiyomi Kawakami of the UW's Department of East Asian Languages and Literature and concludes the last week of June, 2008. It is officially scheduled as Law 940-001 in summer session AMM.

Class time will be composed of lectures on, and discussion of, the cultures of Japan and the United States as well as negotiation aims and techniques, followed by real face to face negotiations with positive critique and questions and comments after. The negotiations will be both between Wisconsin teams and Nagoya teams as well as teams made up of Wisconsin and Nagoya students.

The bookends of the course will be travel and face to face meetings in Nagoya, Japan and Madison, Wisconsin with further cultural exchange and live negotiations. We will travel to Japan at the beginning of the course in time to have joint classes with the Nagoya students beginning May 22nd through May 27th. The Nagoya student will travel to Madison June 23rd through 28th for the last week of class. Negotiations between these visits will be through video conferencing.

The classes in Madison, other than the last week of June when the Nagoya students will be here, will generally be held on some Monday and Thursday evenings (May and June) since we will be having classes through video conferencing (Monday evening in Madison; Tuesday morning in Nagoya, and Thursday evening in Madison; Friday morning in Nagoya.)  The classes on May 23, May 26, and May 27 in Nagoya require full-day commitment of time by students.

Our students, selected by the instructor and the East Asian Legal Studies Center, receive a stipend that helps cover the majority of airfare and housing expenses. Time for cultural experiences and side trips are planned for the students in Japan. Individuals/groups may have time before and after for additional travel in Asia on their own.

  • The deadline for application is now closed.
  • If you have questions, please contact skatcher@wisc.edu.