printer friendly pageJAPANGEN 137: Classical Japanese Literature in Translation (JAPANGEN 237)
Prose, poetry, and drama from the 10th-19th centuries. Historical, intellectual, and cultural context. Works vary each year. May be repeated for credit with consent of instructor.
Last offered: Autumn 2012
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
JAPANGEN 138: Introduction to Modern Japanese Literature and Culture (JAPANGEN 238)
This class introduces key literary texts from Japan's modern era (1868-present), locating these works in the larger political, social, and cultural trends of the period. Primary texts include: Futabatei Shimei's Floating Clouds, Higuchi Ichiyô's Child's Play, Natsume Sôseki's Kokoro, Kobayashi Takiji's Cannery Boat, Ôe Kenzaburô's The Catch, and Yoshimoto Banana's Kitchen. Examination of these literary works will be contextualized within larger political trends (e.g., the modernization program of the Meiji regime, the policies of Japan's wartime government, and postwar Japanese responses to the cold war), social developments (e.g., changing notions of social class, the women's rights movement, and the social effects of the postwar economic expansion), and cultural movements (e.g., literary reform movement of the 1890s, modernism of the 1920s and 30s, and postmodernism of the 1980s). The goal of the class is to use literary texts as a point of entry to understand the grand narrative of Japan's journey from its tentative re-entry into the international community in the 1850s, through the cataclysm of the Pacific War, to the remarkable prosperity of the bubble years in the 1980s.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3-4
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, GER:EC-GlobalCom, GER:DB-Hum
Instructors:
Reichert, J. (PI)
JAPANGEN 148: Modern Japanese Narratives: Literature and Film (JAPANGEN 248)
Central issues in modern Japanese visual and written narrative. Focus is on competing views of modernity, war, and crises of individual and collective identity and responsibility. Directors and authors include Kurosawa, Mizoguchi, Ozu, Ogai, Akutagawa, Tanizaki, Abe, and Oe.
Last offered: Winter 2010
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-GlobalCom, WAY-EDP
JAPANGEN 185: Arts of War and Peace: Late Medieval and Early Modern Japan, 1500-1868 (ARTHIST 187, ARTHIST 387)
Narratives of conflict, pacification, orthodoxy, nostalgia, and novelty through visual culture during the change of episteme from late medieval to early modern, 16th through early 19th centuries. The rhetorical messages of castles, teahouses, gardens, ceramics, paintings, and prints; the influence of Dutch and Chinese visuality; transformation in the roles of art and artist; tensions between the old and the new leading to the modernization of Japan.
Terms: Aut, Win
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-GlobalCom
Instructors:
Takeuchi, M. (PI)
JAPANGEN 186: Theme and Style in Japanese Art (ARTHIST 186, ARTHIST 386, JAPANGEN 286)
A mixture of lecture and discussion, this course presents a chronological introduction to some of the defining monuments in the history of Japanese visual culture from prehistory to the mid-19th century. This introductory class presumes no prior knowledge of art history or of Japan. We will emphasize certain overarching themes like religious life; notions of decorum appropriate to various classes (court, warrior, and commoner); the relationship between and among the arts, such as the visual and the verbal, or the symphonic assemblage arts as seen in the tea ceremony; pervasive cultural tropes like nostalgia, seasonality, or the sense of place; and broader issues such as censorship, patronage, gender issues, and the encounters between Japanese and foreign cultures.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
Instructors:
Takeuchi, M. (PI)
JAPANGEN 187: Romance, Desire, and Sexuality in Modern Japanese Literature (JAPANGEN 287)
This class is structured around three motifs: love suicide (as a romantic ideal), female desire, and same-sex sexuality. Over the course of the quarter we will look at how these motifs are treated in the art and entertainment from three different moments of Japanese history: the Edo period (1615-1868), the modern period (1920-65), and the contemporary period (1965-present). We will start by focusing on the most traditional representations of these topics. Subsequently, we will consider how later artists and entertainers revisited the conventional treatments of these motifs, informing them with new meanings and social significance. We will devote particular attention to how this material comments upon issues of gender, sexuality, and human relationships in the context of Japan. Informing our perspective will be feminist and queer theories of reading and interpretation.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3-4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-Gender, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
JAPANGEN 79: Japanese Ghosts: The Supernatural in Japanese Art and Entertainment (JAPANGEN 179)
The complex meanings of ghosts in Japanese culture. Representations of the supernatural in images, drama, oral narratives, prose, film, comics and animation at different moments in Japanese history.
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-GlobalCom
JAPANGEN 141: Japanese Performance Traditions (JAPANGEN 241)
Major paradigms of gender in Japanese performance traditions from ancient to modern times, covering Noh, Kabuki, Bunraku, and Takarazuka.
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
JAPANGEN 149: Screening Japan: Issues in Crosscultural Interpretation (JAPANGEN 249)
Is the cinematic language of moving images universal? How have cultural differences, political interests, and genre expectations affected the ways in which Japanese cinema makes meaning across national borders? Sources include the works of major Japanese directors and seminal works of Japanese film criticism, theory, and scholarship in English. No Japanese language skills required.
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
JAPANGEN 179: Japanese Ghosts: The Supernatural in Japanese Art and Entertainment (JAPANGEN 79)
The complex meanings of ghosts in Japanese culture. Representations of the supernatural in images, drama, oral narratives, prose, film, comics and animation at different moments in Japanese history.
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-GlobalCom
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