Japanese 275: Japanese Language & Culture
"A Thousand Years of Love"

 

Dr. Jeffrey Angles (jeffrey.angles@wmich.edu)

Autumn 2004 / TR 12:30-1:45 pm

Brown Hall 04028   / Call No: 55877

Office Hours: Weds. 12:00 pm-2:00 pm or by appointment

Office: 518 Sprau Tower

Tel. No.: 269-387-3044

 

For most updated syllabus: http://homepages.wmich.edu/~jangles/courses/2004autumn/j275 

 

 

"Waitress" [Jokyū]

by NAKAMURA Gakuryō (1890-1969)

From the series Record of the Occupations of Urban Women [Tokai josei shokufu] (1933)

Collection of the Mie Prefectural Art Museum

 

TABLE OF CONTENTS

 

GOALS OF THE CLASS:

  • To provide a survey of Japanese culture and history over the last thousand years through some of its cultural production (literature, art, film).
  • To introduce students to some of the major genres of Japanese literature, including monogatari, waka, nō, and kabuki, and to introduce several major genres and themes in Japanese art history.
  • To examine expressions of amorous desire, in its many forms, in Japanese literature, art, and film.  Salient issues of the course are the relationships between love, sexual desire, and consumerism, as well as the various means used in the visual arts and literature to represent amorous and erotic desire.
  • To encourage students to develop close reading skills. 

GRADING:

  • 20% Midterm Exam
  • 20% Final Exam
  • 40% Four Short Take-Home Essay Questions (3-4 pp. each)
  • 10% Participation in Internet Discussion
  • 10% Class Participation

The instructor promises to have graded essays and other materials to students within two weeks after students submitted their work. 

ON INTERNET PARTICIPATION:

In order to facilitate discussion, I require that all students e-mail me with at least one  question about the texts per week.  The questions should be submitted to me by eight pm of the day before the work is to be discussed.  

Students can submit questions regarding the historical context of the novels, cultural elements touched upon in the novels, the motivations of the characters, as well as questions of theme, characterization, narratological style, and so on.   

REQUIRED TEXTS:

Any edition of the above works will be fine. 

 

Any other texts not listed above will be on reserve in the library and/or in the Course Materials section of WebCT (webct.wmich.edu).  

 

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  

  • When reading essays about Japanese history, it is a good idea to make a chart of personal names and key concepts. When reading Japanese literature, it is a good idea to make notes on the roles of characters and to read for detail.  Characterization is often found in detail, setting, and social role. 
  • The instructor has designed this course on the assumption that students do not read Japanese. 
  • Some of the texts (especially the art history texts) that will be read in this class contain frank depictions of human sexuality. 

 

COURSE READINGS & SCHEDULE (Subject to change):

Texts listed below in a dark red font are required texts and are available in the bookstore. 

Hard copies of all other texts (in white font below) are on two-hour reserve in the library or on WebCT.  

Week 1 8/31 (T)

9/2 (R)

  • MURASAKI Shikibu, “Kiritsubo: The Paulownia Pavilion,” The Tale of Genji, vol. 1, trans. Royall Tyler (NY: Viking, 2001) 1-18.  [Available on WebCT & library reserve] 

Week 2   9/7 (T)
  • “Tales of Ise,” Classical Japanese Prose: An Anthology, trans. and ed. Helen Craig McCullough (Stanford: Stanford Univ. Press, 1990) 38-69. [Available on WebCT only.]

9/9 (R)

  • ŌNO no Komachi, “The Poetry of Ōno no Komachi,” Ōno no Komachi: Poems, Stories, Nō Plays, trans. Roy E. Teele, Nicholas J. Teele, H. Rebecca Teele (NY: Garland Publishing, 1993) 1-25. [Available on WebCT & library reserve.]

Week 3 9/14 (T)

  • FILM: The Living Arts of Japan – Nō, Bunraku, Kabuki.  
  • ZEAMI, “Komachi at Seki-dera,” Japanese Nō Dramas, trans. and ed. Royall Tyler (London: Penguin, 1992) 225-36.  [Available on WebCT, library reserve, and http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/japanese/noh/sekiindex.html (Contains Tyler's translation plus another)].

9/16 (R)

Week 4 9/21 (T)

  • FILM: Double Suicide.
  • CHIKAMATSU Monzaemon, “The Love Suicides at Sonezaki,” trans. Donald Keene, Early Modern Japanese Literature: An Anthology 1600-1900, ed. Haruo Shirane (NY: Columbia Univ. Press, 2002) 242-59.  [Available on WebCT & library reserve.]

9/23 (R)

  • CHIKAMATSU Monzaemon, “The Love Suicides at Amijima,” trans. Donald Keene, Early Modern Japanese Literature: An Anthology 1600-1900, ed. Haruo Shirane (NY: Columbia Univ. Press, 2002) 313-47.  [Available on WebCT & library reserve.]

Week 5 9/28 (T)

  • Short Essay #2 Due
  • IHARA Saikaku, “1:1 Love, the Contest Between Two Forces,” “1:2 The ABCs of Boy Love,” and “3:4 The Sickbed No Medicine Could Cure,” The Great Mirror of Male Love, trans. Paul Gordon Schalow (Stanford: Stanford Univ. Press, 1990) 51-62 and 143-50.  [Available on WebCT & library reserve.]

9/30 (R)

  • IHARA Saikaku, “The Life of an Amorous Woman,” The Life of an Amorous Woman and Other Writings, trans. and ed. Ivan Morris (NY: New Directions, 1963) 121-208.  [Available on WebCT & library reserve.]

Week 6 10/5 (T)

  • Timon SCREECH, “Chapter 1: Erotic Images, Pornography, Shunga and Their Use,” Sex and the Floating World: Erotic Images in Japan 1700-1820 (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1999) 13-38.  [Available on WebCT & library reserve.]

10/7 (R)

  • SANTŌ Kyōden, “Grilled and Basted Edo-Born Playboy,” trans. Chris Drake, Early Modern Japanese Literature: An Anthology 1600-1900, ed. Haruo Shirane (NY: Columbia Univ. Press, 2002) 687-710.  [Available on WebCT & library reserve.]

Week 7 10/12 (T)

MIDTERM EXAM

10/14 (R)

  • MORI Ōgai, “The Dancing Girl,” trans. Richard Bowring, Youth and Other Stories, ed. J. Thomas Rimer (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1994) 6-24. [Available on WebCT & library reserve.]

Week 8 10/19 (T)

  • HIGUCHI Ichiyō, “Troubled Waters” and “The Thirteenth Night,” In the Shade of Spring Leaves, trans. and ed. Robert Lyons Danly (New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1981) 218-53.  [Available on WebCT & library reserve.]

10/21 (R)

Week 9 10/26 (T)

  • NAGAI Kafū, “The River Sumida,” Kafū the Scribbler: The Life and Writings of Nagai Kafū 1879-1959, trans. and ed. Edward Seidensticker (Ann Arbor: Center for Japanese Studies, University of Michigan, 1965) 181-218. [Available on WebCT & library reserve.]

10/28 (R)

  • TANIZAKI Jun’ichirō, “The Tattooer,” Seven Japanese Tales, trans. by Howard Hibbett (NY: Vintage, 1991) 160-69. [Available in bookstore and library reserve.]  

Week 10 11/2 (T)

  • TANIZAKI Jun’ichirō, “The Bridge of Dreams,” Seven Japanese Tales, trans. by Howard Hibbett (NY: Vintage, 1991) 95-159. [Available in bookstore and library reserve.]

11/4 (R)

  • Short Essay #3 Due
  • FILM: The Mystery of Ranpo.

Week 11 11/9 (T)

  • FILM: The Mystery of Ranpo [Continued].  
  • EDOGAWA Ranpo, “The Man Who Traveled with the Brocade Painting,” trans. Michael Tangeman, Modanizumu in Japanese Fiction: An Anthology of Modernist Prose from Japan 1914-1938, ed. William J. Tyler (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, Forthcoming). [Available on WebCT only.]

11/11 (R)

  • Discussion of the film The Mystery of Ranpo and the "The Man Who Traveled with the Brocade Painting."
  • Discussion of the rise of militarism and the origins of World War II.
  • Begin reading KAWABATA Yasunari, Snow Country, trans. Edward Seidensticker (NY: Perigee, 1957) . [Available in bookstore and library reserve.]

Week 12 11/16 (T)

  • KAWABATA Yasunari, Snow Country, trans. Edward Seidensticker (NY: Perigee, 1957) [Final Half].  [Available in bookstore and library reserve.]
  • Begin discussing Snow Country.

11/18 (R)

  • Finish discussing Snow Country.
  • MISHIMA Yukio, Patriotism, trans. Geoffrey W. Sargeant (NY: New Directions, 1995). [Available in bookstore and library reserve within the book Death in Midsummer and Other Stories by Yukio  MISHIMA.]
  • Begin discussion of postwar Japan and Patriotism.

Week 13 11/23 (T)

  • Finish discussion of postwar Japan and Patriotism.
  • Begin reading MIYABE Miyuki, All She Was Worth, trans. Alfred Birnbaum (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1999).  [Available in bookstore and library reserve.]

11/25 (R)

THANKSGIVING RECESS – Happy Thanksgiving!

Week 14 11/30 (T)

  • Short Essay No. 4 Due.
  • MIYABE Miyuki, All She Was Worth, trans. Alfred Birnbaum (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1999).  [Available in bookstore and library reserve.]  

12/2 (R)

  • Wrap-up discussion of MIYABE Miyuki's All She Was Worth.
  • Review for final exam.

 

Week 15 12/8 (W)

 

2:45-4:45 pm FINAL EXAM 

12/14 (T)

FINAL DATE FOR GRADES TO BE SUBMITTED TO WMU

MAKE-UPS / LATE WORK:

  • If you cannot help missing a test, please contact the professor ahead of time to make other arrangements. 
  • If you miss a test because of illness, calamities in the family, and so on, you will need to provide documentation.  You must make up the test within a calendar week.
  • Essays not submitted to the instructor by 4 pm of the day they are due will be graded at 75% of the total scores.
  • Essays not submitted within two days after the due date will receive a grade of zero. 

 

ACADEMIC INTEGRITY: 

  • You are responsible for making yourself aware of and understanding the policies and procedures in the [Undergraduate Catalog (pp. 268-269)/Graduate Catalog (pp. 26-27)] that pertain to academic integrity. These policies include cheating, fabrication, falsification and forgery, multiple submission, plagiarism, complicity and computer misuse. If there is reason to believe you have been involved in academic dishonesty, you will be referred to the Office of Student Conduct. You will be given the opportunity to review the charge(s). If you believe you are not responsible, you will have the opportunity for a hearing. You should consult with me if you are uncertain about an issue of academic honesty prior to the submission of an assignment or test.  
  • At the end of all essays, include a bibliography citing all sources you have used, including sources on the internet. 

 

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Updated October 10, 2005