JPNS 2750: Japanese Life & Culture

 

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

 

Autumn 2005 / TR 3:30-4:45 pm

Schneider Hall 1305  / Call No. 41699  

Cross listed as HNRS 2400 (Call No. 43721)

 

Office Hours: TR 5:00-6:00 pm

Office: 518 Sprau Tower

Tel. No.: 269-387-3044

 

For most updated syllabus: http://homepages.wmich.edu/~jangles/courses/2005fall/j2750 

 

 

TABLE OF CONTENTS

 

Image: Sharaku, Woodblock print of the actor Ōtani Oniji as the Manservant Edobei (1794).  Collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

 

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 provide students with a survey of the various periods of Japanese history. The course will pay special attention to Japan's many cultural transformations in the modern period.   
  • To reflect on the ways that Japanese have reflected their personal and national experience through literature.
  • To encourage students to develop close reading and empathetic skills.

 

GRADING:

  • 5% Map Exam about Japanese Geography
  • 20% Midterm Exam
  • 25% Final Exam
  • 20% Two Take-Home Essay Questions (3-4 pp. each)  
  • 10% Pop-quizzes
  • 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. 

The following scale will be used for grades.

  • A: 93-100%
  • AB: 90-93%
  • B: 83-90%
  • BC: 80-83%
  • C: 73-80%
  • CD: 70-73%
  • D: 63%-70%
  • E: Below 63%

 

ON INTERNET PARTICIPATION:

In order to facilitate discussion, I require that all students post at least one discussion question about the texts per week.  The questions should be submitted to the designed course discussion board on WebCT by noon of the day when the work is to be discussed.  

Students can submit questions regarding the historical or cultural contexts of the works we are reading.  If the class is to read a novel for the class, students can submit questions regarding theme, characterization, style, and so on.   

 

REQUIRED TEXTS:

Please be sure to get the 4th updated edition of Varley and the translation of the Natsume Sōseki story by J. Cohen.  Otherwise, your page numbers will not match the ones on the course readings schedule below.   

 

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, TAKE NOTES!  It is a good idea to make a chart of personal names and key concepts. 
  • When reading literature, TAKE NOTES on the roles of characters, setting, and so on.  Be sure to read for 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. 

  

COURSE READINGS & SCHEDULE (Subject to change):

 

Readings in gold font are available at the WMU bookstore or on reserve at the desk of the WMU libraries.  

Readings in white are available on WebCT or on reserve at the front desk of the WMU libraries.

 

Week 1: Introduction to the Course / Ancient Japan 

  • 8/30 (T)

  • 9 /1 (R)

    • Paul VARLEY, "Chapter 1: The Emergence of Japanese Civilization," Japanese Culture, 4th ed. (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2000) pp. 1-18.

Week 2: 

  • 9/6 (T) 

  • 9/8 (R)

    • Paul VARLEY, "Chapter 2: The Introduction of Buddhism," Japanese Culture, 4th ed. (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2000) pp. 19-47.

Week 3:

  • 9/13 (T)

    • Paul VARLEY, "Chapter 3: The Court at Its Zenith," Japanese Culture, 4th ed. (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2000) pp. 48-76.

  • 9/15 (R)

    • Essay question no. 1 due about website (Details given in class)

    • MURASAKI Shikibu, “Kiritsubo: The Paulownia Pavilion,” The Tale of Genji, vol. 1, trans. Royall Tyler (NY: Viking, 2001) pp. 1-18.

Week 4

  • 9/20 (T)

    • 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) pp. 1-25.

    • Paul VARLEY, "Chapter 4: The Advent of a New Age," Japanese Culture, 4th ed. (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2000), pp. 77-90.

  • 9/22 (R)

    • Paul VARLEY, "Chapter 5: The Canons of Medieval Taste," Japanese Culture, 4th ed. (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2000), pp. 90-139.

    • FILM (viewed in class): The Living Arts of Japan – Nō, Bunraku, Kabuki.

Week 5

  • 9/27 (T)

    • Daisetz T. SUZUKI, "Introduction," in Essays in Zen Buddhism: First Series (NY: Grove Press, 1961), pp. 13-39. 

    • Paul REPS, Zen Flesh, Zen Bones: A Collection of Zen and Pre-Zen Writings (Rutland, VT: Tuttle, 1957), pp. 111-135  [Selections from Mumonkan].

  • 9/29 (R)

Week 6

  • 10/4 (T)

    • Paul VARLEY, "Chapter 6: The Country Unified" and "The Flourishing of a Bourgeois Culture," Japanese Culture, 4th ed. (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2000), pp. 140-163.

  • 10/6 (R)

    • MIDTERM EXAM

Week 7

  • 10/11 (T) 

    • 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) pp. 313-47.

    • FILM (viewed in class) -- Double Suicide

  • 10/13 (R)

    • 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) pp. 242-59.

    • End of the film Double Suicide.

Week 8

  • 10/18 (T)

    • Paul VARLEY, "Chapter 7: Heterodox Trends" and "Chapter 8: The Flourishing of a Bourgeois Culture," Japanese Culture, 4th ed. (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2000) pp. 164-234. 

    • Guest lecture / shakuhachi performance by Michael Chikuzen Gould (Held in conjunction with HIST 4790: Modern Japanese History, taught by Prof. Takashi Yoshida)

  • 10/20 (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) pp. 687-710. 

    • IHARA Saikaku, “1:1 Love, the Contest Between Two Forces” and “1:2 The ABCs of Boy Love,” The Great Mirror of Male Love, trans. Paul Gordon Schalow (Stanford: Stanford Univ. Press, 1990) pp. 51-62. 

Week 9

  • 10/25 (T) 

    • Paul VARLEY, "Chapter 9: Encounter with the West" and "The Flourishing of a Bourgeois Culture," Japanese Culture, 4th ed. (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2000) pp. 235-270.

  • 10/27 (R) 

    •  NATSUME Sōseki, Botchan: A Modern Classic, trans. J. Cohen (NY: Kodansha International, 2005).

Week 10

  • 11/1 (T)

    • Paul VARLEY, "Chapter 10: Fruits of Modernity" Japanese Culture, 4th ed. (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2000) pp. 271-303.  

    • 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 (Forthcoming) [Available via WebCT].

  • 11/3 (R) 

    • FILM: The Mystery of Rampo

    • Begin reading KAWABATA Yasunari, The Scarlet Gang of Asakusa, trans. Alisa Freedman (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005).

Week 11

  • 11/8 (T)

    • Finish watching The Mystery of Rampo -- In-class discussion

    • Finish reading KAWABATA Yasunari, The Scarlet Gang of Asakusa, trans. Alisa Freedman (Berekeley: University of California Press, 2005).

  • 11/10 (R)

    • MAEDA Ai, "Asakusa as Theater: Kawabata Yasunari's The Crimson Gang of Asakusa," trans. Edward Fowler, in Text and the City: Essays on Japanese Modernity, ed. James A. Fujii (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2004), pp. 145-162.  

Week 12

  • 11/15 (T)

  • 11/17 (R)

    • Paul VARLEY, "Chapter 11: Culture in the Present Age," Japanese Culture, 4th ed. (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2000), pp. 304-351.  

Week 13

  • 11/22 (T)

    • Essay question no. 2 due about Kawabata novel

    • Elise K. TIPTON, "Chapter 11: The 'economic miracle...' and its underside" and "Chapter 12: The 'rich country," in Modern Japan: A Social and Political History (NY: Routledge, 2002) pp. 177-209.

  • 11/24 (R) 

    • THANKSGIVING RECESS -- Happy Thanksgiving!

Week 14

  • 11/29 (T)

    • MIYABE Miyuki, All She Was Worth, trans. Alfred Birnbaum (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1999).[Finish reading entire work.]  

  • 12/1 (R) 

    • Elise K. TIPTON, "Chapter 13: The 'lost decade...' in Modern Japan: A Social and Political History (NY: Routledge, 2002) pp. 210-228.

    • Susan J. NAPIER, "Chapter 1: Why Anime," "Chapter 2: Anime and Local/Global Identity," and "Appendix: The Fifth Look, Western audiences and Japanese Animation," in Anime from Akira to Princess Mononoke: Experiencing Contemporary Japanese Animation (NY: Palgrave, 2001) pp. 3-34 and pp. 239-256. 

    • Review for final exam

Exam Week

  • 12/5 (M) 2:45-4:45 pm : FINAL EXAM

12/13 (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 or homework 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 November 10, 2005