07f-07
LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE OF JAPAN AND CHINA

Yoji ASAMI, et al. (School of Letters)

Objective
  The purpose of this course is to help students understand the outlines of Japanese language and literature. In addition, during the course students will acquire knowledge of ancient Chinese culture, which made a great impact on ancient Japan. The course will be divided into four parts. In the first part (Lectures 1-5), we will discuss the history of Japanese literature in a broad sense. In the second part (Lectures 6-8), we will give lectures on Japanese characters, writing and vocabulary. In the third part (Lectures 9), we will discuss Western and Japanese literature from a comparative perspective. The last part (Lectures 10 and 11) will be devoted to discussing ancient Chinese culture and literature

Course Schedule
1. Introduction
Yoji ASAMI
2. Japanese Literature in the Edo period.
Youichi IIKURA, early modern Japanese literature.
3. A survey of modern Japanese literature.
Takatoshi IZUHARA, Modern Japanese literature.
4. Characteristics of ancient Japanese literature.
Yousuke KATO, Ancient Japanese Literature
5. On “Role Language” in Contemporary Japanese: An Investigation of Prototypical Styles in Japanese
Satoshi KINSUI, Japanese Linguistics
6. Orthography of romanized Japanese.
Masato HACHIYA, Japanese Linguistics
7. Language described by the Occidentals
Akihiro OKAJIMA, Japanese Linguistics
8. Western literature and modern Japan.
Takashi NAITO, Comparative Literature
9. Double Looks in Japanese literature.
Hiroshi ARAKI, Japanese Literature
10. Society and Art of ancient China.
Bunji TAKAHASHI, Chinese Literature
11. Topics in Pre-modern Chinese Poetry (Tang Period and Song Period)
Yoji ASAMI, Chinese Literature, Poetry and Poetics

Grading
  Class participation 50%
  Term paper to be submitted at the end of the course 50%
  (The term paper can be connected to one of the 10 themes of the course (2-11).)