Japanese Literature, Modern and Contemporary

Andrew MURAKAMI-SMITH (Graduate School of Language and Culture)

Course Objective
   This course is a survey of Japanese fiction since 1868, focusing on the following seven writers:

• Higuchi Ichiyo: living in the poor neighborhoods outside the pleasure quarters, she continued an aristocratic literary tradition extending back to the Heian period 1,000 years before.
• Izumi Kyoka: his spooky, romantic works have been called �gJapanese gothic."
• Nagai Kafu: after a two-year stay in the US and France, returned to chronicle Tokyo's pleasure quarters as a flaneur  urban stroller and observer.
• Okamoto Kanoko: a proponent of �gfree love," she died in 1939 after a literary career of only three years.
• Hayashi Fumiko: wrote of her childhood as a peddler and days as a struggling writer and bar girl, then became the first successful female writer of the postwar period.
• Kawabata Yasunari: known as a Modernist in the 1920s and 30s, he was later awarded the Nobel Prize for literature as a traditionally Japanese writer.
• Nakagami Kenji: his works treat both the Japanese �gghetto" or discriminated neighborhoods where he grew up and the history and legends of the dark, mountainous Kumano region.

Course Content
   Students will be expected to answer discussion questions about each story and to discuss them in small groups in class. Beginning several weeks into the semester, groups of students will make presentations analyzing the stories and stimulating class discussion. (Students who do not take part in a group presentation will take an essay examination at the end of the semester.) In addition, every student will submit a term paper about five pages in length. Guidance on writing academic papers in English will be provided.

Class Plan
  

1. Introduction: Reading Modern Japanese Literature in context.
2. Higuchi Ichiyo
   From Sei Shonagon's Pillow Book (996)
   Ichiyo, �gFall Wardrobe" (1896)
3. Higuchi Ichiyo
   Ihara Saikaku, from The Life of an Amorous Woman (1686)
   Ichiyo, �gGrowing Up" (1896)
4. Izumi Kyoka
   Ueda Akinari, from Tales of Rain and Moonlight (1776)
   Kyoka, �gThe Holy Man of Mt. Koya" (1900)
5. Izumi Kyoka
   Kyoka, �gA Song by Lantern Light" (1910) and "The Heartvine" (1939)
6. Nagai Kafu
   Guy de Maupassant, "Maison Tellier" (1881)
   Kafu, "Ladies of the Night" (from American Stories, 1908) and �gThe Mediterranean in Twilight" (from Tales of France, 1909)
7. Nagai Kafu
   Tamenaga Shunsui, from Spring-Color Plum Calendar (1832)
   Kafu, �gA Strange Tale from East of the River" (1937)
8. Okamoto Kanoko
   Okamoto, �gThe Old Geisha" (1938) and �gThe House Spirit" (1939)
9. Okamoto Kanoko
   Okamoto, �gA Riot of Goldfish" (1937) and �gThe Food Demon" (1941)
10. Hayashi Fumiko
    Hayashi, �gThe Accordion and the Fish Town" (1931) and excerpt from Diary of a Vagabond (1930)
11. Hayashi Fumiko
    Hayashi, �gThe Old Part of Town" (1949) and "Narcissus" (1949)
12. Kawabata Yasunari
    Yokomitsu Riichi, �gMachine" (1930)
    Kawabata, from The Scarlet Gang of Asakusa (1930)
13. Kawabata Yasunari
    Kawabata, �gThe Izu Dancer" (1925) and �gOne Arm" (1963)
14. Nakagami Kenji
    Sato Haruo, �gThe House of a Spanish Dog" (1917)
    Nakagami, �gThe Cape" (1975)
15. Nakagami Kenji
    Inoue Yasushi, �gPassage to Fudaraku" (1961)
    Nakagami, �gThe Immortal" (1984)

Textbooks
   There will be no textbook assigned for this course. The stories to be read, and all other course materials, will be uploaded to the on-line CLE system, which students can access from computers on and off campus. (Students unable to access CLE will be provided with hard copies of course materials.)

Grading Policy
   Your grade in this class will be based on the following:

• Attendance, preparation, and participation: (1/3)
• Presentation - OR - Final Essay Exam: (1/3)
• Term Paper: (1/3)