Japanese Literature, Modern and Contemporary

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

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

• Higuchi Ichiyo - living in a poor neighborhood 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 "Japanese gothic."
• Nagai Kafu - after five years abroad in the US and France, returned to chronicle Tokyo's pleasure quarters as a flaneur - urban stroller and observer.
• 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.
• Okamoto Kanoko - a proponent of "free 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, and went on to become the first successful female writer of the postwar period.
• Nakagami Kenji - his works treat both the Japanese "ghetto" 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 read the assigned stories and discuss them in small groups in class. Students will turn in four Discussion Reports during the semester (two in the first half and two in the second half of the semester), reporting on discussions in class.
   Beginning in the middle part of the semester, groups of students will make Group Presentations analyzing the stories and leading a class discussion. Students who do not take part in a Group Presentation will take an Essay Examination at the end of the semester.
   Every student will submit a Term Paper at least five pages in length (double-spaced), written in English or Japanese. 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, "Fall Wardrobe" (1896)
3. Higuchi Ichiyo
   Ihara Saikaku, from The Life of an Amorous Woman (1686)
   Ichiyo, "Growing Up" (1896)
4. Izumi Kyoka
   Ueda Akinari, from Tales of Rain and Moonlight (1776)
   Kyoka, "The Holy Man of Mt. Koya" (1900)
5. Izumi Kyoka
   Kyoka, "One Day in Spring" (1906) or "The Heartvine" (1939)
6. Nagai Kafu
   Kafu, "A Night Stroll" and "Night Fog"(from American Stories, 1908)
   Kafu, "The Peony Garden" (1909)
7. Nagai Kafu
   Tamenaga Shunsui, from Intimations of Spring: The Plum Calendar (1832)
   Kafu, "A Strange Tale from East of the River" (1937)
8. Kawabata Yasunari
   Yokomitsu Riichi, "Machine" (1930)
   Kawabata, excerpt from The Scarlet Gang of Asakusa (1930)
9. Kawabata Yasunari
   Kawabata, "The Izu Dancer" (1925) and "One Arm" (1963)
10. Okamoto Kanoko
    Okamoto, "The Old Geisha" (1938) and "The House Spirit" (1939)
11. Okamoto Kanoko
    Okamoto, "A Riot of Goldfish" (1937)
12. Hayashi Fumiko
    Hayashi, "The Accordion and the Fish Town" (1931) and excerpt from Diary of a Vagabond (1930)
13. Hayashi Fumiko
    Hayashi, "The Old Part of Town" (1949) and "Borneo Diamond" (1946)
14. Nakagami Kenji
    Sato Haruo, "A Record of Nonchalant" (1929)
    Nakagami, "The Cape" (1975)
15. Nakagami Kenji
    Inoue Yasushi, "Passage to Fudaraku" (1961)
    Nakagami, "The Immortal" (1984)

Textbooks
   No textbook is assigned for this course. All course materials will be uploaded to the on-line CLE (Collaboration and Learning Environment) system, which students can access from computers on and off campus using their Osaka University Individual ID and password.

Grading Policy
   Your grade will be based equally on the following:

1. Class participation (including four Discussion Reports (1/3)
2. Group Presentation - OR - Final Essay Exam (1/3)
3. Five-page Term Paper (1/3)