JAPANESE LITERATURE, MODERN AND CONTEMPORARY

MURAKAMI-SMITH, Andrew (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 near 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, he 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, then became the first successful female writer of the postwar period.
• Nakagami Kenji - his works are rooted in the Japanese "ghetto" or discriminated neighborhood where he grew up, and in the history and legends of the dark, mountainous Kumano region.

Course Content
   In this class, students will:

• Read the assigned stories.
• Think about discussion questions.
• Discuss the stories in small groups class.
• Turn in four Discussion Reports reporting on the contents of their group discussions.
• Make Group Presentations on the authors and works.
• Take an Essay Examination (only for students who do not take part in a Group Presentation).
• Write a Term Paper at least five pages in length, in English or Japanese, on the topic of their Group Presentation, or any other topic relating to modern Japanese literature. 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
   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, "A Quiet Obsession" (1924)
6. Nagai Kafu
   Kafu, "Fallen Leaves" or "Night Fog"(from American Stories, 1908)
   Kafu, "The Peony Garden" (1909) or "The Fox" (1909)
7. Nagai Kafu
   Kafu, "A Strange Tale from East of the River" (1937)
8. Kawabata Yasunari
   Kawabata, excerpt from The Scarlet Gang of Asakusa (1930)
9. Kawabata Yasunari
   Kawabata, "The Izu Dancer" (1925) or "One Arm" (1963)
10. Okamoto Kanoko
    Okamoto, "The Old Geisha" (1938) or "The House Spirit" (1939)
11. Okamoto Kanoko
    Okamoto, "The Food Demon" (1941)
12. Hayashi Fumiko
    Hayashi, "The Accordion and the Fish Town" (1931) and excerpt from Diary of a Vagabond (1930)
13. Hayashi Fumiko
    Hayashi, "A Late Chrysanthemum" (1948)
14. Nakagami Kenji
    Nakagami, "The Cape" (1975)
15. Nakagami Kenji
    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)