| JS501 | Modern Japanese Visual Culture | This year, we focus on a recent anthology of scholarly essays, Japan after Japan: Social and Cultural Life from the Recessionary 1990s to the Present (eds. Tomiko Yoda and Harry Harootunian, Duke University Press, 2006) as the main textbook and engage in a close critical reading of it through the semester. Other reading materials will also be introduced to supplement the main textbook. Although students are primarily required to reflect on theoretical/interpretive aspects of those essays, they are also expected to connect what they read to aspects of modern/contemporary Japanese visual culture. Details will be announced at the first meeting of the class. | Hayashi |
| JS502 | Premodern Japanese Art History | This seminar will consider art connected to kami worship—and to combinatory Buddhist-kami practices (shinbutsu-shūgō). We will survey renderings of kami and their Buddhist counterparts in painting and sculpture, and examine how images and architecture illustrate the relationship of deities to place. | Hirasawa |
| JS503 | Chinese and Japanese Art | The surge of new Chinese motifs in Japanese painting during the seventeenth through nineteenth centuries was due in large part to the import of illustrated books published during China’s late Ming and the first half of Qing periods (ca. 1573-1795) along with paintings of the same periods. While most of the imported paintings were forgeries or lesser works merely ascribed to famous Ming-Qing artist, a great number of important Chinese illustrated books were brought into Japan. From the 17th century, the Chinese printed illustrations provided a new vehicle for bringing fresh images that could be recreated by Japanese artists in their paintings. In the hands of privileged artists who were able to see the imported books, small sized Chinese book illustrations were reborn into Japanese artworks in much elaborate formats of monochrome ink hanging scrolls, richly decorated polychromatic screens, sliding doors, or wall-panel compositions. This course focuses on specific examples of Chinese illustrated books and their Japanese editions from which compositions or iconography were transmitted and appropriated by Japanese artists. | Kobayashi |
| JS511 | Interpretations of Modernity | Japanese modernism and women writers | Yiu |
| JS512 | Comparative Literature | This course introduces students to selected issues in comparative literature. Reading of individual literary texts is combined with discussion on relevant methodological and theoretical issues. Special attention is paid to re-reading Japanese literary texts in comparative/global perspectives. Japanese reading ability is desirable, and the knowledge of languages other than English or Japanese is highly appreciated. This year, we will consider various possibilities of reading Japanese literature as world literature. | Kono |
| JS513 | Japanese Performing Arts | This course addresses the fundamental questions of the nature of Japanese theatre, its distinguishing aspects from Western theatre, and its contribution to a borderless artistic world. Major discussion topics will include the generative dynamics of script, director, actor, and audience; Japanese performative metapatterns; puppetry in contemporary theatre; and intercultural theatre. Issues of gender and classmay also be addressed. This course will train students to see the dramatic text three-dimensionally, familiarize them with the discourse of the performing arts, and help them develop their critical ability through text/performance analysis. Listening ability in Japanese is desirable but not necessary. | Boyd |
| JS514 | Seminar in Pre-Modern Japanese Literature | This course doubles as a graduate level survey of pre-modern Japanese literature and culture and as a focused examination of the discursive traditions that categorized, contextualized, and represented women within Japanese literature. | Thompson |
| JS532 | Japanese History | The course’s focus is on the social network in Japanese history. Complex networks are not new phenomena but their description and analysis require us to reconsider our perspectives. The course will commence with some readings that discuss the perspective of social network analysis and will then treat in more detail examples in Japanese history. Students will take a social network of their choice (e.g., writers, artists, scholars, politicians, fathers, immigrants, students, children,…) and apply what they have learned. | Gramlich-Oka |
| JS533 | Modern Japanese History | The primary purpose of this course is to provide students with an overview of the history of regionalism and regional integration in East Asia and raise their awareness of the historical processes underlying contemporary efforts at regionalization and globalization. East Asian integration will be analyzed from a comparative viewpoint, taking into consideration historical parallels as well as differences with regional integration in other areas, particularly Europe and the Americas. We will read primary sources from writers embracing or criticizing the idea of an “East Asian world” or “pan-Asian unity” and discuss these readings in class. | Saaler |
| JS541 | Japanese Ethnography | This course doubles as a graduate level survey of pre-modern Japanese literature and culture and as a focused examination of the discursive traditions that categorized, contextualized, and represented women within Japanese literature. | Slater |