31220 - Japanese Philology 1

Learning outcomes

At the end of this course students will be able to deepen the knowledge of Japanese Language and Culture from the ancient era until contemporary times. Moreover, they will be able to manage texts in contemporary Japanese which show the language evolution throughout the time.

Course contents

1. Theoretical foundations
The first part will cover the fundamentals of the discipline with elements of Japanese linguistics. The course will examine the development of the Japanese language, highlighting its characteristics and transformations up to the present day, with a focus on the development and evolution of hiragana and katakana. Particular attention will be paid to writing styles (buntai), showing the differences according to era and literary genre. Access to education and linguistic debates will also be discussed. An overview of manuscript literature and the history of books and bookbinding will also be provided. Manuscripts will be analyzed in both digital format (thanks to the Digital Humanities archives) and physical format (in the classroom).
One lesson will be dedicated to a calligraphy (shodō) workshop in the classroom.

2. Cultural features
Some key concepts of traditional Japanese culture (mono no aware, ukiyo, bushidō) will be explored to highlight how they still play a significant role in the country's cultural production (primarily literature) and collective imagination. Room will be given to the analysis and commentary of selected passages, comparing canonical texts with the cultural heritage in contemporary literary production.

3. Translation seminar
The first two parts of the course will provide the theoretical skills necessary for the translation seminar, which will examine the opening lines of Genji monogatari, reading and analyzing them from a syntactic and grammatical point of view and translating them into Italian.
This will be followed by a comparative analysis of Kamo no Chōmei's An Account of My Hut (1212) and its post-Fukushima reinterpretation by Gen'yū Sōkyū. The aim is to identify similarities and differences in terms of language, style, and content, with particular attention to the target audience.
The syllabus with details of the topics covered and bibliographic references will be available online among the teaching materials at the beginning of the course.

Readings/Bibliography

Theoretical manuals:

Calvetti, Paolo, Pappalardo, Giuseppe, Storia della lingua giapponese (History of the Japanese Language), Milan, Hoepli, 2024.

Tollini, Aldo, Writing in Ancient Japan, Venice, Cafoscarina, 2005.

Other suggestions:

Oliver White, Mai Kataoka, Timon Screech, Global Japanese History and Culture: De-Isolating Japan from Past to Present, London, Routledge, 2026.

Additional critical sources will be discussed in class and made available by the instructor on the Virtuale platform. Similarly, slides and materials for the seminar will be uploaded to Virtuale.

Teaching methods

Frontal lessons. Active student participation in class discussion is strongly encouraged.

Assessment methods

Oral examination.

During the test, which will cover the entire course programme, knowledge, supported by a good argumentative ability, of the individual topics addressed will be verified. Students will be shown one of the texts dealt with in the second module and will be asked to read and translate orally a couple of sentences. In addition to knowledge of the contents, the expressive properties in terms of mastery of the specific lexicons of the subject will also be evaluated.
The overall knowledge of the topics, together with an excellent ability of critical analysis and mastery in the use of reference sources will be evaluated as excellence; a manual knowledge without solid interpretative support will be evaluated in a positive but not high way. The proven and repeated difficulties to contextualize the sources and answers that are not in-depth or confusing will result in a negative evaluation.

The three parts cannot be splitted into different exams.

Teaching tools

During the course slides and videos will be shown, and some documents available in open-access on online archives will be consulted. Slides and other useful resources will be made available on the IOL page of the course, to which students are invited to enrol.

Students with temporary or permanent DSAs or disabilities: it is suggested to get in touch immediately with the responsible University office (https://site.unibo.it/studenti-con-disabilita-e-dsa/it ) and with the lecturer, in order to seek together the most effective strategies in taking classes and/or preparing for the exam. Any requests for adjustments should be made within 15 days of the exam date by sending an email to the lecturer and entering the email address disabilita@unibo.it (in case of disabling conditions) or dsa@unibo.it (for students with DSA) in CC.

Office hours

See the website of Veronica De Pieri