31335 - Japanese Literature 3

Learning outcomes

At the end of the course students will have acquired a profound knowledge of problems and trends in the history of Japanese literature. They can read and discuss literary works in original language and will be able to evaluate literary quality, themes and style of the works that have been studied, analyzing the texts according to specific critical methodologies and reading them in historical and cultural context.

Course contents

Media, Gender and Identity in Contemporary Japan

Media and communication are central elements of contemporary life, and gender and sexuality are at the core of how we think about our identities (Gauntlett 2002). Aim of the course is the analysis of gender and sexuality representations in contemporary Japanese media (literature, cinema, anime, manga, videogame, TV drama, advertising, etc), in order to reflect on which messages Japanese media send to contemporary audience about gender, and on their impact upon the process of identity construction. Students will be introduced to the latest critical tools - feminist, postcolonial, queer theories - and encouraged to develop personal analysis and reflections on the role played by media and popular culture in producing models and stereotypes.

Students who choose to take this class as "Japanese Literature 3" will prepare a Powerpoint presentation focused on a topic related to the course contents.

Readings/Bibliography

Bibliography:

Students are expected to show a basic knowledge of the history of Japanese literature from 1868 to present days. Our reference text is:

L. Bienati, P. Scrolavezza, La narrativa giapponese moderna e contemporanea , Collana "Elementi", Marsilio, Venezia 2009

Critical sources:

Hall, Stuart (ed.), Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices, London, Sage, 2009, pp. 1-74.

Yoshio Sugimoto, An Introduction to Japanese Society, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2010

T.Yoda- H. D. Harootunian (a cura di), Japan after Japan: Social and Cultural Life from the Recessionary 1990s to the Present, Durham-London, Duke University Press Books, 2006

M. W. MacWilliams (a cura di), Japanese Visual Culture: Explorations in the World of Manga and Anime, New York, M.E. Sharpe, 2008

Mark McLelland e Vera Mackie (Editor), Routledge Handbook of Sexuality Studies in East Asia, Routledge, 2014.

Mark McLelland, Genders, Transgenders and Sexualities in Japan, Routledge, 2005.

Mark McLelland e Kazumi Nagaike (a cura di), Boys Love Manga and Beyond: History, Culture, and Community in Japan, Univ Pr of Mississippi, 2016.

Todd Joseph Miles Holden, 'I'm Your Venus'/'You're a Rake': Gender and the Grand Narrative in Japanese Television Advertising, in Intersections: Gender, History and Culture in the Asian Context, Issue 3, January 2000 (http://intersections.anu.edu.au/issue3/holden_paper.html)

Patrick W. Galbraith, Maid in Japan: An Ethnographic Account of Alternative Intimacy, in Intersections: Gender and Sexuality in Asia and the Pacific, Issue 25, February 2011 (http://intersections.anu.edu.au/issue25/galbraith.htm)

Patrick W. Galbraith, Moe: Exploring Virtual Potential in Post-Millennial Japan, in The Electronic Journal of Contemporary Japanese Studies, no. 5 (2009),
(http://www.japanesestudies.org.uk/articles/2009/Galbraith.html)

Japanese Transnational Fandoms and Female Consumers (Intersections: Gender and Sexuality in Asia and the Pacific, Issue 20, April 2009 - special issue) (http://intersections.anu.edu.au/issue20_contents.htm)

Tomoko Shimoda, Representations of Parenting and Gender Roles in the Shōshika Era - Comparisons of Japanese and English-Language Parenting Magazines, in electronic journal of contemporary japanese studies, January 2008 (http://www.japanesestudies.org.uk/articles/2008/Shimoda.html)

Laura Clark,Negotiating the salaryman’s hegemonic masculinity in Murakami’s A Wild Sheep Chase, in electronic journal of contemporary japanese studies,December 2015 (http://www.japanesestudies.org.uk/ejcjs/vol15/iss3/clark.html)

Carl Gabrielson, Happy Wives or Hungry Witches?Non-Japanese Wives on Japanese Television, in ejcjs, volume 14, Issue 3, 2014 (http://www.japanesestudies.org.uk/ejcjs/vol14/iss3/gabrielson.html)

Motoko Tanaka, Trends of Fiction in 2000s Japanese Pop Culture, in ejcjs, volume 14, Issue 2, 2014 (http://www.japanesestudies.org.uk/ejcjs/vol14/iss2/tanaka.html)

Sun Jung e Yukie Hirata, Conflicting Desires - K-pop Idol Girl Group Flows in Japan in the Era of Web 2.0, in ejcjs,volume 12, Issue 2, 2012 (http://www.japanesestudies.org.uk/ejcjs/vol12/iss2/jung.html).

David H. Slater e Patrick W. Galbraith, Re-Narrating Social Class and Masculinity in Neoliberal Japan - An examination of the media coverage of the 'Akihabara Incident' of 2008, in ejcjs, September 2011 (http://www.japanesestudies.org.uk/articles/2011/SlaterGalbraith.html)

Nagaike Kazumi, The Sexual and Textual Politics of Japanese Lesbian Manga: Reading Romantic and Erotic Yuri Narratives, inejcjs, September 2010 (http://www.japanesestudies.org.uk/articles/2010/Nagaike.html)

Isaac Gagné, Bracketed Adolescence: Unpacking Gender and Youth Subjectivity through Subcultural Fashion in Late-Capitalist Japan, inIntersections: Gender and Sexuality in Asia and the Pacific, Issue 32, July 2013 (http://intersections.anu.edu.au/issue32/gagne.htm)

Gender, Text, Performance and Agency in Asian Cultural Contexts, Guest editors Helen Creese and Rosemary Roberts, Intersections: Gender and Sexuality in Asia and the Pacific
Issue 16, March 2008 (http://intersections.anu.edu.au/issue16_contents.htm)

Julia C. Bullock, The Other Women's Lib: Gender and Body in Japanese Women's Fiction, University of Hawaii Press, 2010.

Primary sources:

Yukio Mishima, Confessioni di una maschera, in Romanzi e racconti vol.2, Mondadori, Milano 2005

Ekuni Kaori, Stella stellina, a cura di P. Scrolavezza, Atmosphere libri, Roma 2013

Ito Ogawa, La locanda degli amori diversi, Neri Pozza, Milano 2016

 

Movies:

Ghost in the Shell - L'attacco dei cyborg (2004, regia di Mamoru Oshii)

Ghost in the Shell (2017, regia di Rupert Sanders)

Tabù - Gohatto (1999, regia di Nagisa Oshima).

La Maison de Himiko (2005, regia di Isshin Inudo)

 

The Powerpoint files that will be used during the course will be available for students by the end of the course on the AMS Campus website.

Teaching methods

The course will consist in lectures held by the teacher and seminars. A strong and active participation in class discussions by the students is warmly encouraged.

Assessment methods

The exam will be oral. The exam will test the student's ability to elaborate on the topics exposed in class, to show the knowledge acquired thorugh the study of the proposed bibliography, and their capability for critical thinking. A critical knowledge of the topics will be evaluated as excellent, while an excessive dependence on texts and manuals without any interpretative support will be evaluated with a positive but low score. The proven and repeated difficulty in creating logical and descriptive connections between cultural phenomena and literary contents will result in an insufficient evaluation.

Teaching tools

Slides, video, multi-media supports. A series of films related to the texts in this syllabus will be shown and discussed during classes. The list will be published by the beginning of the lessons.
In addition to class lectures, a series of seminars held by national as well as international scholars will be organized, whose active involvement is part of the final exam.

The Powerpoint files used during the course will be available for students on the AMS Campus website.

Office hours

See the website of Paola Scrolavezza