COMP 266
Confession and Deception in Japanese Literature Spring 2014
Division I
Cross-listed JAPN 256
This is not the current course catalog

Class Details

Situated at the origins of Japanese literature are the beautiful and revealing diaries of ladies in waiting at the tenth-and eleventh-century court. Yet one of the most famous of these women turned out to be a man. For the next thousand years, Japanese literary tradition would place a premium on confessional writing, but the distortions and concealments of these narrators (and the authors hiding behind them) would always prove at least as interesting as the revelations. This course examines several centuries of Japanese literature to ask whether you can ever put your true self into writing; along the way I will ask you what you reveal, conceal, discover, or reinvent about yourself when you write about literature for a class like this. Texts will range from classical and medieval court literature by Sei Shônagon and Lady Nijô, through autobiographical and confessional novels by Sôseki, Tanizaki, Mishima, and Abe Kôbô, to documentary and subculture films like The New God and Kamikaze Girls. The class and the readings are in English; no familiarity with Japanese language or culture is required.
The Class: Format: seminar
Limit: 25
Expected: 15
Class#: 3699
Grading: yes pass/fail option, yes fifth course option
Requirements/Evaluation: attendance and participation, 2 or 3 short response assignments, one test, two 5-page papers, and an ungraded creative project
Prerequisites: none; no familiarity with Japanese language or culture is required
Enrollment Preferences: given to students majoring or considering a major in Comparative Literature
Distributions: Division I
Notes: This course is cross-listed and the prefixes carry the following divisional credit:
JAPN 256 Division I COMP 266 Division I
Attributes: INST East Asian Studies Electives

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