CONTEMPORARY JAPANESE LITERATURE*

概要

Other than short stories, students are responsible for obtaining all texts used in this course. Most are available in both print and electronic versions. Short stories will be provided to students by the instructor in PDF format. The purpose of this course is to acquaint students with writers, trends, movements, styles, and themes in contemporary Japanese literature. While in this course you will be exposed to the works of currently living, working writers who have, for varying reasons, responded to the needs of the current generation of readers in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Our historical milieu will be Japan during the “bubble” economy, and beyond. Our writers will be concerned with issues of identity, communication, love, terrorism, and an increasingly powerful, yet strangely unresponsive, State power apparatus. In short, we will read stories about the actual, contemporary Japan in which we all live.

目標

Students who successfully complete this course will: be able to identify trends and styles in contemporary Japanese literature; be familiar with a number of living Japanese writers working today; be able to discourse intelligently and knowledgeably about these same trends and writers; be able to write coherently and effectively on the same.

授業外の学習

Students are expected to: - complete all readings prior to the class for which they are assigned (120 min) - keep detailed notes on those readings (30 min) - prepare at least one question about each day's reading for discussion with the rest of the class (10 min) - respond to regular forum discussion questions posted on Moodle for each reading assignment (30 min).

所要時間: 190