EAJ212L

MODERN JAPANESE LITERATURE IN TRANSLATION

Spring 2007 Call Number 2081

T ·Th 8:45-10:05 · Humanities 019

Instructor: Susanna Fessler Office: Humanities 243

Office Hours: Tuesday & Thursday 10:30-11:30 and by appt. Phone/Voicemail: 442-4119

e-mail: fessler@albany.edu Fax: 442-4118

Course Description:

This course is a survey of modern Japanese prose literature. Material will be presented in a chronological fashion, with the aim of providing the student with an overall view of literary trends. The required texts include two novels and an anthology of short stories. Class format will include lectures and discussion; preparation for class and class participation are an important part of your grade.

General Education Information:

This course fulfills the General Education Categories of Humanities and Regions Beyond Europe.

Characteristics of all General Education Courses

General Education courses offer introductions to the central topics of disciplines and interdisciplinary fields.
General Education courses offer explicit rather than tacit understandings of the procedures, practices, methodology and fundamental assumptions of disciplines and interdisciplinary fields.
General Education courses recognize multiple perspectives on the subject matter.
General Education courses emphasize active learning in an engaged environment that enables students to be producers as well as consumers of knowledge.
General Education courses promote critical inquiry into the assumptions, goals, and methods of various fields of academic study; they aim to develop the interpretive, analytic, and evaluative competencies characteristic of critical thinking.

Learning Objectives for General Education Humanities Courses

Humanities courses teach students to analyze and interpret texts, ideas, artifacts, and discourse systems, and the human values, traditions, and beliefs that they reflect.

Humanities courses enable students to demonstrate knowledge of the assumptions, methods of study, and theories of at least one of the disciplines within the humanities.

Depending on the discipline, humanities courses will enable students to demonstrate some or all of the following:

an understanding of the objects of study as expressions of the cultural contexts of the people who created them
an understanding of the continuing relevance of the objects of study to the present and to the world outside the university
an ability to employ the terms and understand the conventions particular to the discipline
an ability to analyze and assess the strengths and weaknesses of ideas and positions along with the reasons or arguments that can be given for and against them
an understanding of the nature of the texts, artifacts, ideas, or discourse of the discipline and of the assumptions that underlie this understanding, including those relating to issues of tradition and canon

Objectives for General Education Regions Beyond Europe Courses

Approved courses engage students in considerations of the "local" as opposed to the "global." Courses focus on specific cultures (other than those of the United States) or the world's regions. Courses emphasize the features and processes whereby cultures and regions gain their specific identity, offering an explicitly historical organization (i.e., one that emphasizes the narratives whereby any given region or culture has come to gain its specific identity), and balancing topical focus and chronological breadth (i.e., considering a topic of sufficient specificity for the course to be coherent, but over a period of time long enough to ensure that the relevant historical dynamic is clearly visible).

Required Texts (all are available for purchase at the bookstore):

(O) The Oxford Book of Japanese Short Stories, Goossen, ed.

(K) Kokoro by Natsume Sōseki (this text is also available on-line at

http://web.archive.org/web/20050204104646/www.ibiblio.org/eldritch/ns/soseki.html)

(M) The Sailor Who Fell From Grace with the Sea by Mishima Yukio

Course Material is on-line at http://www.albany.edu/eas/212/index.htm

Testing and Grading:

Students will be required to write one 5-page (approximately 1500 word) paper during the course of the semester. Attendance will be taken regularly; students are expected to attend class unless extenuating circumstances prevent it. There will be unannounced intermittent quizzes on the content of the required reading. These quizzes will be easy if you have done the reading but difficult if you have not--in other words, it is to your advantage to come to class prepared. The exams will include short answer and essay questions on the material covered in class.

Course grades will be based on the following criteria:

Intermittent quizzes 20%

5-page paper 20%

Midterm Exam 20%

Final Exam 20%

Class Attendance 20%

This syllabus is a non‑negotiable contract. I agree to teach the topics listed below, and to grade you on the criteria listed above. I consider a grade of "Incomplete" to be for emergencies (death in the family, extreme illness, etc.), not for students who fail to plan ahead. I do not curve grades. I do not give extra credit assignments. My grading scale is as follows: 93-100%=A; 90-92%=A-; 87-89%=B+; 83-86%=B; 80-82%=B-; 77-79%=C+; 73-76%=C; 70-72%=C-; 67-69%=D+; 63-66%=D; 60-62%=D-; 0-59%=E.

If you want to check on your performance at any point in the semester, feel free to come to my office and we'll run through the numbers. If there are extenuating circumstances which you anticipate will unduly affect your grade, it is your responsibility to speak with me IN ADVANCE.

			Topic	Reading
Jan.	18	Th	Course Intro	None
	23	T	Japanese Lit. in the Meiji Era	None
	25	Th	Mori Ōgai & Natsume Sōseki	O: 1-30
	30	T	The Japanese Soul: Natsume Sōseki	K: Parts 1 & 2
Feb.	1	Th	The Japanese Soul: Natsume Sōseki	K: Part 3
	6	T	Kunikida Doppo and Higuchi Ichiyō	O: 31-44
	8	Th	Nagai Kafū and Shiga Naoya	O: 45-61
	13	T	Tanizaki Jun'ichirō and Satomi Ton	O: 62-78
	15	Th	CLASSES CANCELLED DUE TO SNOW
	20	T	NO CLASS—WINTER BREAK
	22	Th	NO CLASS—WINTER BREAK
	27	T	Okamoto Kanoko and Akutagawa Ryūnosuke	O: 79-102
Mar.	1	Th	Miyazawa Kenji and Yokomitsu Riichi	O: 103-123
	6	T	Ibuse Masuji and Kajii Motojirō	O: 124-128; 149-153
	8	Th	Kawabata Yasunari	O:129-148
	13	T	MIDTERM EXAMINATION	None
	15	Th	Hirabayashi Taiko and Hayashi Fumiko	O: 154-171; 182-186
	20	T	How to Write About Literature	None
	22	Th	Enchi Fumiko and Sakaguchi Ango	O: 172-181; 187-205
	27	T	Dazai Osamu and Inoue Yasushi	O: 206-231
	29	Th	Nakajima Atsushi and Kojima Nobuo	O: 232-251; First Draft Due
Apr.	3	T	NO CLASS—SPRING BREAK
	5	Th	NO CLASS—SPRING BREAK
	10	T	Endō Shūsaku and Abe Kōbō	O: 252-287
	12	Th	Yoshiyuki Junnosuke and Kaikō Takeshi	O: 288-292; 344-350
	17	T	Mishima Yukio	O: 293-312
	19	Th	Mishima Yukio	M: “Summer”; Final Draft Due
	24	T	Mishima Yukio	M: “Winter”
	26	Th	Kono Taeko and Mukoda Kuniko	O: 313-343
May	1	T	Ōe Kenzaburō	O: 351-390
	3	Th	Tsushima Yuko and Murakami Haruki	O: 391-416
	8	T	Shimada Masahiko and Yoshimoto Banana	O: 417-443

FINAL EXAMINATION WILL BE HELD:

Tuesday, May 15, 10:30am-12:30pm

SPRING 2007 FINAL EXAMINATION SCHEDULE

SPRING 2007 Final Examinations begin on Thursday, May 10^th and end on Thursday, May 17^th. Eight Week Two (8W2) and semester course examination day and time assignments may be found in the charts below. Examinations are scheduled in the same room the class meets in except for departmental examinations and special assignments requested by the instructor of the class, (assignments to be announced in class).

Classes meeting four or five days a week must use examination schedule for MWF class meetings. Classes meeting Monday and Wednesday only or Wednesday and Friday only use the examination schedule for MWF meetings, unless otherwise designated.

Final Examinations for courses meeting "off campus" should be held during the last class meeting.

Morning Classes

Afternoon Classes

If your

Beginning at

Your Exam

If your

Beginning At

Your exam

class

one of these

Time and

class

one of these

Time and

meets

hours

Date is

meets

hours

Date is

MWF

8:15am

Wednesday, May 16

1:00pm-3:00pm

MWF

12:35pm

Monday, May 14

10:30am-12:30pm

TTH

8:45am

Tuesday, May 15

10:30am-12:30pm

TTH

1:15pm

Wednesday, May 16

3:30pm-5:30pm

MWF

9:20am

Friday, May 11

10:30am-12:30pm

MWF

1:40pm

Tuesday, May 15

3:30pm-5:30pm

TTH

10:15am

Friday, May 11

3:30pm-5:30pm

TTH

2:45pm

Thursday, May 17

10:30am-12:30pm

MWF

10:25am

Thursday, May 10

3:30pm-5:30pm

2:45pm

Wednesday, May 16

8:00am-10:00am

TTH

11:45am

Thursday, May 10

10:30am-12:30pm

TTH

4:15pm

Monday, May 14

3:30pm-5:30pm

MWF

11:30am

Thursday, May 17

8:00am-10:00am

4:15pm

Wednesday, May 16

10:30am-12:30pm