Trauma/Storytelling in Mod JPN

Catalog description

This course examines major works of Japanese fiction produced between the Meiji Restoration (1868) and the 50th anniversary of the end of the Asia Pacific War (1995). The aims are to utilize literary studies and critical interpretive theoretical frameworks based on feminist criticism and ideology, narrative and trauma studies to develop informed thinking about, and nuanced knowledge and understanding of modern and contemporary Japanese worldviews, cultures, societies, values and lived experiences. Issues to be explored include: the experience and psychological effects of rapid modernization, the emergence of modern self-consciousness, ambivalence regarding tradition and modernity, gendered human relationships, Japanese Asia Pacific War experience, and the aftereffects and legacies of this international conflict. No prerequisites. Offered annually.