Trauma in JPN Lit & Film

Catalog description

In this seminar, we familiarize ourselves with the trauma/PTSD studies theory developed by Janet, Freud, Lifton, Horowitz, Herman, Schwab and others and utilize it to analyze and interpret novels by Murasaki, Soseki, Kawabata, Enchi, Ooka, Okuizumi and Oe, and films by Imamura and Takahata. The aims of the course are to acquire and develop critical understanding of the psychosocial dynamics of social trauma, dissociation, failed mourning, psychological defense fantasies of incorporation, substitution and revenge, behavioral reenactments, the role of narrative memory-making to healing and recovery, and learn how to use this psychoanalytic knowledge to examine and interpret representative Japanese literary and cinematic texts.