RELG 480AJapanese Ghosts & Monsters

Catalog

From bird-men and sentient tea kettles to Pokemon, Japanese visual and literary culture is teeming with strange and fantastic creatures. This seminar introduces students to the variety of oral, written, and particularly visual sources for Japanese views of the fantastical. We will cover the foundations of the study of folklore, the history of the field in Japan, and how the otherworldly and monstrous was depicted in medieval, early modern, and modern Japan. Sources encountered in class include visual culture, ethnographic description, and works of literary fiction. Students will learn about the interaction between elite and popular culture, and between popular culture and national identity. After a guided introduction to the analysis of folklore, students will undertake their own original research project on Japanese ghosts and monsters, and produce a paper describing an aspect of early modern or modern Japanese culture reflected in the Japanese fantastical using ethnographic or folklore methodologies.