Queer Representations in Contemporary Literature and Culture from Japan

Catalog description

This course will survey queerness in contemporary Japan from the 1980s to the present. Though literature will be the primary focus of this course, we will also look at material from a variety of media including cinema, poetry, manga, and television. The goal is to look at how queerness has been depicted in recent years by a variety of authors and creators, whether or not they happen to be queer themselves. The course will be divided into four large units consisting of approximately four weeks each: Unit One - A Brief Historical Survey; Unit Two - Japanese Literature as Pre-AIDS/Post-AIDS; Unit Three - Queerness on the Border and On the Borders of Queerness; Unit Four - Queerness in Film, Poetry, and Manga.