P: successful completion of J461 or equivalent proficiency in literary
Japanese (bungo); good reading knowledge of modern Japanese (4th year level
or better)

This course will explore thematic problems in late Heian fiction.  We will
begin by concentrating on close reading and analysis of short, key passages
from classical texts in the original, and move out from them to address
connections with issues in current secondary scholarship in modern Japanese
and English (gender, sexuality, and the representation of the body in Heian
narrative, aesthetic terminology and strategies for the interpretation of
fiction (in Mumyozoshi], literary voyeurism and the dynamics of "seeing,
being seen, and showing").  Student authored critiques/precis of secondary
materials will form part of weekly preparation for class.  In the last
weeks of the semester, students will make oral presentations of their work
in progress, and critique one another's work.  There will be a final
research paper due after the end of classes.  Primary texts tentatively
scheduled include: Mumyozhoshi, Uji chapters of Genji monogatari, Mushi
mezuru onnagimi, Torikaebaya, Towazugatari.  Since all of the texts listed
are quite lengthy, students are urged to read English translations of them
in their entirety as soon as they can, so that they can come into the class
with a general sense of the issues raised by the texts as wholes, and be
able to identify sections of the texts that would be appropriate to study
in depth in the original.