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For students enrolled in or before 2014
K0117
Japanese Aesthetics
2 credits
Spring 2015
INSTRUCTOR: Hillary Pedersen
EMAIL: [email protected]
Course Description
Japanese Aesthetics is a seminar-style course that identifies certain sensory reflections
in visual, literary and performing arts and culture, and analyzes Japanese concepts of
“beauty.” Engaging with images (paintings), texts (poetry and prose) and performances
(Noh theatre and the formalized preparation of tea), students will explore themes such
as nature, gender, war and nationalism, and their relationship to Japanese aesthetic
concepts such as mono no aware, wabi, sabi, yūgen and kawaii. This course also traces
the development of the academic field of aesthetics in Japan, especially the impact
from the West.
Course Objectives
Through this class, students will learn to identify basic aesthetic concepts present in
Japanese visual, literary and performing arts and culture. This knowledge will help
students to recognize the various ways in which Japanese aesthetics has shaped, and
has been shaped by, certain aspects of society and culture.
Course Requirements and Assignments
a. Active class participation: This class will include discussion of relevant topics,
and you will be evaluated on the quality, rather than the quantity, of the
responses. To receive and “A” grade, students must attend every class, and
participate in a way that shows careful reflection on the assignments and
awareness of your relationship with your classmates. Another component of
participation is writing two discussion questions for each reading, to be shared
in class.
b. Assignments: At the end of each unit, I will ask you to answer (in writing) a
question dealing with major themes present in the readings and discussion.
While your answers will be informed by class content, your own viewpoint and
experience also extremely valuable.
c. Final presentation and paper: You will choose a topic related to Japanese
aesthetics for your final project, and will present on that topic to the class for 15
minutes. You will also submit an 8-10 page paper on this topic, after having
presented and received feedback from your classmates and instructor. You will
have a short consultation period with the instructor to discuss your topic.
Evaluation Criteria & Grading
Grading for the course will be determined as follows:
1. Attendance and Participation
25%
2. Assignments
3. Final Presentation
4. Final Paper
25%
20%
30%
Additional Information: CLASSROOM POLICIES
1. Attendance will be taken regularly in this class. It is to your benefit to attend all
classes and to take careful notes on the material presented.
2. Since discussion is an essential part of this course, please come to class prepared and
on time. Do not enter the classroom if you are more than 15 minutes late.
3. Let me know ifyou have an emergency and will not be able to attend class.
4. Please turn off cell phones, ipods, and other electronic devices. It is inappropriate to
text message, check email, make or answer calls during class.
5. Do not bring food or drink into the classroom.
6. Do not bring outside reading material to the class during class time (books,
newspapers, magazines, other class work).
7. Do not sleep in class.
8. Doshisha University does not tolerate plagiarism, cheating, or helping others to
cheat. Plagiarism is defined as misrepresenting the work of others (whether published
or not) as your own. Any facts, statistics, quotations or paraphrasing of any
information that is not common knowledge should be cited. Any instances of
plagiarism or cheating will result in an automatic failing grade in the course.
For more information on paper writing, including how to avoid plagiarism and how to
use citations, check with the university librarian, or the web for many excellent
resources. For example: http://www.writing.ku.edu/~writing/guides/
Make-up policy: If you are absent and wish to make up the work covered in class, it is
your responsibility to contact me and make arrangements.
Course Materials
Single chapters from books and journal articles will be provided by the instructor.
Additional required readings may be assigned.
Hume, Nancy G. ed., Japanese Aesthetics and Culture: A Reader. Albany: SUNY
Press, 1995.
Marra, Michael, Essays on Japan: Between Aesthetics and Literature. Leiden: Brill,
2010.
Ohnuki-Tierney, Emiko. Kamikaze, Cherry Blossoms, and Nationalisms: The
Militarization of Aesthetics in Japanese History. Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
2002.
Saito, Yuriko. Everyday Aesthetics. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010.
Shirane, Haruo. Japan and the Culture of the Four Seasons: Nature, Literature, and
the Arts. New York: Columbia University Press, 2012.
Suzuki, Daisetz Teitaro and Jaffe, Richard. Zen and Japanese Culture. Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 2010.
Tanizaki, Jun’ichiro. In Praise of Shadows. Stony Creek, CT: Leete’s Island Books,
1977.
Yano, Christine. Pink Globalization: Hello Kitty's Trek across the Pacific. Durham:
Duke University Press, 2010.
Course Schedule:
Week 1
Topic: Course introduction
Week 2
Topic: Basic concepts of Japanese aesthetics
Reading homework assignment:
1. Donald Keene, “Japanese Aesthetics,” in Hume, pp. 27-41.
2. Michael Marra, “Frameworks of Meaning: Old Aesthetic Categories and the
Present,” Essays on Japan, pp. 187-201.
3. Yuriko Saito, Everyday Aesthetics, pp. 104-118.
Written homework assignment due: submit a list of definitions of the aesthetic
terms found in the readings
Week 3
Topic: Women and Japanese literary aesthetics (Part 1)
Reading Homework Assignment:
1. Donald Keene, “Feminine Sensibility in the Heian Era” in Hume, pp. 109-123.
Written homework assignment due: short-answer question
Week 4
Topic: Women and Japanese literary aesthetics (Part 2)
Reading homework assignment:
1. Tomiko Yoda, Gender and National Literature: Heian Texts in the
Constructions of Japanese Modernity, pp. 25-40.
Written homework assignment due: short-answer questions
Week 5
Topic: Nature and environment (Part 1)
Reading homework assignment:
1. Haruo Shirane, Japan and the Culture of the Four Seasons, pp. 25-55
2. Yuriko Saito, Everyday Aesthetics, pp. 54-68
Written homework assignment due: short-answer questions
Week 6
Topic: Nature and environment (Part 2)
Reading homework assignment:
1. Jun’ichiro Tanizaki, In Praise of Shadows.
Written homework assignment due: short answer-questions
Week7
Topic: Nature (Part 3)
Assignment: Field trip to tea house
Written homework assignment due next class: 2-page response paper to tea house
experience
Week 8
Topic: War and Nationalism (Part 1)
Reading homework assignment:
1. Kristin Surak, Making Tea, Making Japan: Cultural Nationalism in Practice,
pp. 59-90.
Written homework assignment due: short-answer questions
Week 9
Topic: War and Nationalism (Part 2)
Reading homework assignment:
1. Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney, “The Militarization of Cherry Blossoms: Cherry
Blossoms as the Souls of Fallen Soldiers,” pp. 102-124.
Written homework assignment due: short-answer questions
Week 10
Topic: Kawaii (Part 1)
Reading homework assignment:
1. Sianne Ngai, “The Cuteness of the Avant-Garde,” Critical Inquiry 31 (Summer
2005), pp. 811-847
2. Manami Ozaki and Geoff Johnson, Kawaii! Japan’s Culture of Cute (Munich,
New York, London: Prestel Publishing, 2013), pp. 6-47.
Written homework assignment due: short-answer questions
Week 11
Topic: Kawaii (Part 2)
Reading homework assignment:
1. Janice Brown, “Re-framing Kawaii: Interrogating Global Anxieties
Surrounding the Aesthetic of “Cute” in Japanese Art and Consumer Products”
in The International Journal of the Image, Vol. 1, no. 2 (2011), 1-10
Written homework assignment due: short answer questions
Week 12
Topic: Japanese aesthetics and globalization
Reading Assignment:
1. Christine Yano, Pink Globalization: Hello Kitty's Trek Across the Pacific, pp.
TBA
2. Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki and Jaffe, Richard. Zen and Japanese Culture, pp. TBA
Written homework assignment due: short answer questions
Week 13
Topic: Student Presentations
Week 14
Topic: Student Presentations
Week 15
Topic: Conclusion (Final Papers due)
Note: This syllabus will be subject to changes and/or revisions