INTRODUCTION TO JAPANESE CULTURE AND LITERATURE

Academic year
2025/2026 Syllabus of previous years
Official course title
INTRODUCTION TO JAPANESE CULTURE AND LITERATURE
Course code
C38-25 (AF:596383 AR:336569)
Teaching language
English
Modality
On campus classes
ECTS credits
6
Degree level
Bachelor's Degree Programme
Academic Discipline
L-OR/22
Period
1st Semester
Course year
3
Where
VENEZIA
The aim of this course is to provide students with a general knowledge of Japanese literature and visual culture from prehistory through the 21st century. The course will track the evolution of literary forms, visual aesthetics, and cultural values, focusing particularly on how tradition and innovation interact across key historical periods. Students will also explore Japan’s modern transformation, its postwar cultural shifts, and its global cultural presence today.
Students will gain comprehensive insight into Japanese literary and artistic traditions from their origins to the present.
They will develop a general knowledge of:
Literary genres, worldviews, and forms that shaped Japanese cultural identity;
Key writers, texts, and cultural artifacts spanning ancient to contemporary periods;
Intersections between literature, performance, and visual culture;
Major social and political contexts influencing artistic production;
How modern Japanese authors and creators reinterpret classical forms.
Students will build the critical tools to interpret, contextualize, and compare works across time, with special attention to how cultural continuity and rupture shape Japan’s evolving narratives.
None, though students are encouraged to explore key episodes in Japanese history. Introductory resources will be provided at the start of the course, and supplementary materials will be available weekly through Moodle.
Part I: Classical and Medieval Foundations
Origin Myths and State Formation: Kojiki and Nihon shoki
Court Culture and the Aesthetics of Refinement: Genji monogatari, Makura no sōshi
Lyric Traditions: From Manyōshū to Shinkokinshū
Warrior Tales and Cultural Ethics: Heike monogatari
Zen, Transience, and the Arts of the Middle Ages: Renga, Noh, and Zenga

Part II: Early Modern to Postwar
Edo-Period Popular Culture: Ukiyo-zōshi, kabuki, and ukiyo-e
The Meiji Modernizers: Fukuzawa, Mori Ōgai, and cultural Westernization
Taishō Aesthetics: Shishōsetsu, feminism, and modernism
Postwar Reckoning and Reinvention: Ōe Kenzaburō, Mishima Yukio, and trauma

Part III: Contemporary Currents
Memory, Violence, and the Postmodern: Murakami Haruki and Banana Yoshimoto
Manga as Narrative Literature: Tezuka Osamu to Moto Hagio
Anime and National Identity: Spirited Away, Akira, Your Name
Literature in the Digital Age: Cellphone novels, virtual authorship, and global fandoms
Shirane, H. (Ed.), 2008. Traditional Japanese Literature: An Anthology, Beginnings to 1600. Columbia University Press.
Shirane, H. (Ed.), 2004. Early Modern Japanese Literature: An Anthology, 1600-1900. Columbia University Press.
Rimer, J.T. (Ed.), 2005. The Columbia Anthology of Modern Japanese Literature, 1868-1945. Columbia University Press.
Keene, D., 1999. Seeds in the Heart: Japanese Literature from Earliest Times to the Late Sixteenth Century.
Treat, J. W., 1995. Writing Ground Zero: Japanese Literature and the Atomic Bomb.
All core readings and supplementary materials will be provided on Moodle.
An oral exam and the writing of a paper on an agreed subject-matter. Students with disabilities should contact the teacher of the course beforehand in order to discuss alternative examination methods, in agreement with the competent Office.
written and oral
The student passes the exam with an evaluation spanning between 18 and 30.
Interactive lectures with visual materials, in-class textual analysis, group discussions. Selected film screenings and digital archive explorations may supplement specific modules.

This subject deals with topics related to the macro-area "Human capital, health, education" and contributes to the achievement of one or more goals of U. N. Agenda for Sustainable Development

Definitive programme.
Last update of the programme: 28/06/2025