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This class will explore critically discourses about cultural stereotypes of Japan. Specifically, we will focus on two of the best-known examples, the geisha and the samurai. Our goals will be: (1) to focus on specific historical contexts, that suggest how and why these categories were formed, and (2) to understand how volatile and motivated these seemingly unchanging and timeless stereotypes actually are. We will locate both Japan and the United States as places that generate a hyper-feminine (geisha) and a hyper-masculine (samurai) view of Japan; we will look at the reasons why such stereotypes developed in each country, and the consequences of such views. For each of the two topics, we will examine representations in literature, visual and performing arts, and film. We will begin in premodern Japan, by studying texts to which these terms can be traced. Moving chronologically, we will undo the loaded image/myth of the "courtesan" and the "warrior" through examples including didactic Buddhist tales, "erotic" woodblock prints, traditional theater, and "popular" fiction about homosexuality among the samurai. We will then proceed to modern Japan and will investigate the ways in which the categories of geisha and samurai came to be appropriated and utilized for various purposes, such as how militant nationalism contributed to the popularization of a particular view of the warrior in early 20th-century films, and how the portrayal of a pacified and "feminine" Japan in the Nobel Prize-winning author's novel SNOW COUNTRY functioned in the eyes of the international community soon after World War II. Finally, we will address Euro-American representations of the geisha and the samurai in recent times and discuss implications of the representations, including their effects upon Asian-Americans in general. Throughout this course, selections from recent works of literary and cultural theories (such as Orientalism, gender, and race/ethnicity) will be assigned each week.
COURSE FORMAT: Seminar
Level: UGRD Credit: 1 Gen Ed Area Dept: HA AL&L Grading Mode: Graded
Prerequisites: NONE
Last Updated on MAR-19-2004
Copyright Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut, 06459