LETTERATURA GIAPPONESE

Knowledge and understanding: Students will enhance their knowledge and understanding of methods and ideas of literary criticism and comparative literature. Through the analysis of a selection of Japanese literary texts in translation of modern and contemporary authors, they will obtain a deeper understanding of the historical, cultural and literary context of modern and contemporary Japan. Through the analysis of the relationship between Japanese literary works and their screen adaptations, they will obtain a basic knowledge of the development of cinema in Japan.

Applying knowledge and understanding: Students will be able to understand, analyze and criticise Japanese modern and contemporary texts and their screen adaptations through the methods of comparative literature explained and examined during the course.

Making judgment: Students will be able to formulate critical judgments on a wide range of modern and contemporary Japanese literary sources based on the methodology acquired during the classes and through the careful study of the bibliographical references.

Communication skills: Students will be able to formulate correct literary analysis based on the methodology of literary criticism and film studies acquired during the course. They will also be able to make effective presentations in front of the class.

Learning skills: Students will be able to deal in an independent and critical way with a wide variety of bibliographical references.

Lectures by the instructor. Comment and analysis of film sequences. Students' participation in class discussion is very much encouraged.

In Japan, there is a privileged and well-established relationship between cinema and literature. As pointed out by Keiko I. McDonald in her From Book to Screen (2000), the flourishing Japanese film industry of the beginning asked for legitimacy from the long and exquisite national literary tradition. From then on, the two media have always maintained an exclusive and inextricable connection.

Starting from this close, mutual dependence between these two artistic expressions, the course will enhance in the students their knowledge of a selection of fundamental authors of modern and contemporary Japanese literature, also through the comparative study of literary works and their screen adaptations.
The course aims at giving students an advanced knowledge of modern and contemporary Japanese literature, as well as providing an introduction to the history and development of Japanese cinema.
Students will also be provided with the basic tools of comparative analysis between film and literature.

Refrence texts:

1. L. Bienati (a cura di), Letteratura giapponese. Dalla fine dell'Ottocento all'inizio del terzo millennio, Torino, Einaudi, 2005, pp. 1-52.
2. Keiko I. McDonald, Reading a Japanese film. Cinema in context, Honolulu, University of Hawaii Press, 2006, pp. 1-16.
3. M. R. Novielli, P. Scrolavezza, Lo schermo scritto. Letteratura e cinema in Giappone, Venezia, Cafoscarina, 2012.
4. A reader prepared by the instructor and available online.

Students are also required to read the following novels (all available in Italian translation):

• Akutagawa Ryūnosuke, Rashōmon and other stories (Rashōmon)
• Natsume Sōseki, Kokoro
• Tanizaki Jun'ichirō, Quicksand (Manji)
• Fukazawa Shichirō, The ballad of Narayama (Narayama bushikō)
• Abe Kobo, The woman in the dunes (Sunna no onna)
• Murakami Haruki, Norwegian wood (Noruwei no mori)

Film list:

Students are required to view the following movies:

• Kurosawa Akira, Rashōmon (1950)
• Ichikawa Kon, Kokoro (1955)
• Kinoshita Keisuke, Narayama bushikō (1958)
• Masumura Yazusō, Manji (1964)
• Teshigahara Hiroshi, Suna no onna (1964)
• Tran Anh Hung, Norwegian wood (2010)

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