This course looks at literature from Japan and around the world to provide students with a wide range of perspectives and explore the links between the internal and external (“environmental”) worlds of an artistic work through a multifaceted approach incorporating natural, human, and cultural environments in pursuit of the issues that transcend boundaries.
Important components of the process include reading texts within the context of their contemporary societies, cultures, and norms; questioning media announcing their publication; and considering the relationships between texts and other genres, such as art, theater, and film. Methods are instructed to help students gain new understanding, such as using advanced research theory from abroad, filtering latent aspects of a piece through a modern perspective, and text translation as a form of close reading.
To engage in this type of research, students are required to develop basic literary research and precise comprehension skills. They are also required to improve their foreign language proficiency to gain an understanding of literary theory and knowledge concerning literary methods. They will be expected to build upon these academic foundations and develop original, innovative research.
This challenging course aims to provide students with the contemporary knowledge and strong grounding needed to go on to work as highly-specialized professionals active in a wide range of fields.
Professors
- MITANI, Kenji (Ph.D.)
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German Literature, Austrian Literature; Study on Modernism in Central Europe
- KINSUI, Satoshi (Ph.D.)
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Japanese Linguistics; Historical Study of Japanese Grammar
- ISHIWARI, Takayoshi (Ph.D.)
- American Literature