30053 - Japanese Literature 1 (LM)

Learning outcomes

Students are expected to engage with Japanese and Japanese-contiguous pop media in their global diffusion, with specific attention to global, (g)local and local dimensions of media works. Particular importance is attributed to how pop media originating from Japan, identifiable by specific aesthetic systems, have developed to the point of forming an alternative, quasi-mainstream set of focal points, where Japan is the artistic epicenter and where the Anglosphere is only one of its concentric peripheries.

Course contents

Engaging with scale, scatteredness and diffusion: global, (g)local, local anime-manga within, without and in-between media and narrative

NB. Course materials may include the examination of works featuring explicit and quasi-explicit content aimed at a variety of target audiences. For safety reasons, the array of possible materials will be verbally discussed and agreed upon at the beginning of the course.

 

Overview

The course opens with an illustration of the diffusion of the products of Japan's cultural industries, the industries related to anime-manga products in particular. This globally established and identifiable production continues to be linked to the Japanese geo-socio-technical context, but at the same time is no longer inextricably linked to Japan's ethno-political boundaries. Along with the ever-increasing diffusion and popularity of Japanese products, often offered in Japan and abroad simultaneously, we also have the proliferation of anime-manga products by non-Japanese creators and other creative entities. This has led to the increasing spread of anime-manga production within generalist enjoyment. More important, however, is the subsequent establishment of anime-manga production as a context where Japan, and not the Euro-American West, represents the epicenter and not a periphery.

Readings/Bibliography

Galbraith, Patrick William. 2019. Otaku and the Struggle for Imagination in Japan. Durham (NC): Duke University Press.

—. 2021a. The Ethics of Affect: Lines and Life in a Tokyo Neighborhood. Stockholm University Press.

—. 2021b. “The Ethics of Imaginary Violence, Part 2:" Moexploitation" and Critique in Revue Starlight.” US-Japan Women’s Journal 59 (59): 89–114.

—. 2021c. “’For Japan Only?’Crossing and Re-Inscribing Boundaries in the Circulation of Adult Computer Games.” In Media Technologies for Work and Play in East Asia: Critical Perspectives on Japan and the Two Koreas. Bristol: Bristol University Press.

Santos, Kristine Michelle L. 2020a. “Queer Affective Literacies: Examining ‘Rotten’ Women’s Literacies in Japan.” Critical Arts 34 (5): 72–86.

—. 2020b. “The Bitches of Boys Love Comics: The Pornographic Response of Japan’s Rotten Women.” Porn Studies 7 (3): 279–90.

Lamarre, Thomas. 2009. The Anime Machine: A Media Theory of Animation. Minneapolis (MN): University of Minnesota Press.

—. 2013. “Cool, Creepy, Moé: Otaku Fictions, Discourses, and Policies.” Diversité Urbaine 13 (1): 131–52.

—. 2018. The Anime Ecology: A Genealogy of Television, Animation, and Game Media. Minneapolis (MN): University Of Minnesota Press.

Suan, Stevie. 2021. Anime’s Identity: Performativity and Form beyond Japan. U of Minnesota Press.

Sugawa-Shimada, Akiko. 2019a. “Girls with Arms and Girls as Arms in Anime: The Use of Girls for ‘Soft’ Militarism.” In The Routledge Companion to Gender and Japanese Culture, 391–98. Milton Park: Routledge.

———. 2019b. “Playing with Militarism in/with Arpeggio and Kantai Collection: Effects of Shōjo Images in War-Related Contents Tourism in Japan.” Journal of War & Culture Studies 12 (1): 53–66.

———. 2019c. “Shōjo in Anime: Beyond the Object of Men’s Desire.” In Shōjo Across Media, 181–206. Springer.

———. 2020. “Emerging ‘2.5-Dimensional’ Culture: Character-Oriented Cultural Practices and ‘Community of Preferences’ as a New Fandom in Japan and Beyond.” Mechademia: Second Arc 12 (2): 124–39.

Hard to obtain texts will be provided by the course instructor.

 

 

Teaching methods

Students unable to attend lectures should contact the course instructor

The course lasts from September 9th 2024 to Decemeber 17th 2024, with two sessions per week (Monday and Tuesday), with Monday hosting a colloquim and Tuesday featuring a traditional lecture. The presence of weekly colloquium meetings implies that students are required to actively and continuously participate.

Weekly readings should not be considered optional.

Assessment methods

Term paper and oral discussion

Teaching tools

Course presentations will be made available on Virtuale.

Office Hours: see here

Office hours

See the website of Luca Paolo Bruno