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Japanese Modernism (Jpns 075) Syllabus, William O. Gardner

Japanese Faculty Works

Japanese Modernism course description:
A lively and cosmopolitan modernist literature and art scene thrived in early 20th Century Japan, as cities such as Tokyo and Osaka grew rapidly, and writers and artists established connections with their counterparts across the globe. During the same decades, stylish "modern girls" and "modern boys" in Japanese cities were hailed in the press as avatars of newly liberated lifestyles and fashions, or derided by conservatives as the dupes of corrupt Western influences. This course will explore Japanese modernist literature, its global connections, and its social context, using a seminar format. Topics include: Japanese avant-garde literature, …

Beginning Japanese For Professionals: Book 3, Emiko Konomi

PDXOpen: Open Educational Resources

This is the final book in a three book series and includes Lessons 9 - 10. Book 1 and Book 2 are also available for download.

This textbook is designed for beginning learners who want to learn basic Japanese for the purpose of living and working in Japan. Unlike textbooks written primarily for students, whose content largely centers on student life, this book focuses more on social and professional life beyond school.

As a beginning level textbook, this book includes many elementary grammar patterns (Japanese Language Proficiency Test Levels 5 and 4), but the vocabulary and situations are selected specifically …

A Monument To Culture And Achievement: The Samurai Suit Of Armor And Katana At Gettysburg College, Carolyn Hauk

Student Publications

Of the many artifacts found in Gettysburg College’s Musselman library, perhaps the most unusual and seemingly out of place may be the centuries-old replica of a samurai suit and katana standing guard over visitors and students from an oversized glass case on the first floor. Though hard to miss, their connection with Gettysburg College is not so obvious. A plaque located below the suit reads, “Samurai Armor and Warrior Katana; Late 19th Century; Gift of Major General Charles A. Willoughby; Class of 1914.” These artifacts represent hundreds of years of the ancient Samurai tradition in Japan, a crucial element of …

Collaborative Curricular Initiatives: Linking Language And Literature Courses For Critical And Cultural Literacies, Yuri Kumagai, Kimberly Kono

East Asian Languages & Cultures: Faculty Publications

This article introduces a curricular initiative linking language and literature courses at a liberal arts college in the northeastern United States. In the spring 2013 and fall 2014 semesters, we concurrently taught an advanced-level Japanese language course and a literature seminar, both of which focused on ethnic “minorities” in Japan. This arrangement allowed students to utilize their linguistic and literary analytical skills and integrated their learning in both Japanese and English. By reading the same texts and discussing surrounding issues in both languages, students began to see how the cultural context of language shapes different approaches to a topic. Based …

Memory And Distance: On Nobuhiro Suwa's A Letter From Hiroshima, Jessica Fernanda Conejo Muñoz

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

A Letter from Hiroshima is the second production directed by Nobuhiro Suwa on the Japanese city that was ravaged by the atomic bombings, by the United States, in 1945. The short film is a reflective game which approach to the past is based on distancing effects. The distance, understood in the sense of Brecht and counter cinema, is part of an experimental process that becomes a political technique of construction and decipherment of memory. Suwa’s work is opposed to the belief that history is something that can be narrated, since the approximation to the past is not carried out through …

Boating In The Floating World: Ukiyo-E Prints (2018), Theory & History Of Art & Design Department, Elena Varshavskaya (H791 Instructor)

Ukiyo-e Prints Course | Exhibition Catalogs

"The student-curated exhibition “Boating in the Floating World” focuses on images of boats in ukiyo-e prints as represented in some works from the collection of the RISD Museum. Boats were occasionally depicted in the 18th century celebrity-focused figurative genres. Fairly often they appeared in bijinga – images of beauties, rarely in yakusha-e – portraits of kabuki theater actors, sometimes in compositions derived from literature, history or lore. Nautical motifs became much more pronounced from 1830s with the powerful upsurge of the landscape genre that is believed to have been triggered by the increasingly available Berlin blue – a non-fugitive artificial …

Perception And Prejudice: Sino-Ghanaian Relations Within The Service Sector And The Wavering Perception Of China On The Global Stage, Jodi-Ann (Juexuan) Wang

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Opinions on the impacts of China in Africa differ from one observer to the next, be it in media, academic, or elsewhere. While most general discourses have been nuanced and coherent, there is nevertheless a prevailing sentiment of unbridled fear and Sinophobia, or anti-Chinese populism. Based on a two-sided study in Ghana, this research uses Chinese-Ghanaian employment relations as a way of entry to analyze and explore cross-cultural understandings, or lack thereof, that leads to conflict. From there, this paper examines the style of politicized media in broadcasting Sino-Ghanaian (Chinese-Ghanaian) engagements and its role in creating the anti-Chinese populism on …

Coming Soon To A Chinese Theater Near You: Why China Matters Even To Hollywood, James N. Udden

Friday Forum

In recent years, China has engaged in infrastructure projects on a scale and scope without historical precedent. Cinema in China is no exception. For roughly a century Hollywood has managed to dominate the world largely through the control of the largest exhibition market in the developed world, meaning the USA and Canada. Just a couple years ago, however, the Chinese exhibition sector surpassed North America as the world’s largest linguistically unified and developed film exhibition market. Find out why screenwriting classes in the USA now include courses on how to write for the Chinese market. Find out why even you …

The Origin Of The Concept Of Modern Chinese Aesthetic Education And Its Background Of Disciplinary System, Hongchao Wang

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

The formation of the concept of modern aesthetic education in China is related to the traditional thought of rite and music, and it also absorbs categories of Kant's philosophy. In the modern history of education in China, the transition from the emphasis on "Three education" (moral, intellectual and physical education) to the promotion of "four education" (moral, intellectual, physical and aesthetic education) is a process of the recognition of the value of aesthetic education. During the period of the Republic of China, aesthetics and aesthetic education were highly advocated and promoted to the highest position, whose credit goes in large …

The Nature Of The Incident Of The Tea Merchant Lai Wenzheng And Its Suppression By Xin Qiji, Zhaopeng Wang, Peng Xiao

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

In the Southern Song dynasty, the system of "tea monopoly" made tea unprofitable, and then tea merchants took risks and caused frequent riots. These riots were not peasant uprisings, but illegal activities similar to gangsters' organized crimes. They not only fought against the government's crushing of tea smuggling, but also plundered houses and pillaged civilians. It is a misunderstanding that the academia usually refers to the armed gangs of the tea merchant Lai Wenzheng as the "tea merchant army". The "tea merchant army" was an official army that specialized in dealing with the rebellion of tea merchants. The armed gang …

The Reception Of Jiangxi Poetry School By Edo Poetry Circle: The Essence Of The Controversy Over The Tang And Song Poetry, Zhen He

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

In the past, scholars paid more attention to the comparison of poetic style and theory when dealing with the controversy of the Tang and Song poems in the poetry circle of the Edo period. However, by investigating the popular poetry notes of Edo in Japan, the publication of Chinese books, the reception of Chinese poets and the creation of Chinese poems, etc., one can find the essence of the controversy over the Tang and Song poems in the Edo poetry circle, namely, the preference for the "lyrical" Tang poetry and the rejection of Jiangxi poetry school. One can also find …

The Predicament Of Anglo-American Aesthetic Experience And Its Extrication, Yu Zhao

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

The concept of "aesthetic experience" has fallen into a serious predicament since the late 20th century, especially in Anglo-American philosophy. Sometimes this concept is put in the core position in aesthetics and art theories, while other time even its existence is questioned, only being taken as phantom or myth; According to some philosophers, this concept is commendatory and represents only those affective experiences, while in other philosophers' eyes, this concept is purely descriptive and can also contain those experiences without any affects or emotions. Underlying this predicament is the wrong binding of aesthetic experience with the definition of art, and …

The Seven Hermits Of The Bamboo Grove In Literature And Images, Guangsheng Zou, Yunfei Liu

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

History of literature and art saw antithetical and interdependent relationship between texts and images in artistic events, as exemplified by the various editions of The Portrait of the Seven Hermits of the Bamboo Grove in different ages. The Seven Hermits of the Bamboo Grove produced profound influence on painting, calligraphy, sculpture and many other forms of visual arts in Chinese history, which, however, has received rare systematic elaboration, particularly explication of the antithetical and interdependent relationship between literature and images therein. Literature or the images of the Seven Hermits of the Bamboo Grove reflect, from their own perspective, the colorful …

The Subject Qua Other: A Hauntological Spell On Lacan, Yuan Yuan

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

This project interrogates the dubious nature and the polemic role of the other in Lacan's discourse of the subject by invoking Derrida's ideas of hauntology. The Lacanian subject, albeit baffling and elusive, has been consistently labeled as "the subject of lack" by almost all critics including Felman, Ragland-Sullivan, Wilden, Derrida, Butler, et al. Departing from this established position, I probe Lacan's subject in terms of the subject qua other; contesting that in both imaginary and symbolic orders his subject is inescapably meshed with and dispossessed by some spectral and/or specular other. The mirror stage not only fabricates an optic illusion …

The Vibration Of Appearance: The Immanence Of Paintings, Kelin Li

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

Via reading through the different interpretations on Cezanne's painting by Meyer Schaprio, Merleau-Ponty, D. H. Lawrence and Deleuze, this article is firstly aimed at manifesting the different directions in the development of aesthetic theories after the 20th century: psychoanalysis, phenomenology, literary and art criticism, as well as post-structuralism. Secondly, it intends to demonstrate that although these critiques refer to and draw from one another, they are in parallel relation. And lastly, these observations have elaborated on the artistic world inside the painting, which provides us with a defense of the inexhaustible immanence of art against the negative nihilism of the …

Narrative Function Of The Description Of Daily Meals In A Dream Of Red Mansions, Jinju Wang, Yujie Zhang

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

The narrative of meals in A Dream of Red Mansions has been a topic of concern to critics. Among the numerous descriptions about daily meals in the novel, some are simple, acting as narrative techniques such as introduction, development, transition and closure, and some are more specific, functioning as narrative techniques and narrative contents at the same time. As narrative contents, they provide ideological meaning and literary value. And as narrative techniques, they play important roles in structuring, plotting and characterization. By studying the narrative of meals, we could see the difference between chapters 1-80 and the rest of the …

Polyphonic Novel And Polyphonic Music, Qian Hao

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

Besides some similarity, there are many differences between Bakhtin's "Polyphonic Novel" and Western polyphonic music, for example conflict and harmony, pluralism and monism, confrontation and imitation, incompletion and perfect termination, historical background and many other aspects. Realization of these, and some concepts like counterpoint and bitonality in musical senses, will help us avoid interdisciplinary misusing of these terms. Compared to "polyphonic", "dialogical novel" may be the more suitable antonym of "monologic novel", because "dialogue", which can include various meanings that the term "Polyphony" wants to express, is not only the core of Bakhtin's poetics, but also the essential feature of …

Scholars' Caps In Unoffical History Of The Scholars: Rereading Details From A Holistic Perspective, Ziyun Liu

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

This article studies descriptions of scholars' caps in Unoffical History of the Scholars and investigates how this seemingly trivial detail connects to plot structure and the ideology of the novel. By examining types of caps, this article points out that although the novel potentially deals with scholars of the Qing, when it comes to describing their costumes Wu Jingzi refers to costume rituals of the Ming so as to strictly fit in the background of the Ming. This article illustrates how Wu Jingzi weaves details about caps into two main types of plot concerning disorder and chaos among literati circles …

Shao Yong As The Origin Of The Mind Philosophy In Journey To The West: A Critical Examination, Hongbo Zhu

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

Journey to the West indisputably contains the philosophy of the mind, but there is no consensus whether it is derived from Wang Yangming's mentalism. An examination of the stylistic features and the Taoist intention of mythological novels reveals a certain identity between Shao Yong's mind philosophy and that of Journey to the West and therefore establishes the significance of Shao's philosophy for the writing of the novel. This realization helps to completely understand the intention of the novel's mind philosophy. Wang Yangming's mentalism and Shao Yong's mind philosophy have something in common yet remain apart; they are not to be …

Strength Of Voice: The Making Of "Literary Culture" And The "New Individual", Jing Yang

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

Bob Dylan and his rock and roll works are examples of "literary culture", and he is worthy of the 2016 Nobel Prize for Literature. Different from ordinary popular music, Dylan's works belong to "imaginative culture", are a continuation of a profound idealistic tradition and carrier of ideological unrest. His works are actively engaged in social issues, and contemplate and interpret common concerns of the times, thus creating a poetic "literary culture" that nourish private life, safeguard free space, and realizes fairness and justice. Through empathy and imagination, they realize and enlarge "solidarity" and therefore create "new individuals", or individuals who …

Symptomatic Reading, Surface Reading, And The Renovation Of Literary Criticism In The New Millennium, Ling Yang

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

The new millennium has witnessed the emergence of a series of new approaches to literary criticism in the United States that have posed serious challenges to the dominant paradigm of symptomatic reading and the "hermeneutics of suspicion." Focusing on surface reading proposed by Stephen Best and Sharon Marcus in 2009, this article examines the background, basic ideas, representative works, academic responses, and recent development of this new interpretative practice. It argues that the rise of surface reading is closely tied to the external and internal crises that American literary studies have undergone in recent decades. With rapid changes in contemporary …

The Application Of The Art Of Blank-Leaving In Painting To Modern Fiction And Its Significance, Huizhao Li

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

The art of blank-leaving is important to traditional Chinese painting. At a first glance, it is similar to Western novelists' iceberg theory and theory of vacancy, but they differ in cultural origins, subject matter and the use of skills. Writers with a decent knowledge of traditional painting and calligraphy, such as Wang Zengqi, Jia Pingwa, Wang Xiangfu, Xu Zechen, etc., have been insightful in connecting blank in painting with literature. They have demonstrated different ways of blank-leaving in fiction, and have activated a new space for the application of classical Chinese painting to modern fiction. Wang Zengqi, Jia Pingwa, Xu …

The Conflicts Between Elegance And Vulgarity: Leng Qian Prosody And The Changes Of Rites And Music In The Ming Dynasty, Shunhua Li

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

Like the exterior and interior relations, the retro thoughts trend in literature shared a mutual interdependence with the retro trend on music in Confucian classicism. Song Lian initiated the literature of Ming while Leng Qian pioneered the musicology correspondingly. Song Lian and his followers' esteem for Leng Qian directly represented the retro thoughts of contemporary scholarofficials and their musicology ideas to reform the world with ancient music. In terms of literature, they canonized the harmony of music and poetry exemplified in The Book of Songs and Song Lian further denied the validity of poetry afterwards. Eventually the Hongwu ruling period …

The Disintegration And Reconstruction Of The "Value" In The Study Of The Book Of Songs In The Twentieth Century, Changhua Wang, Pengge Zhao

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

Before the Revolution of 1911, the study of The Book of Songs always appeared in classicism, which means that before the end of the Qing dynasty, scholars paid attention to the issue of value in it. When Zhang Taiyan took The Book of Songs as history, he initiated a shift from classicism to history, marking the beginning of deconstructing the value of The Book of Songs. Since then, a new generation of scholars such as Hu Shi regarded The Book of Songs as a historical material, and its value as a Confucian classic was further deconstructed. The literary interpretation of …

"The Unspoken Beauty": A Review Of Beauty And Sublimity: A Cognitive Aesthetics Of Literature And The Arts, Lei Yu

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

Patrick Colm Hogan's newly published monograph Beauty and Sublimity: A Cognitive Aesthetics of Literature and the Arts aims to explore, among others, the architectural substratum underlying miscellaneous aesthetic responses in literature and the arts, and, by having recourse to a dialogue with cognitive science, enables the previously "unspoken beauty" to secure an unprecedented cognitive attention. This review, on the one hand, focuses and elaborates upon such three crucial topoi as "information processing & emotion system," "aesthetic universals & the diversity of taste," and "variation, canonization & aesthetic argument," as illustrated in Hogan's work, and, on the other, takes issue with …

A Review Of The Sixth Youth Forum Of Chinese Literary Theory Society On "New Changes In Academic Discourse: Academic History, Ideological History And Literary Institutions", Chengguang Peng

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

No abstract provided.

Aesthetic Freedom And Ethical Obligation: A Review Of The Construction Of Lyotard's Theory Of The Sublime, Xiaoyuan Ma

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

Applying the aesthetic theory of Immanuel Kant into contemporary cultural context, Jean-François Lyotard finds that due to grand narratives such as ideology and technological sciences, aesthetic feeling is no longer a free game between intellectuality and imagination, and aesthetics has become something "permitted" and "realistic". Lyotard criticizes grand narratives, claiming that art could break up the framework of grand narratives only if it jettisons the limits of recognizable representations and presents "the unpresentable". Lyotard therefore integrates avant-garde art as well as other theories into his postmodern aesthetics of the sublime. He believes that free aesthetic activities of contemporary culture could …

Brush Strokes, Texture And Appreciation Of The Original Painting, Zhenhao He

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

In the age of new media, people have many ways to appreciate art works. We get increasingly used to watching and appreciating them with print and electronic media, and even with our cell phone screens. But whether this way of watching can completely replace the way to see the original? Through the analysis and research of the original painting brush strokes and texture, this article explores the haptic visuality and the observer's psychic experiences with the author, so as to find out the essential difference between watching the original works and watching with the print and electronic media. Finally, this …

Digital Manufacturing, Grass-Root Innovation And Sustainable Development: Characteristics Of The Maker Movement In The Uk And The Implications, Wen Wen

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

The maker movement in the UK is characterized by: digital manufacturing technology as the tool, grass-root innovation as the pathway and sustainable development as the orientation. Digital manufacturing has not only promoted the digital economy in the UK, but also influenced the traditional craft and necessitated new requirements for the digital education of citizens. In the UK, grass-root innovation is not only embodied in the bottom-up formation and management of the makerspaces but also featured in the makers' daily practice. Meanwhile, aiming at sustainability in both economic and social development, makers in the UK are actively engaging in material research, …

From The Dynamic And Static Civilizations To Cultural Metaphysics: Zong Baihua's Methodological Transformation Of Constructing Chinese Artistic Conception In The 1930s And 1940s, Lang Jin

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

This article aims to analyze Zong Baihua's methodological transformation of constructing Chinese artistic conception by comparing Chinese and Western paintings during the 1930s and 1940s. In the beginning, Zong Baihua describes that China and the West are respectively static and dynamic; then he turns to consider China a fusion of both by interpreting it as qiyun shengdong (rhythmic vitality), after that, he focuses on the difference between Chinese and Western painting techniques by using the ideas of "musicality" and the "perception of space" to replace the concepts of dynamic and stasis with that of time and space; and finally, he …