Traditional E. Asian Civ: Japan

Japanese 92


Saru Group


Hitsuji Group


Uma Group


Mi Group

Maps and Era Names

Writing and Calligraphic Styles

Muromachi Ink Painting

Noh Masks for Male Roles

Sesshu's Landscape Scroll

email me

Introduction to
Traditional East Asian Civilization: Japan

Asian Languages 92

The course meets

Winter quarter, MWF 10:00 AM.
Meyer Library, Rm. 146
with a section on Th at either 10:00 AM or 4:15 PM

Instructor: Tom Hare
Bldg. 50, 52G
5-8926
thare@stanford.edu
Winter Qtr. Office Hours:
M, 1:15-2:15 and W, 11-12
TA: Conan Carey
barbs@stanford.edu

This course offers a perspective on Japan's traditional civilization. The evidence upon which we will base our study includes literature and other works of the imagination, historical documents, religious texts, art objects, musical performances, and films.

The course is introductory in that you are not expected to have prepared for it by a taking a prerequisite course. It is also intended to serve as a general introduction to "traditional east asian civilization in Japan." (Incidentally, each of those terms will be queried in our first classes.) We won't be trying to do it all here, though. There's no way to cover all of "traditional east asian civilization in Japan" in a ten-week university course. We'll be focusing our attention on a more manageable chunk of Japanese cultural history even as we reach toward a thick description of a central cultural "moment" in something we identify with "Japan."

That chunk is known as the "medieval period" or chûsei (again, it will be necessary to come to a mutual understanding on this terminology). It comprises an arguably coherent and undeniably rich cultural world, the world of samurai and Zen, ink painting, noh drama and the bamboo flute, tea gardens and castles. At the same time, this "medieval" period sets the tone for much of what we recognize as the cultural legacy of Japan to this, our modern world.

The following Books have been ordered at the university bookstore. There is also a reader for purchase there.

    Royall Tyler, Japanese No Dramas, Penguin
    Eugen Herrigel, Zen in the Art of Archery, Vintage
    Dogen, Moon in a Dewdrop, Northpoint Press
    Okakura Kakuzo, Book of Tea, Tuttle

There is also a Reader available at the Stanford Bookstore. Occasionally additional readings may be distributed in class.

Schedule of Readings

Class during the first and second weeks of the term will comprise primarily an introduction to the methodology and terminology employed during the term, with introductory lectures on Japanese history, religion and writing.

Before the second week (1/17-19), you should read:

    John Hall, "Kyoto As Historical Background," Medieval Japan, Essays in Institutional History (Yale UP, 1974), pp. 3-38.
    excerpts from The Tale of the Heike, translated by Helen Craig McCullough (pp. 1-11, 21, 150-58, 246-52, 313-319, 366-377, 426-38)
Before the third week (1/22-26) read:
    Kanze Kojirô Nobumitsu, Ataka, translated by the Nippon Gakujutsu Shinkôkai;
    Ivan Morris, "Victory Through Defeat," The Nobility of Failure: Tragic Heroes in the History of Japan (Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1975), pp. 67-105.
    "Tadanori" and "Yashima" from Royall Tyler, Japanese No Dramas
The third week will give us our first chance to talk in detail about samurai and their ethos in chûsei.

Before the fourth week (1/29-2/2), you should read the following:

    Kamo no Chômei, "An Account of My Hermitage" (Hôjôki) and excerpts from Yoshida Kenkô, "Essays in Idleness" (Tsurezuregusa) from McCullough, Classical Japanese Prose, An Anthology (Stanford UP, 1990), pp. 377-420
    selected poems by Saigyô, Princess Shikishi and Teika, A Sequence from Fûgashû, from Steven Carter, Traditional Japanese Poetry, An Anthology (Stanford University Press, 1991), pp. 157-68, 176-181, 192-203, 258-265
    "Izutsu" from Royall Tyler,Japanese No Dramas
During the fourth week we will consider the legacy of the classical and largely aristocratic culture of Heian as it is played out during the very different socio-cultural circumstances of chûsei.

At the beginning of the fifth week, on 2/5, you will take the Midterm

Before 2/7, read:

    Selections from the writings of Ippen, Genshin, Hônen, Shinran and Nichiren, from Sources of Japanese Tradition (Columbia UP, 1958), pp. 184-225;
    Eugen Herrigel, Zen in the Art of Archery;
    it would also be advisable to begin next week's readings.
For the remainder of this, fifth week of class, we will discuss reformation Buddhism (Pure Land and Zen) in chûsei.

Before the sixth week (2/12-2/16) read:

    Dogen, Moon in a Dewdrop, read the following with care, taking time to cross-reference those citations (marked with asterisks in the translation) to the glossary in the back of the book: "Rules for Zazen, Guidelines for Studying the Way, Regulations for the Auxiliary Cloud Hall, Instructions for the Tenzo (pp. 29-66); Actualizing the Fundamental Point (pp. 69-73); Painting a Rice Cake (134-139); On the Endeavor of the Way (pp. 143-160); All Inclusive Study (197-202); Poems (213-219).
    Also read Yoshiaki Shimizu and Carolyn Wheelwright, Japanese Ink Paintings from American Collections, "Introduction," (Princeton University Press, 1976), pp. 16-40.
During the sixth week we will begin to work on Zen, both its most explicitly monastic manifestations and its broader place in the culture and intellectual world of chûsei.

For the seventh week (21-23) read the following plays:

    "Atsumori," "Eguchi," "Kantan," "Matsukaze," "Nonomiya," from Royall Tyler, Japanese No Dramas
The seventh week will focus on noh theater, its history, performance and philosophical legacy.

For the eighth week (2/26-3/2), read:

    Poems by Zen Monks, I and II, from Steven Carter, Traditional Japanese Poetry, An Anthology (Stanford University Press, 1991), pp. 266-274, 327-331
    , as well as the famous renga poem, Three Poets at Minase, also from Steven Carter, Traditional Japanese Poetry, An Anthology (Stanford University Press, 1991), pp. 157-67, 176-181, 192-203, 258-274, 303-330.
During the eighth week, we will bring tea ceremony and renga into our discussion of chûsei culture. We will also devote some attention to the music of chûsei, particularly flute music.

By the ninth week (3/5-9), you should have read

    Okakura Kakuzo, Book of Tea
    "Sumidagawa" and "Funa Benkei" from Royall Tyler, Japanese No Dramas
During the ninth week we will concentrate on the transition from chûsei to early modern Japan, including the first direct contacts between Japan and "theWest" and the unification of Japan in the last decades of the sixteenth century.

There are no new readings for the tenth week (3/12-16). During class this final week, we will contextualize chûsei vis-à-vis the world(s) thereafter. You should finish any readings you may somehow have missed over the course of the term in preparation for the final exam. This is also the time to finish your independent project.

The final examination will be held on the last day of class, March 16.

In addition to your work on the midterm and final examinations and your independent project, you will be assigned to a web group which will be responsible, as a group, for producing a web page relating to the course. More on that later. Course requirements The course will meet three times per week, for lectures and discussion. There will also be weekly sections, arranged for smaller groups of students. Students will be expected to do all the reading designated in the syllabus and to participate in discussions and in creating the group websites they will be building (see below). Prompt attendance in class is required. Much of what we do in class is not readily accessible through texts, and cannot, therefore, be "made-up" if missed.

Your written work for this course will take the form of web sites, which you will create in a group in the middle of term and maintain as the term progresses, and an individual project, due on March 13 at 5:00 pm..

"Traditional East Asian Civ: Japan" Tom Hare, Stanford University
Revised January 2001."