JAPN 273 Popular Culture and Literary Traditions of Tokugawa Japan

This course introduces literary traditions and aspects of Japanese popular culture under the Tokugawa shogunate (17th through mid-19th centuries), when education spread far beyond the elite samurai class and the people’s literacy rate rose to an unprecedented level thanks to long-lasting peace and economic development. We will primarily explore the rise of haikai (precursor to haiku), travel diaries, humorous oral narratives, and visual arts such as ukiyo-e, and examine how literary traditions practiced since ancient times are represented, transformed, and reinterpreted in those works. The course is given in English. Offered in alternate years.