Japanese

Modern Japanese literature is filled with ghosts and goblins--if only you know where to look. This course is designed as an introduction to the strangest, scariest, and wildest fiction in modern Japan, meaning that no prior knowledge of Japanese literature or Japanese history is required. The course begins at the "beginning" of modern Japanese literature in the late nineteenth century up to contemporary works and explores a range of ghost stories, fairy tales, as well as the literary equivalent of the splatter film. The course explores the following questions: How did the broad genre of today's gensō bungaku (roughly corresponding to supernatural, horror, and fantasy genres) emerge and develop as a set of assumptions about the nature of modern life in Japan? How do these assumptions challenge our way of interacting with the world, with other people, and ultimately with our own sense of self? What kind of new understandings of various boundaries--between the real and the unreal, the present and the past, the foreign and the native, the living and the dead--might these stories suggest? And how are these texts part of a larger global network of weird fiction--what, in other words, does it mean to call a Japanese text "Gothic"?

This course is for students who have completed intermediate level studies but are advised to review the contents while at the same time studying at the advanced level. Students practice reading long and complex passages from literature including stories, essays and poetry. They study vocabulary, expressions and their usage in the texts, as well as learn about the authors of the literary works. The course helps students develop a deeper understanding of Japanese culture and way of thinking. 

The course introduces the Japanese sound system, basic greetings as well as a number of basic Japanese structures and vocabulary expressed in Hiragana and Katakana syllabaries that are essential to basic Japanese communication. They are taught through five social/cultural topics following the textbook, Nakama Book 1a chapters, which include: greetings and introductions, discussion of daily routines, discussion of Japanese cities, discussion of Japanese homes, and discussion of leisure time. In each topic, while studying the language, students are challenged to discover different approaches to viewing the world around them linguistically and culturally, and are given the opportunity to understand current sociocultural issues in Japan. They are also inducted into the learning routine necessary to succeed in the fast-paced learning of a foreign language.

This course is designed for students who have already learned the first half of elementary- level grammar. It aims to enhance one’s reading and writing skills, as well as the ability to use elementary-level vocabulary and grammar. 

The course design is based on sentence structures and grammatical patterns learned in the textbook, Elementary Japanese for Academic Purposes Vol.2 (Lesson 19 to 24). 

This course is for students who have completed intermediate level studies but are advised to review the contents concurrently with their studies at the advanced level.  The course focuses mainly on reading newspaper articles on current topics such as society, culture, science, politics, and sports, developing one's ability to find keywords; infer direction, and grasp the main idea.  The course also aims to deepen students' understanding of Japanese social issues. 

In the Meiji period, many predicted that the traditional genre of the haiku would rapidly disappear as Japan transformed into a modern society. Contrary to this prediction, the haiku has proved to be widely popular, not only in modern Japan, but also outside the country, especially in North America. This phenomenon raises many questions. Are modern haiku the same as traditional haiku? Are haiku written in English the same as those written in Japanese? How far can a form of poetry change and yet still be regarded as the same form? This course answers these questions by surveying the historical development of the haiku from its roots in the medieval poetic form of the renga to contemporary haiku being written in Japan and abroad. 

This course teaches the major conventions of the haiku form; the differences between classical hokku and modern haiku; the representative works of the major poets through the centuries and the ways in which haiku were understood and misunderstood when they were introduced to Western countries. 

This course is aimed at those who have already studied the first half of elementary grammar. The course focuses on learning grammar and sentence patterns according to the textbook, "University Japanese: Beginner's Course, Tomodachi vol.2" compiled by the Japanese Language Education Center for International Students, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies.

This course improves lower advanced level listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills. It introduces the 50 most important sentence patterns for advanced level students and reviews the important sentence patterns from the intermediate level. Students acquire a command of practical Japanese necessary for daily communication and for study and research in a Japanese university. They master 8000 basic words and 1500 basic kanji.