June 2009 – Japanese History

The history of Japanese women is a complex and challenging topic, which offers a lot of different windows into Japanese history and culture and into the study of gender and society. There is no good textbook for a course like this, so I will provide historical and cultural context, and the readings for the course will mostly be the writings and experiences of Japanese women themselves. Here’s the books I’ve ordered, in more or less the order we’re going to read them:

Murasaki Shikibu, Diary of Lady Murasaki, trans. Richard Bowring, Penguin, 1999. ISBN 9780140435764
Karen Brazell, ed. and trans., The Confessions of Lady Nijo, Stanford UP, 1973. ISBN 9780804709309
Yamakawa Kikue, Kate Wildman Nakai (Translator), Women of the Mito Domain: Recollections of Samurai Family Life, 1997, Stanford UP. ISBN 9780804731492
Robert John Smith, Ella L. Wiswell, Women of Suye Mura, 1982, Chicago UP. ISBN 9780226763453
Mikiso Hane, ed. and trans., Reflections on the Way to the Gallows: Rebel Women in Prewar Japan. University of California Press, 1993. ISBN 9780520084216
Elisabeth Bumiller, The Secrets of Mariko: A Year in the Life of a Japanese Woman and her Family, Vintage/Random House, 1995. ISBN 9780679772620

Feel free to get them from any source: The bookstore should have them.

Japanese history from early years to 1700 covers a lot of interesting ground. You’re welcome to purchase these books anywhere, of course, but the bookstore does have them on order.

The basic textbook, covering all the basic historical narrative, is:

Conrad Totman, Japan Before Perry, UCal Press, 2nd edition (2008). ISBN 9780520254077

This is actually a revised edition of a textbook I used myself as an undergraduate: it’s well-done, but, like any textbook it has omissions, flaws, and sometimes picks one interpretation from several available. Textbooks are great, but they’re not perfect, and I’ll say so when I think so.

A big part of this course is going to be reading and thinking about primary sources, original materials (in translation). For basic political, religious and intellectual sources, we’ll use:

David J. Lu, Japan: A Documentary History. Volume 1: The Dawn of History to the Late Tokugawa Period. M. E. Sharpe/East Gate, 1997. ISBN 9781563249075

For a survey of cultural materials from the classical and medieval ages, some of the most interesting literature in world history, we’ll use:

Helen Craig McCullough, ed., Classical Japanese Prose: An Anthology. Stanford University Press, 1990. ISBN 9780804719605

But a survey isn’t enough, and some literature rewards reading in detail and extensively. To get a closer look at the two great civilizations of Early Japan — aristocratic and warrior — we’ll read large chunks of the landmark works which defined excellence in Japanese society for centuries:

Helen Craig McCullough, trans., Genji & Heike: Selections from The Tale of Genji and The Tale of Heike. Stanford University Press, 1994. ISBN 9780804722582

FInally, to get a closer look at the 17th century, the early Tokugawa period, and to give you a chance to read and discuss a great work of historical scholarship, we’ll use one of my favorite historians:

Mary E. Berry, Japan in Print: Information and Nation in the Early Modern Period, University of California Press, 2007. ISBN 978-0-520-25417-6

The first three works listed — Totman, Lu and the Prose collection — will be used from the first weeks of class, so if you’re going to order them online, please do so early. The Genji and Heike collection will be used a few weeks in, and the Berry book will be late in the semester.

Month: June 2009

Books for Japanese Women (Hist 501-01/700-01; Fall 2009)

Books for Early Japan (Hist 524/700-04; Fall 2009)