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Contents : Fall 2006 LIT 295 Lec: T R 12:30-2pm (E-F) Office hours: M 10-11am W F 2-3pm Jeremy Robinson RobinsonJ@wlu.edu Red House #12 tel x5310 Literature in the Age of the Samurai For almost seven hundred years from the 12th to the 19th century Japan was ruled by the samurai warrior class. However the values that defined that class shifted radically as they were forced to adapt to changing circumstances. This class examines the everchanging and often contradictory roles of the samurai through the lens of Japanese literature from the early view of warriors as uncultured brutes inferior to the refined aristocracy to their seizing of political power in the Kamakura period to their transformation into a class of bureaucrats in the Edo. The course also focuses on the way in which the samurai have been mythologized and transformed into an ideal of virtuous behavior both at the time of their ascendance and well into the modern period. This course makes extensive use of the university s Blackboard online learning environment both to distribute readings and as a forum for submitting and responding to reaction papers. Access Blackboard at blackboard.wlu.edu and login using your W&L Username and Password. The Blackboard interface is fairly straightforward but if you have no experience using the system or are uncomfortable with computers let me know immediately so we can help you get started. Becoming experienced with using Blackboard is vital to your success in this course. Evaluation will be on the basis of class attendance and participation online reaction papers and responses a midterm exam and a final exam. Attendance and Participation Six Online Reaction Papers Ten Online Responses Midterm Exam Final Exam 6 x 5% 10 x 2% 15% 30% 20% 15% 20% Most important both to your grade and to the success of the class is keeping up on the readings and being ready and willing to discuss them. For each day s readings select at least one quote from the texts and come to class ready to discuss its significance and your reasons for choosing it. Throughout the semester you will also be required to post reaction papers and responses to the Blackboard online discussion board. A reaction paper should be approximately 1 1/2 to 2 pages long and should articulate your reaction to that day s readings. It does not need to be a formal argumentative essay but it should be more substantive than mere summary. It is intended to give your interpretation of the material in light of your own experience and the issues we raise in class and should show an active engagement with the text. Remember: you aren t expected to be an expert on the topic just an engaged reader. Reaction papers must be posted online by midnight the day before the class in which the readings are to be discussed in order to give your fellow students time to read them and respond before class. Late reaction papers are useless to fostering online discussion and thus will not be accepted. Six of these papers are required over the course of the semester and you may choose any of the readings to which you wish to respond but you may not write more than one in any given week. Although there will be many days when you do not write a reaction paper yourself other students reaction papers are considered a part of the required readings for all students and you should make a point of reading the other students reactions and perhaps writing an online response to them before coming to class (the response deadline). The online responses are less formal than the reaction papers and should respond not only to the text itself but to the other students reactions. There is no set length for these responses but they should show a willingness to engage with other students ideas rather than relying only on one s own interpretation. A minimum of ten of these responses are required over the course of the semester but you are encouraged to write more. These online discussions will be the jumping off point for in-class discussion. There are five required texts for this course: The Tales of the Heike Burton Watson & Haruo Shirane trans. Legends of the Samurai Sato Hiroaki (LOS) Code of the Samurai Thomas Cleary trans. Ch shingura: The Treasury of Loyal Retainers Donald Keene trans. Musui s Story Katsu Kokichi Additional readings will be made available in pdf format in the Materials section of Blackboard. These readings are identified on the syllabus with a mark. Frequently used texts (and the abbreviations by which they are identified on the syllabus) are listed below and are also on reserve at the library. Classical Japanese Prose Helen Craig McCullough ed. Sources of Japanese Tradition vol. 1 William deBary et. al. Sources of Japanese Tradition vol. 2 William deBary et. al. Early Modern Japanese Literature Haruo Shirane ed. (CJP) (SJT1) (SJT2) (EMJL) In addition to the required readings some days also list reco

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