Proposal for a "Project Eli 2nd Generation" Project
For JAPANESE 200aG/LITERATURE 175sG, "The Japanese Classics," Fall 2006
Edward Kamens (Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures)
Japanese 200a/Literatures 175a, "The Japanese Classics," is a literature-in-translation
course providing an overview of pre-modern Japanese literature (8th through 19th
centuries) with extensive in-depth readings and analysis of many canonical works. The
course has no pre-requisite; no knowledge of Japanese language is assumed or necessary;
it is open to all students (and is cross-listed as a graduate course to accommodate the
needs of some Master's programs and doctoral programs in departments other than
EALL.) I conceive of it as an introduction to pre-modern Japanese literature that also
serves as a means of studying and learning about how to study literature as such, in
particular the pre-modern literature of a traditional culture distinct from those of Western
Europe and the Americas. The course is required for majors in Japanese and can count
toward the requirements of a number of other majors including East Asian Studies and
the Literature major. It usually attracts an enrollment of between 15-22 students. The
course was last offered in fall 2004; the syllabus from that semester is attached.
The class format is two 75-minute meetings a week, and the class hour is usually a
combination of lecture and informal discussion. At some class meetings, students have
made pre-scheduled short presentations that served as the focus of discussion; in others,
open question/answer period provided the opportunity for student participation. In this
way, the class blends both the lecture and seminar formats. There is no mid-term or final.
Three papers have been required in the past: 1600 words in the third or fourth week of
classes, on an assigned topic; 2200 words in the 10th week of class, on one of several
suggested topics; and 3600 words, on any topic (including revision and expansion of an
earlier paper) at the end of the term. In some terms, it has been possible to devote one or
more class sessions or parts thereof to open classroom discussion of paper topics
(referring to completed papers or papers in progress) as a form of workshop. The course
usually has a Teaching Fellow (TF 2) assigned to assist in instruction in the course: the
TF has usually read and marked papers (I do as well, so each student has received two
sets of comments), made himself or herself available for discussion of readings and
paper-topics in development, and generally assisted me in communications with students
outside of class; occasionally, the TF has given a lecture or led discussion in class.
This course has been designated as one of the Yale College courses that members of the
class of 2009 and later can use to fulfill the new writing skills (WR) requirement. There
is therefore an expectation for expanded opportunities for students to focus on writing,
revision, workshops and other exercises that place an emphasis on writing per se. One of
the goals of this proposal will be to incorporate these writing exercises into a more
imaginative and innovative set of assignments and opportunities for revising and for
workshops in specially scheduled section-like meetings that could be conducted by the
TF and/or by me.
The Visual Resources Collection, a division of the Art and Architecture Library, has a
substantial inventory of catalogued digital images of works of art, buildings, city plans,
gardens, maps and other visual materials that can be used to augment the readings in this
course and provide illustrative, orienting, historicizing and contextualizing analogs to the
readings. (Many of the works read in the course were originally conceived as multi-media
creations involving both "text and image" and/or served in later times as rich subjects and
points of reference for visual art in many different media). In addition, the Yale
University Art Gallery's collection of Japanese art includes two outstanding works—
folding screens dating from the late 17th or 18th century—that represent scenes from two
major works studied in the course: The Tale of Genji (11th c.) and The Tale of the Heike
(14th c.). Although these works are currently in storage (during the renovation of
YUAG), arrangements can be made for students to view these works of art during the
term while they are studying these literary texts. Digital images of these works in their
entirety and of many details are also available in YUAG databases (and I have some of
my own as well), but these are not generally available for or particularly well suited to
instructional purposes. (n.b. I am writing an article about these two screens as examples
of the use of the screen format for illustration of classical Japanese prose narratives, for
publication in a special edition of the Yale University Art Gallery Bulletin in 2007).
YUAG also has very rich holdings in wood-block printed ukiyoe art of the early modern
period, which could provide another rich source of illustrative and interactive material for
the course (corresponding to material covered in the last three weeks of the syllabus), but
I am not very familiar with this corpus of works and, to the best of my knowledge, they
have not been catalogued in great detail. In addition, there are a number of illustrated
books, scroll paintings, and other works of text and visual art in the Beinecke Library and
in the rare books division of the East Asia Collection of Sterling Memorial Library that
could be added to the base of images used in interaction with the material of this course.
I have been working with Ellen Hammond, Curator of the East Asia Collection, on
various plans for study and cataloguing of these rare and medium-rare books, and it is
possible that some connections between that project and the teaching of these course
could be realized.
In past semesters, I have at times used slides and/or digital images of these various visual
materials to augment almost every class lecture and discussion, and I have often proposed
paper topics that focus on them among the various topics from which students may select.
But because of the poor quality of cataloguing in the Insight application, lack of good
user support for this application, and other problems with this software and its networkbased interface, and also because of a tendency toward allowing discussion of these
visual images to dominate discussion of the literary texts, I did not use visual image
projection in any but a few of the class sections in fall 2004. I did show video/DVD clips
of the Noh plays studied in one session of the class. Japanese film adaptations of two of
the literary works read in the final two class sessions listed on the syllabus are available
in DVD and/or VHS format, and I have shown clips from these as well. One of the goals
for this proposal is to find a more effective and consistent way to work with these
materials in class sessions.
It is important to emphasize that the course is not a course in visual studies, art history, or
film, so the role of these materials and the form of interaction with them needs careful
consideration. Their use in the class has, in any case, always met with positive responses
from students. In order to improve use of digital images in the classroom, it will be of
great help if the class can be assigned to a classroom with permanently installed
projection equipment and screen or "smartboard," and the provision of strong, expert
support from the Visual Resources Collection staff will also be needed in order to correct
errors in cataloguing, update the image database, and add others. The Council on East
Asian Studies has provided a grant to the Visual Resources Collection for a staff person
specifically devoted to the cataloguing of digital images of Japanese art, so I would hope
that this person could provide such support as I have described here. Without such
support, I can't envision that time devoted to re-integration of visual materials into this
course would be time well spent.
With the help of the Project Eli 2nd Generation team and its various consultants, I would
like to address several goals for change and innovation in the teaching of this course in
fall 2006.
1. develop new conceptions of the writing assignments, with formal provision for
revision of some assignments and the incorporation of productive workshops on
writing to be scheduled at appropriate dates during the term. This could be done
in consultation with the staff of the Writing Center, and could involve special
training for both the TF and for me.
2. develop new ways of integrating selected visual materials in Yale's digital
collections and in the Yale University Art Gallery, Beinecke, and SML, and Film
Study collections in ways that treat them in meaningful interaction with the
literary texts studied in the course
3. Realization of goals 1 and 2 above might involve, in part, some special outsideof-class sessions in which students enrolled in the class would examine materials
in situ in these various collections and then write papers based on observation and
interaction with these materials as a form of enrichment of their experience of
reading the related literary texts in translation that are assigned in the course.
These exercises might also serve to form a bridge between this course and courses
taught on Japanese art history, Japanese cinema, and other areas taught by my
colleagues in EALL, history of art, and other departments and programs, while
maintaining the necessary distinctions among the methodologies for teaching,
learning, and research in these respective disciplines.
If support of work toward these goals can be provided, I would be interested in working
in these areas at various times during the current term and during the early part of
summer 2006 to prepare for teaching of the course in the coming term.