Issues

ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES / ENGLISH 244: JAPANESE NATURE WRITING

What is nature? What does it consist of? How does it work? Is there some other realm or dimension of reality? Is nature sacred, and if so in what way?
What is our relationship with nature? Are humans fully a part of nature? Are we somehow unique among all of creation? How are culture and literature related to nature?
What value does nature have? What is included and excluded in that sense of value? What kind of value? Are there varying degrees of value?
What is the ideal form of consciousness of nature? Is there a sense of unity with what is perceived, and if so what kind of unity? What types of feelings are included and excluded? What is the process of achieving that ideal consciousness and state of mind?

What is beauty? What is beautiful? What makes something beautiful?
What is involved in the creative act of literature? What does it require? What state of mind is involved?
What is the relationship between the artist and nature?
What types of feelings are included and excluded in the highest literature?
What notion of the self is involved with this view of literature?

What is sacred? What has ultimate reality? What is the relationship between the sacred and the natural world?
What is our relationship with the sacred?
What is the ideal concerning the sacred? Mystical state? Salvation? Spiritual powers?
What is the religious process of achieving the spiritual ideal?
What keeps us from that spiritual ideal? What is the spiritual problem?