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ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES / ENGLISH 244
JAPANESE NATURE WRITING

Spring 2007, MW 1:50-3:20, Swart 13
David Barnhill, barnhill@uwosh.edu, 424-0644
David Barnhill website

Environtmental Studies website
English Department website

This course examines the views of nature in Japanese literature. Although we will consider Japanese literature from 700 to the present, we will have three focuses: classical poetry and in particular the monk-poet Saigyō; Matsuo Bashō (1644-1694), who wrote linked verse, hokku (haiku), haibun (poeNovember 12, 2007ist who won the Nobel Prize for Literature. Throughout the course we will focus strongly on the vision of nature embodied in Japanese literature: the conception of nature, its value, and the relationship between humans and nature. We also will consider the religious dimension of that writing. In order to deepen sensitivity to nature in Japan , we will periodically examine East Asian landscape painting and Japanese garden art.

COURSE SYLLABUS (Word document)

STUDENT PANELS

ARTICLES ON E-RESERVE
Barnhill, David Landis. “Aesthetics and Nature in China and Japan.” Encyclopedia of Religion and Nature. Ed. Bron Taylor. London, England: Thoemmes Continuum, 2005.

----. "Bashō as Bat: Wayfaring and Anti-Structure in the Journals of Matsuo Bashō (1644-1694)." Journal of Asian Studies 49 (May, 1990): 274-90.

----. “Buddhism – East Asian.” Encyclopedia of Religion and Nature. Ed. Bron Taylor. London, England: Thoemmes Continuum, 2005.

----. "Impermanence, Fate, and the Journey: Bashō and the Problem of Meaning." Religion 16 (1986): 323-41.

----. “Japanese Gardens .” Encyclopedia of Religion and Nature. Ed. Bron Taylor. London, England: Thoemmes Continuum, 2005.

----. “Kawabata Yasunari.” Encyclopedia of Religion and Nature. Ed. Bron Taylor. London, England: Thoemmes Continuum, 2005.

----. “Major Nature Images in Bashō’s Hokku.” Bashō’s Haiku: Selected Poetry of Matsuo Bashō. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2004. 269-78.

----. “Matsuo Bashō.” Encyclopedia of Religion and Nature. Ed. Bron Taylor. London, England: Thoemmes Continuum, 2005.

----. "Of Bashōs and Buddhisms.” Eastern Buddhist 32.2 (Fall 2000): 170-201.

----. “Zōka: The Creative in Bashō’s View of Nature and Art.” Matsuo Bashō's Poetic Spaces: Exploring Haikai Intersections. Ed. Eleanor Kerkham. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006. 33-60.

Ellwood, Robert, and Richard Pilgrim. “Conceptual Worlds.” Japanese Religion: A Cultural Perspective. Englewood Cliffs, N.J: Prentice-Hall, 1985.

Kinsley, David R. “Buddhism: Ecological Themes.” Ecology and Religion: Ecological Spirituality in Cross-Cultural Perspective. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1995. 84-97.

LaFleur, William R. “Saigyō and the Buddhist Value of Nature.” Nature in Asian Traditions of Thought. Ed. J. Baird Callicott and Roger T. Ames. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989. 183-208.

Ueda, Makoto. “Impersonality in Poetry: Bashō on the Art of the Haiku.” Literary and Art Theories in Japan . Cleveland: Western Reserve University Press, 1967. 145-72.

BOOK ON TRADITIONAL RESERVE (AND RECOMMENDED FOR PURCHASE)

Barnhill, David Landis. Basho's Haiku: Selected Poems of Matsuo Basho. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2004.

STUDY AIDS

Asian Religions

Buddhism

Buddhism Review

Chinese Views of Nature and Art

Conceptual Worlds: Descriptive and Poetic Realities in Japanese Religion [Ellwood and Pilgrim]

Glossary of Terms Relevant to Haiku

Issues in the Study of Japanese Views of Nature

Japanese History: Early Japan

Japanese History: Medieval and Tokugawa Periods