Japanese Literature and Cinema

A photo of older movie posters outside of a wooden building.

A cinema in Ponto-cho (a neighborhood in Kyoto) displays old movie posters outside. The building itself is of a more traditional style—something for which Ponto-cho is famous. (Photo courtesy of sejunco on Flickr. CC-BY-NC-SA.)

Instructor(s)

MIT Course Number

21G.065 / 21A.142 / 21G.593

As Taught In

Fall 2013

Level

Undergraduate / Graduate

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Course Description

Course Features

Course Description

This course surveys both cinematic and literary representations of diverse eras and aspects of Japanese culture such as the classical era, the samurai age, wartime Japan and the atomic bombings, social change in the postwar period, and the appropriation of foreign cultural themes, with an emphasis on the modern period. Directors include Akira Kurosawa and Hiroshi Teshigahara. Authors include Kobo Abe and Yukio Mishima. Films shown have subtitles in English. Taught in English.

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Related Content

Ian Condry. 21G.065 Japanese Literature and Cinema. Fall 2013. Massachusetts Institute of Technology: MIT OpenCourseWare, https://ocw.mit.edu. License: Creative Commons BY-NC-SA.


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