Pacific Novel, fall 2001

Paper 1 assignment

Part of the work of writing is selection, so this assignment is in the form of a couple suggestions, rather than a specific topic. I would encourage you to adapt, or even ignore, these suggestions, and develop your own approach to our texts. The response papers have been wonderful, very engaged and thoughtful, and many of them would, more fully developed, make for great papers.

The paper should be a focussed discussion of two of our primary texts (Soseki, Tanizaki, Kawabata, Ozu, Kurosawa) that compares the ways they explore the question of change. Many of the works present this issue, thematically, in terms of a tension between generations. Many of them also frame the issue, formally, as a decision between different aesthetics—between different kinds of stories and different kinds of presentation. Consider the relation between the modern and the traditional in two of our texts.

You could also choose to focus on gender relations or gender roles as the site to explore such change. Or you could look at the issue of love, or friendship, or parents as the starting point.

Papers should be focussed (pick one solid claim to make about each text), and grounded in close readings of the text. The more specific your discussions, the stronger your paper will be.

This should be a five page paper. The page limit is not set in stone, but it gives the kind of paper you should write (a ten page paper does different things). This should be a focussed, analytic, explicative paper (not a full or broad account of the works but a close look at one aspect of them).

Papers are due in class Monday October 1 (remember we’re meeting in IMS room 2, basement of Falvey).