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Literature Courses

The literature courses typically consist of two to six sessions, each two hours in length. Recent subjects include Journey to the West, Chinese poet Qu Yuan, Ottoman Empire history and culture, the Old Testament, Japanese poetry, Chinese classical literature Jin Ping Mei, the Ramayana, Tale of Genji, and Hindu mythology.

Spring 2026 Literature Course The “Floating World Fiction” of Ihara Saikaku

David Gundry

This course will introduce three key works by Ihara Saikaku (1642–1693), widely acclaimed as early-Tokugawa Japan’s greatest writer of fiction. The first lecture will outline the historical and cultural context of Saikaku’s stories and novels: the status-group system imposed by the Tokugawa regime; the rapid growth of cities in 17th-century Japan, the expansion of a […]

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