Homepage for SAA Fall 2015 "Women of The Tale of Genji"

Contact me at: jwallace@berkeley.edu

Handouts distributed

• Week One
• Week Two
• Week Three
• Week Four
• Week Five – Murasaki's last poem
• Week Five – Rokujo-in Estate
• Week Five – Genealogy for Chapter 45
• Week Six
• "Database of women in The Tale of Genji"

Schedule

Week One – Sep 13 (classroom, Asian Art Museum)

• No reading assigned for this day. You might want to read "The Sensualist" (The New Yorker, July 20, 2015) or the introduction to The Tale of Genji in whatever version you plan to read the narrative.
• Here is a page discussing the three major translations that you can consider reading. (It is, I suppose, possible to attend this class without reading the work but I think you leverage your time in the room much better if you have become involved in the details of the story. I will only have time for the most basic of plot summary comments.) If you are in a hurry to begin, most of these are available on short notice in paper copy locally but if not here is an electronic version of Seidensticker that isn't perfect but workable and Washburn is available through Amazon Kindle.

No meeting on Sep 20

Week Two – Sep 27 (classroom, Asian Art Museum) *Folsom Street Fair starts at 11AM I believe.

• Read chapters 1-9 (about 190 pages)
• First half hour, general lecture
• Second half hour, Woman 1 (decided by group from among these: Kiritsubo, Fujitsubo, Kokiden, Aoi, Murasaki, Yugao, Rokujo, Utsusemi / Cicada Shell, Oborozukiyo / Misty Moon, Suetsumuhana / Safflower)
• Third half hour, Woman 2 (same)
• Fourth half hour, Woman 3 (same)

These are the questions that I asked participants to perhaps jot down notes/response onto index cards (please include the number if you hand me a card next time)

• ONE — Which woman has the most difficult fate in this segment?
• TWO — Does some woman act, or react, or have private thoughts that you cannot fully agree with?
• THREE — Which woman do you think is managing her situation the best, recognizing that all women have limited options in what they can do and say?
• FOUR — If you are reading a different translation, any comments?
• FIVE — General cultural questions, especially if they are about women.

No meeting on Oct 4

Week Three – Oct 11 (classroom, Asian Art Museum)

• Read chapters 10-15 (about 122 pages)

Week Four – Oct 18 (1750 Taylor St.)

• Read chapters 16-23 (about 126 pages) *We skip a large portion of the text at this point (that is, for next week). You are invited to read this missing chapters but I will lecture next week on the assumption that participants needs some filling in of the story. We are skipping not because this portion of the text is less important but because of the size of the narrative. I chose this area to set aside.

Week Five – Oct 25 (classroom, Asian Art Museum)

• Read chapters 39-49 (about 220 pages) *We are now in what are called the "Uji chapters" of the work. This final 1/3 of the narrative is considered darker than when Genji was still alive.

No meeting Nov 1

Week Six – Nov 8 (classroom, Asian Art Museum)

• Read chapters 50-54 (about 151 pages)

Woman of The Tale of Genji

I am collecting information as we go along on the women we read. While that will be distributed as a hard-copy handout, the newest version of the material will be here. (If there are major changes, I might reprint the page but it is possible that changes will only be here online.) Go to: SAA Fall 2015 Genji - Women.

Two sharing pages for this course

If you would like to read what participants might be saying about the translation of The Tale of Genji that they are reading, or learn how to share your thoughts, please go to our Translation Blog page.

If you would like to see what participants might be wanting to share with the group (random thoughts, web links, and such), or learn how to share something with the group, please go to our Participants Sharing Things page.