Session 23—Tu, April 10: Ibuse Masuji's Black Rain (1965) Session 2 • Comments on— not screening of— “Grave of the Fireflies” (1988)

Topics for this session

❖ Ibuse Masuji—Black Rain (1965)
◇ Tamiki Hara—"Land of Heart's Desire" (1951)
◇ Comments on next session's "Grave of the Fireflies" (Takahata Isao, 1988)

Thoughts*

Hara's short story is included as a very different representative of A-bomb literature in Japan. It's poetic approach is quite different from Ibuse's style.

Attendance for the screening of "Grave of the Fireflies" is optional. That means that today is expected attendance, that the next session is optional in full, and that the following session has expected attendance for half of the session (since the movie does not take that long to complete).

Required—to be completed for today's session

✓ Continue reading Black Rain as far as you can.
✓ Tamiki Hara—"Land of Heart's Desire" (1951) [bSpace, pdf]

EXTRA CREDIT opportunity: If you have read to the end of Black Rain and are interested in extra credit, please write a strong, one page statement that answers this question: Aside from learning more narrative events and how the narrative concludes, what did you gain (not "what would one gain") from reading Black Rain in full? Submit your page (as an email, not an attached document) using J7B_LASTNAME_classname ibuserain . Deadline is one week from today. If your answer is very good or excellent, you will receive credit for it but this may not be reported anywhere even if recorded in the GB. That depends on my time situation.

Texts, multimedia notes, links*

❖◊ nothing yet ...

Other*

nothing yet ...

*THOUGHTS: Reading before class probably helps follow session content, reading afterwards might help consolidate notes, revisiting for tests is recommended. Content might be added before class or anytime up until about 24 hours ahead of a midterm.

*TEXTS, MULTIMEDIA NOTES, LINKS: If I have read from something, shown something or presented audio, I usually include that information here. If I consider it testable material, it will definitely be listed here. Miscellaneous material that I show may or may not be listed. I often add material at the last minute and hope to have time later to note it, but often cannot.

*OTHER: When possible I note here names, places, and other details that I have mentioned in a lecture that would otherwise not be accessible in the assigned materials or easily located on your own. As with "TEXTS ..." this is usually sometime after class and, again, I might not be able to get around to doing it.