SAMANTHA AUDOLY

Asian Narratives in Comparative Perspective AY 2025-6
BA in Global Humanities

Instructor: Samantha Audoly
Course Classroom Code: bzc3a55r
Timetable: The course will meet twice a week according to the following schedule:
• Monday, 8:00–10:00, Laboratorio 3
• Saturday, 10:00–12:00, Sala Riunioni 1
Any changes to the schedule or classroom assignments will be communicated to students in advance.
Language of Instruction: English
Timetable: To be confirmed (see the classroom for updates). Classes will be held on-site, with the possibility of live streaming for implementing remote participation, subject to authorization by the programme coordinator.

Course Outline/Syllabus
Training Objectives:
This course explores the representation of gender dynamics in premodern Japanese literature through a comparative perspective. Particular attention is given to literary depictions of women and female experience, including forms of femininity that challenge or deviate from normative cultural models.
The course places special emphasis on the collective production and reception of literary works in premodern cultural environments, examining how texts were produced and read within literary communities. In this sense, premodern literary cultures will be considered as “fannish” environments in which literary creativity often emerged through shared interpretive practices and collaborative cultural participation. Through the analysis of texts from different genres, students will examine how gender roles, social expectations, and constructions of femininity are articulated and negotiated within these literary communities throughout Japanese ancient and early premodern literature. The course also aims to provide students with a foundational understanding of the historical development of Japanese literature and culture, while encouraging comparative reflection with selected literary traditions.
Overview:
The course examines the representation of gender dynamics and femininity in premodern Japanese literature within a comparative framework. Lectures will introduce the historical development of Japanese literary culture, providing the cultural and historical context necessary to understand the Japanese texts under discussion. The contexts in which those works were produced will be examined as early forms of participatory literary culture, in which readers and writers shared interpretive frameworks and contributed to the ongoing reinterpretation of existing narratives and motifs.
Through close readings of literary works from different genres, students will analyze how narratives construct female identity, negotiate gender roles, and represent both normative and non-normative forms of femininity. Selected European texts will be introduced during lectures to foster cross-cultural comparison with similar courtly or communal literary cultures. Students will also be encouraged to develop their own comparative analyses through presentations engaging with works from other literary traditions.
Evaluation method:
Assessment will consist of two components: a short presentation delivered during the course, in which students compare a Japanese literary work with a work from their own cultural tradition, and a final oral examination including a brief discussion (2–3 questions) on Japanese literature or on the works discussed during the course, with a specific focus on gender dynamics’ literary representation. The final grade will be calculated as the average of these two components and it will confer 6 formative credits, with grades ranging from a minimum of 18/30 to a maximum of 30/30, with honors awarded at the committee’s discretion.
Textbooks:
Suggested Background Reading
• D. Keene (1999), Seeds in the Heart: Japanese Literature from Earliest Times to the Late Sixteenth Century, New York: Columbia University Press.
• D. Keene (1999), World Within Walls: Japanese Literature of the Pre-Modern Era, 1600-1867, New York: Columbia University Press.
• H. Shirane, T. Suzuki, D. Lurie (2016), The Cambridge History of Japanese Literature, Cambridge: Cambridge University press.
• G. Allen, Intertextuality, The New Critical Idiom, Routledge: 2000.
• P. Widdowson, Literature, The New Critical Idiom, Routledge: 1999.
• H. Jenkins, “Textual poachers”, in The fan fiction studies reader, H. Hellekson e K. Busse, University of Iowa press: 2014, pp. 26-43.
Literary Texts Discussed in Class:
• L. Resplica Rodd; M. C. Henkenius, Kokinshu: a collection of poems ancient and modern, Cheng and Tsui, Boston, 1996
• F. Jensen, The Poetry of the Sicilian school, Garland, New York, 1986
• W. Whitehouse, Ochikubo monogatari, or The tale of the Lady Ochikubo, A Tenth Century Japanese Novel, Routledge, London, 2011
• A. Carter, Little Red Riding Hood, Cinderella, and other classic fairy tales of Charles Perrault, Penguin Books, New York, New York, 2008
• R. Tyler, The Tale of Genji, Penguin Publishing Group, 2006
• J. Bédier, The romance of Tristan and Iseut, Hackett Publishing Company, Indianapolis, 2013
• R. Backus, The Riverside Counselor's stories: vernacular fiction of late Heian Japan, Stanford University Press, Stanford, California, 1985
• E. Mason, The lais of Marie de France, Neeland Media LLC, [place of publication not identified], 2019
Supplementary Materials:
Supplementary reading materials and multimedia resources will be shared through the course's dedicated Google Classroom.