The Research Project 3 class which I teach is about “border-crossing” or “ekkyo” in the context of contemporary Japan, and more specifically contemporary literature (novels and poetry) written in the Japanese language. So far this semester, we have been reading some representative works by the novelists Levy Hideo and Wen Yuju, and poems by Arthur Binard and Tian Yuan, discussing topics such as exoticization, “how does the author appear in the text?” and “what are the possibilities and limitations of multiple languages in a single text?”. Meanwhile, students are putting together their own research report, where they apply the border-crossing issues raised in class to a topic of their own choice. Next week they will each introduce an English-language text/material relevant to their research topic.
