Ascetics Aesthetics Of Medieval Japan

The course is a social and intellectual history of pre-modern Japan, mapping both institutional shifts and the distinct cultures that emerged in the early Buddhist temple complexes of ancient Nara, in women's quarters of the Heian court of Kyoto, in the medieval capita l of Kamakura, among the samurai of the Wa rring States Period and in the tea houses and pleasure districts of Edo (early Tokyo). The course will engage the Japanese experience from a wide range of thematic and cultural perspectives. Themes will include political and military cultures, the machinations of court intrigue, the brilliant and melancholy litera ry productions of aristocratic women, the rise of a Buddhist intelligentsia, and the emergence of the high arts that have come to define what we all know and love about Japanese culture today.