Course Title: From Meiji to Murakami: Japanese Short Stories from the 20th and 21st Centuries
Instructor: Pheobe Oathout, A&S ’23 (MFA)
Brought to you by Odyssey
March 24 - April 28, 2026
Tuesdays, 7:00PM - 9:00PM ET (6 Sessions)
Virtual via Zoom
Course Description: “Meiji to Murakami” is a course available to continuing education students looking to study a literary aesthetic while playing with it in quick, individual exercises. All texts will be read in English translations.
For readers and writers alike, this course explores the art of the Japanese short story—from the campy humor of old masters to the delicate experimentation of contemporaries. The goals of this course are to introduce students to twentieth and twenty-first century Japanese short prose, and to create work that engages with the styles and concepts of these writers. As we read, students will reflect on several questions: How has Japanese identity, statehood, and culture been represented over the years? How have writers grappled with Westernization while still remaining distinctly Japanese? How do these works respond to the growing popularity of Japanese culture abroad while resisting maudlin narratives about samurai and seppuku? Do the pieces we read about 9-to-5 office dread feel distinct from how Americans discuss wage labor?
Weekly topics will include Japan and the West, The Comedy of Japanese Manners, Reimagining the Samurai, Modern Life and Office Dread, Postwar Reckoning, and Natural versus Manmade Calamities. Stories we read will include “Rashōmon” by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa, “Town of Cats” by Haruki Murakami, “The Victim” by Jun'ichirō Tanizaki, and “The Silver Fifty-Sen Pieces” by Yasunari Kawabata, among others.
As we reflect on these topics, students will write short-short fiction or nonfiction that draws upon the aesthetics and sensibilities of the authors we read. These pieces may be flash pieces or beginnings of longer work, produced during class time and not required to share publicly—although students will be given the opportunity to if they like.
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