UW-Madison offers both M.A. and Ph.D.
programs in Japanese literature. Professors Ridgely and
D’Etcheverry train students in a variety of eras and
genres, with particular strengths in Heian fiction and
poetry and the experimental, cross-media offerings of the
post-war avant-garde. Our theoretical perspectives are
equally eclectic: D’Etcheverry favors new historical
explorations of text and audience, while Ridgely prefers
the insights of cultural and visual studies. Both of us,
however, demand clarity and rigor in our own work and that
of our students. We consider this combination of
intellectual flexibility and shared commitment to
fundamentals to be one of the subtler strengths of our
program. Students will leave our program conversant with
several approaches to Japanese literature as well as a
particular area of expertise.
In addition to our own offerings, we encourage students to
take courses with some of the award-winning faculty who
teach about Japan in other departments here, such as
History, Anthropology, and Comparative Literature. The UW
is particularly strong in modern Japan, with seven
professors teaching and writing about it from both
humanistic and quantitative perspectives. However, our
well-respected specialists in medieval art, religious
history and Kabuki and one of the best university
collections of woodblock prints in the world
(E.B. Van Vleck
Collection) make
the UW a wonderful place to study pre-modern culture and
history, too. This unusual assembly of scholars, with
their distinct areas of expertise and modes of
argumentation, is an invaluable resource for our
students. Once again, it allows students to broaden
their vision while honing the skills necessary for
research. Both sets of course offerings, both within the
Japanese literature program and beyond it, also help our
students to develop the range and flexibility necessary
for a good classroom teacher, our second but equally
important objective for them.
Graduate
Program in Japanese Literature