Teaching of English and American Literature in Japan: A Brief Survey

Teaching of English and American Literature in Japan: A Brief Survey

Many scenes of heated discussion have recently been witnessed in Japan on the question of education of English literature in colleges and universities. A growing number of Japanese teachers of English literature are now trying to help students understand cultures of the English-speaking world, some of them particularly interested in what is called "cultural studies"; meanwhile, teachers supporting the traditional view, not necessarily elderly teachers, maintain that teaching of literature is a matter of education, not a matter of literature, and cultural studies is a branch of sociology, not of literature. The culture-oriented method is in fashion now because it keeps pace not only with recent trends of literary criticism but with various social changes in the post-War Japan. but nobody is able to see clearly if it solves the difficult question of education of literature once and for all, as is shown by a questionnaire made by a literary journal in 2002.