ABSTRACT
This chapter offers a genealogy of Japanese literary studies, with a special focus on the two terms that have been most commonly used to denote Japanese literature and literary studies in Japan since the early twentieth century: kokubungaku (national literature and its study) and nihon bungaku (Japanese literature). The genealogy concerns questions such as what constitutes bungaku, whose definition is neither stable nor static, corresponding to the changing notion and practice of literature not only within Japan but also in the rest of the world. The discussion also involves comparison of these terms with others such as kokugaku (national study), bungeigaku (study of literary art) and nihongo bungaku (literature in Japanese language and its study). By examining the historical usage of these terms, we can better understand the various issues surrounding the study of Japanese literature, and foreground conscious and unconscious assumptions, omissions, discrimination and marginalisation. After clarifying the socio-historical context and the construct of these terms, the chapter looks at some examples of new initiatives in Japanese literary studies in contemporary Japan and beyond. This final discussion will include an examination of how the scholarship within Japan has been received by those studying Japanese literature outside Japan.
