This course will focus on the themes of love, gender and sexuality in modern Japanese literature and popular culture. It will also explore the relationship between these themes and general concepts of “culture” and “history.” Is love a universal, immutable human emotion or is it one that varies with cultural tradition and according to historical period? What were Edo-period (1600-1868) conceptions of gender and sexuality? How were Western conceptions of love, gender and sexuality translated into Japanese? How did the Japanese reconfigure their traditional conceptions as the nation was transformed by modernization during the late 19th and early 20th centuries? The course offers students both a survey of major literary works from the modern period and a theoretical introduction to the field of cultural studies. Students wishing to obtain graduate credit for this course should register for 4 units.