On your Oral Presentations

Your oral presentations do allow room to accomodate your personal encounter with Tales of Genji. Now, in support of the thesis for our course, I happen to be best interested in the variety and potency of Lady Shikibu's character portaits of the women in Genji's life. As the lectures will further develop, my vector into Tales of Genji at this stage of my (likely, life-long) encounter with the great work is that the female characters are the strength of the text and its structural centre -- Prince Genji is portrayed in his relation to each of the female characters as a (personal-political and erotic) idealisation of what masuclinity represents for her.
So, if your presentations add to our depth of understanding of any of the many female characters -- for example, in relation to their setting or significant proximate flora -- all to the good. You might also wish (or not) to cast your presentation in terms of any of the Japanese æsthetic concepts introduced in lecture.
But, that all being said, if your find some feature of Genji that captures your interest and is unrelated to any of these dimensions of the text, you are certainly encouraged to take your preferred approach. Simply discuss with me in advance, according to the criterion listed in the syllabus.

Schedule
January 31st: K.I.
February 2nd: M.H. February 7th: A.O.
February 9th: H.M., C.G. February 14th: K.V.L., M.E.
February 16th: M.Z., L.J. February 23rd: R.L., A.C.
February 28th: J.A., K.I. March 2nd: S.B., O.G.
March 7th: M.W. March 9th: C.L.
March 14th: S.M. March 16th: R.M., J.R.
March 21th: M.R. March 23rd: H.B.
March 28th: G.W. March 30th: A.O'S.
April 8th: A.W.