Demonic goddesses, bird-women, sexy shamans, and snaky sorceresses have slipped and slithered their way through the pages of Japanese myth, history, and narrative from time immemorial.  Their presence in modern Japanese fiction has largely been treated as either suggestive of an author’s nostalgia for a mythic past or an aberrant fantasy. In this course we will examine the way the trope of the demonic woman has been used as a discrete literary strategy to either bolster or defy the "modern, phallic, national subject." Among the authors considered will be Izumi Kyôka, Kawabata Yasunari, Enchi Fumiko, Oba Minako, and Nakagami Kenji.  All readings will be in English translations.