East Asian Humanities Major Requirements

The East Asian Humanities major brings into focus the literatures and cultures of East Asia by expanding the boundaries of national traditions and bringing them in dialogue with each other.  The curriculum seeks to prepare students for cross-regional comparative work with an emphasis on cultural and literary analysis, media studies and interdisciplinary humanities. 

Course work in the major may be drawn from two or more national traditions in East Asia (China, Japan, South Korea, among others) touching on both the modern and classical periods.  Students in the major must complete 8 courses (or 40 units). The program of study offers a great deal of flexibility.  Though we recommend that students acquire a reading knowledge of at least one foreign language in their coursework, the major can be completed entirely through courses taught in English.

***To declare the Major, please schedule an appointment with the departmental advisor on Calendly. For quick questions about requirements, you can email her at cassandrajj@berkeley.edu. For questions or problems related to enrollment or placement exams, please contact Presi Diaz at diaz.mp@berkeley.edu***

MAJOR REQUIREMENTS

(32 UNITS)

Lower Division

(8 UNITS)

Two Lower Division Courses, together covering at least two geographical or

cultural spheres.

BUDDSTD/EALANG C 50 Introduction to Buddhism

Chinese 7A Introduction to Modern Chinese Literature and Culture

Chinese 7B Introduction to Pre-modern Chinese Literature and Culture

Japanese 7A Introduction to Modern Japanese Literature and Culture

Japanese 7B Introduction to Modern Pre-modern Literature and Culture

Korean 7A Introduction to Modern Korean Literature and Culture

Korean 7B Introduction to Pre-modern Chinese Literature and Culture

Upper Division

Two Anchor Courses

(8 UNITS)

Chinese 186 Confucius and His Interpreters

EALANG 101 Catastrophe, Memory, and Narrative: Comparative Responses to

Atrocity in the Twentieth Century

EALANG 103 Writing, Visuality, and the Power of Images in East Asia

EALANG 106 Expressing the Ineffable in China and Beyond

EALANG 107 War and Empire in East Asia

EALANG 110 Bio-ethical Issues in East Asian Thought

EALANG 112 The East Asian 1960s

EALANG 119 The History of Heaven

EALANG 125 Writing the Limits of Empathy

EALANG C128 Buddhism in Contemporary Society

EALANG 180 East Asian Film: Directors and their Contexts

Four Elective courses

(16 Units)

Majors will be required to select four electives that span at least two regions across East Asia, rather than focusing on a single geographic, linguistic, or cultural sphere as in the existing Chinese and Japanese majors, or the Korean minor. These courses may include classical languages, and all courses numbered 101 and above, excluding Fourth and Fifth-year Advanced Language and Readings classes. A maximum of one year of upper-division courses in any modern language may count for the major. In addition, two of the above four courses must focus on the premodern period and two must focus on the modern period, so that students derive a deep sense of East Asian cultures across historical time.

These electives may be drawn from the following list of approved courses in premodern and modern East Asian literatures and cultures:

Premodern Electives:

Chinese 110: Introduction to Literary Chinese

Chinese C116: Buddhism in China

Chinese 120: Ancient Chinese Prose

Chinese 122: Ancient Chinese Poetry

Chinese 130: Topics in Daoism

Chinese 134: Readings in Chinese Classical Poetry

Chinese 136: Readings in Medieval Prose

Chinese C140: Readings in Chinese Buddhist Texts

Chinese 155: Readings in Vernacular Literature

Chinese 176: Bad Emperors: Fantasies of Sovereignty and Transgression in the

Chinese Tradition

Chinese 178: Traditional Chinese Drama

Chinese 179: Exploring Chinese Premodern Novels

Chinese 180: The Story of the Stone

Japan C115: Buddhism and Its Culture in Japan

Japan 116: Introduction to the Religions of Japan

Japan 120: Introduction to Classical Japanese

Japan 130: Classical Japanese Poetry

Japan 132: Premodern Japanese Diary (Nikki) Literature

Japan 140: Heian Prose

Japan C141: Introductory Readings in Japanese Buddhist Texts

Japan 144: Edo Literature

Japan 170: Classical Japanese Literature in Translation

Korean 130: Genre and Occasion in Traditional Korean Poetry

Korean 140: Narrating Persons and Objects in Traditional Korean Prose

Mongoln 110: Literary Mongolian

Mongoln 116: The Mongol Empire

Mongoln C117: Mongolian Buddhism

Tibetan 110AB: Intensive Readings in Tibetan

Tibetan C114: Tibetan Buddhism

Tibetan 116: Traditional Tibet

Tibetan 119: Tibetan Medicine in History and Society

Tibetan C154: Death, Dreams, and Visions in Tibetan Buddhism

Modern Electives:

Chinese 153: Reading Taiwan

Chinese 156: Modern Chinese Literature

Chinese 157: Contemporary Chinese Literature

Chinese 158: Reading Chinese Cities

Chinese 172: Contemporary Chinese Language Cinema

Chinese 187: Literature and Media Culture in Taiwan

Chinese 188: Popular Media in Modern China

Japan 155: Modern Japanese Literature

Japan 159: Contemporary Japanese Literature

Japan 160: Introduction to Japanese Linguistics (Grammar)

Japan 161: Introduction to Japanese Linguistics (Usage)

Japan 163: Translation: Theory and Practice

Japan 173: Modern Japanese Literature in Translation

Japan 178: Murakami Haruki and Miyazaki Hayao: The Politics of Japanese

Culture from the Bubble to the Present

Japan 180: Ghosts and the Modern Literary Imaginations

Japan 181: Reframing Disasters: Fukushima, Before and After

Japan 185: Introduction to Japanese Cinema

Japan 188: Japanese Visual Culture: Introduction to Anime

Japan 189: Topics in Japanese Film

Korean 150: Modern Korean Poetry

Korean 153: Readings in Modern Korean Literature

Korean 155: Modern Korean Fiction

Korean 157: Contemporary Korean Fiction

Korean 170: Intercultural Encounters in Korean Literature

Korean 172: Gender and Korean Literature

Korean 174: Modern Korean Fiction in Translation

Korean 180: Critical Approaches to Modern Korean Literature

Korean 185: Picturing Korea

Korean 186: Introduction to Korean Cinema

Korean 187: History and Memory in Korean Cinema

Korean 188: Cold War Culture in Korea: Literature and Film

Korean 189: Korean Film Authors

Mongoln 118: Modern Mongolia

Tibetan 115: Contemporary Tibet

Tibetan 118: The Politics of Modern Tibet

One course may be taken in another department, with the approval of the Student Affairs Officer. This course may be chosen from any department in the Division of the Arts and Humanities (https://ls.berkeley.edu/arts_and_humanities), or from the following departments in the Social Sciences: African American Studies, Anthropology, Cognitive Psychology, Ethnic Studies, Geography, Gender and Women’s Studies, Global Studies, History, Linguistics, Psychology, and Sociology.