Fall 2024 Course Descriptions
Chinese Language and Literature Courses
The course is designed for students who are of non-Chinese origin and were not raised in a Chinese-speaking environment; or who are of Chinese origin but do not speak Chinese and whose parents do not speak Chinese. The course develops beginning learners’ functional language ability—the ability to use Mandarin Chinese in linguistically and culturally appropriate ways at the beginning level. It helps students acquire communicative competence in Chinese while sensitizing them to the links between language and culture.
The course is designed for students who are of non-Chinese origin and were not raised in a Chinese-speaking environment, or who are of Chinese origin but do not speak Chinese and whose parents do not speak Chinese. The course continues to focus on training students in the four language skills--speaking, listening, reading, and writing with a gradually increasing emphasis on basic cultural readings and developing intercultural competence. Prerequisites: Chinese 1A.
This course is designed for Chinese heritage students who have some speaking ability in Mandarin but little or no reading and writing skills in Chinese. The course leverages students’ prior knowledge of listening and speaking to advance their reading and writing skills to an intermediate level within one semester. The course focuses on addressing heritage students’ literacy needs in meaningful contexts through socio-culturally related topics. Hanyu Pinyin (a Chinese Romanization system) and both simplified and traditional characters are introduced. Prerequisites: Consent of instructor.
Elementary Cantonese 3A is designed for non-Chinese heritage learners with no prior knowledge of Cantonese, a regional variety of Chinese, introducing students to its use through oral, written and visual texts related to daily life. Topics include meeting people, shopping, leisure activities, telling the time, discussing daily routines, describing people and family members, and transportation, and students will compose texts in Cantonese that show the relationship between language and culture. Finally, the course develops students’ awareness of socio-culturally situated language use and their ability to compare and negotiate similarities and differences between the target culture and their own culture.
This course is designed for native and heritage Mandarin speakers. These students share the knowledge of standard Chinese writing system with Cantonese speakers. They have an interest in speaking Cantonese and learning a Chinese subculture shared among Cantonese speakers. This course will introduce students to its use through oral, written and visual texts related to daily life. Topics include meeting people, shopping, leisure activities, telling the time, discussing daily routines, describing people and family members, transportation, and students will compose texts in Cantonese. Students will focus on vocabulary, linguistic knowledge, culture through expression analysis, and practical use of language. Prerequisites: Consent of instructor.
Elementary Taiwanese is designed to allow learners with no prior knowledge of Chinese language to build familiarity with Taiwanese (or Southern Min), a regional variety of Chinese, through oral, written and visual texts related to daily life. This course is the first part of a two-semester sequence designed to equip students with the basic language skills needed in everyday life situations. There are no prerequisites for this course. The course develops students’ awareness of socio-culturally situated language use and their ability to compare and negotiate similarities and differences between the target culture and their own culture.
The first in a two-semester sequence, introducing students to Chinese literature in translation. In addition to literary sources, a wide range of philosophical and historical texts will be covered, as well as aspects of visual and material culture. 7A covers early China through late medieval China, up to and including the Yuan Dynasty (14th century); the course will also focus on the development of sound writing.
The course is designed for students who are of non-Chinese origin and were not raised in a Chinese-speaking environment, or who are of Chinese origin but do not speak Chinese and whose parents do not speak Chinese. The course deals with lengthy conversations as well as narrative and descriptive texts in both simplified and traditional characters. It helps students to express themselves in speaking and writing on a range of topics and raises their awareness of the connection between language and culture to foster the development of communicative competence. Prerequisites: Chinese 1 or Chinese 1B; or consent of instructor
The course takes students to a higher level of competence in Chinese language and culture and develops students’ critical linguistic and cultural awareness. It surveys social issues and values on more abstract topics in a changing China. Through the development of discourse and cultural knowledge in spoken and written Chinese, students learn to interpret subtle textual meanings in texts and contexts as well as reflect on the world and themselves and express themselves using a variety of genres. Prerequisites: Chinese 10 or Chinese 10B.
This course advances students’ linguistic and cultural competence through the development of critical literacy skills. It guides students to become more sophisticated language users equipped with linguistic, pragmatic, and textual knowledge in discussions, reading, writing, and translation. Students reflect on the world and themselves through the lens of the target language and culture and become more competent in operating between English and Chinese and between American culture and Chinese culture. Students learn to recognize a second version of Chinese characters. Prerequisites: Chinese 10X; or consent of instructor
The course is designed to further develop students’ advanced-mid level language proficiency and intercultural competence. It uses authentic readings on Chinese social, political, and journalistic issues, supplemented by newspaper articles. To develop students’ self-learning abilities and help them to link the target language to their real world experience, students’ agency in learning is promoted through critical reading and rewriting and through comparing linguistic and cultural differences. Prerequisites: Chinese 100B or Chinese 100XB; or consent of instructor.
The first half of a one-year introductory course in literary Chinese, introducing key features of grammar, syntax, and usage, along with the intensive study of a set of readings in the language. Readings are drawn from a variety of pre-Han and Han-Dynasty sources. Prerequisites: Chinese 10, 10B, 10X, or 10Y is recommended but not required.
This course is an introduction to the history of Buddhism in China from its beginnings in the early centuries CE to the present day. Through engagement with historical scholarship, primary sources in translation, and Chinese Buddhist art, we will explore the intellectual history and cultural impact of Buddhism in China. Students will also be introduced to major issues in the institutional history of Buddhism, the interactions between Buddhism and indigenous Chinese religions, and the relationship between Buddhism and the state. Previous study of Buddhism is helpful but not required.
Modern Chinese literature was, from the very start, a revolutionary project. In reinventing the Chinese language, 20th century writers such as Lu Xun attempted to fundamentally rewrite Chinese social and political realities. It was also a pedagogical project: instructing readers not only about how to be "Chinese" in a time of imperial incursion and political turmoil, but how to be "modern" in all aspects of their lives, from growing up, to falling in love, to changing the world, to dying. To a shocking degree, the project succeeded. In this course, we will explore the historical world out of which modern Chinese literature emerged; and how this linguistic revolution helped to produce modern China, focusing in particular on the problems of gender, youth, and social marginality. We will read short stories and essays in Chinese by many of the greatest writers and public intellectuals of the twentieth century, including Lu Xun, Shen Congwen, Ding Ling, Eileen Chang, and others. We will also watch and analyze a select group of cinematic masterworks from the same period. We will conclude the semester with a set of stories and films produced in the aftermath of war and the communist revolution of 1949 that reveal the continuing resonance, as well as showing the tragic limits of this project's utopian aspirations, and perhaps even questioning the coherence of "China" and "Chineseness" as its organizing principle.
Vernacular fiction in late imperial China emerged at the margins of official historiography, traveled through oral storytelling, and reached sophistication in the hands of literati. Covering the major genres and masterpieces of traditional Chinese novels including military, martial arts, libertine, and romantic stories, this course investigates how shifting boundaries brought about significant transformations of Chinese narrative at the levels of both form and content. Prerequisites: None.
Course description coming soon
This seminar is an intensive introduction to various genres of Buddhist literature in classical Chinese, including translations of Sanskrit and Central Asian scriptures. Chinese commentaries, philosophical treatises, hagiographies, and sectarian works. It is intended for graduate students who already have some facility in classical Chinese. It will also serve as a tools and methods course.
East Asian Languages and Cultures Courses
As intermediality has permeated our everyday experience, we are prompted to ask: What exactly is intermediality? Simply put, intermediality refers to the interaction and interrelation between different art forms—such as literature, photography, visual arts, cinema, anime, and digital media platforms—through which compelling stories are told. Throughout this class, we will explore the deeper meanings of intermediality and how it empowers not only authors and creators but also us, as researchers, to better understand a culture and a time.
In Part I of the class, we will explore forms of storytelling in the world of modern print. Through in-depth reading of literary works by Lu Xun, Shanghai modernists, Eileen Chang, and Feng Zikai, and by investigating their relationships with photography, woodcut prints, cinema, and pictorials, we will discuss how literature interacts with other media and how narrative forms are deeply connected to socio-historical and geopolitical contexts. In Part II, we will explore storytelling in the multimedia world, analyzing cinema and the concept of the camera eye, examining online literature and participatory culture, and exploring contemporary anime. We will see how the mediation and remediation of literary storytelling facilitate social critique and foster transnational dialogues.
As an R1B course, this class also emphasizes building reading and writing skills. We will practice techniques for reading, writing, editing, engaging in peer discussions, and presenting. Throughout the class, we will develop our own research projects and find our own voices in contributing to the existing scholarship on our chosen subjects. We will learn how to engage our audience with effective storytelling and improve our academic writing based on constructive feedback.
In class, we will have writing exercises such as close reading, scholarship analysis, argument formation, and occasional creative writing.
This course will provide students with a basic understanding of the history, teachings, and practices of the Buddhist tradition. We will begin with a look at the Indian religious culture from which Buddhism emerged, and then move on to consider the life of the Buddha, the early teachings, the founding of the monastic order, and the development of Buddhist doctrinal systems. We will then turn to the rise of Mahāyāna Buddhism, and the transformation of Buddhism as it moved from India to China, Japan, Tibet and the countries of Southeast Asia. We will end with a brief look at contemporary controversies over, (1) the tulku (reincarnate lama) system in Tibet; (2) the ordination of Buddhist nuns in Southeast Asia; and (3) the rise and popularity of mindfulness meditation in America. Readings will cover a variety of primary and secondary materials, as well as two short novels, and we will make use of films and videos. There are no prerequisites for this course—everyone is welcome. But the course does demand a great deal of time and effort on the part of students. There is a lot of reading as well as a short written assignment or quiz each week, and attendance at all lectures and discussion sections is mandatory. Students should only enroll if they can commit the required time and energy to the course.
In this course we compare the cultural traditions of tea in China and Japan. In addition, using tea as the case study, we analyze the mechanics of the flow of culture across both national boundaries and social practices (such as between poetry and the tea ceremony). Understanding the tea culture of these countries informs students of important and enduring aspects of both cultures, provides an opportunity to discuss the role of religion and art in social practice, provides a forum for cultural comparison, and provides as well an example of the relationship between the two countries and Japanese methods of importing and naturalizing another country's social practice. Korean tea traditions are also briefly considered.
Course description coming soon
Higher Learning begins with the study of heaven. As the source of orientation in space and time, heaven provides humanity the foundation for its knowledge and political order. To understand what knowledge is or how politics function, we need a basic understanding of the ways of heaven. This course examines the function heaven serves in the founding of order against the void in nature through the formation of conventional systems of time and space and the role heaven has played in the promulgation of governments. From a cross-cultural, interdisciplinary perspective that covers the course of Eurasian history and using primary sources in translation, we will see heaven unfold through the developments that leave us with the world we know today.
This proseminar in literary theory and methods will serve as an intensive crash course in the interpretative practice known as “close reading,” open to any student who may foreseeably benefit from such practice. While the dominant trend in cultural studies East and West has moved away from formal analysis to prioritize content and context, we will reassess the potential merits of close reading by considering a given work’s aesthetic and medium specificity as we collectively exercise our interpretive muscles. Toward this end, we will pair influential literary-critical texts from scholars in various language areas with a range of East Asian fiction, poetry, painting, music, film and photography on which students will conduct weekly close reading exercises.
This seminar puts into conversation a series of multidisciplinary reflections on the “Anthropocene” with recent theoretical works on environmental media and art in order to explore our linked metabolism with the planet. This will be an exploration in three parts: 1) identifying the conceptual hallmarks of environmental humanities forged under the sign of the Anthropocene; 2) exploring eco-critical responses in media and art theory to anthropogenic impacts, including the imprints of colonial militarism, on transpacific environments; and 3) critiques of Anthropocene and future directions. All readings will be available in English translation, though participants are encouraged to read primary sources in the original languages corresponding to their area(s) of expertise. Requirements: in-class presentation; final seminar paper.
Japanese Language and Literature Courses
Japanese 1A is designed to develop basic Japanese language skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing. Students will learn the Japanese writing system: hiragana, katakana and approximately 150 kanji. At the end of the course, students should be able to greet, invite, compare, and describe persons and things, activities, intensions, ability, experience, purposes, reasons, and wishes. Grades will be determined on the basis of attendance, quiz scores, homework and class participation.
A survey of pre-modern Korean literature and culture from the seventh century to the 19th century, focusing on the relation between literary texts and various aspects of performance tradition. Topics include literati culture, gender relations, humor, and
The goal of this course is for the students to understand the language and culture required to communicate effectively in Japanese. Some of the cultural aspects covered are; geography, speech style, technology, sports, food, and religion. Through the final project, students will learn how to discuss social issues and their potential solutions. In order to achieve these goals, students willlearn how to integrate the basic linguistics knowledge they acquired in J1, as well as study new structures and vocabulary. An increasing amount of reading and writing, including approximately 200 new kanji, will also be required. Prerequisites: Japan 1 or Japan 1B.
This course will develop further context-specific skills in speaking, listening, reading and writing. It concentrates on students using acquired grammar and vocabulary with more confidence in order to express functional meanings, while increasing overall linguistic competence. Students will learn approximately 200 new Kanji. There will be a group or individual project. Course materials include the textbook supplemented by newspapers, magazine articles, short stories, and video clips which will provide insight into Japanese culture and society. Prerequisites: Japan 10B.
This course provides students an opportunity to develop their reading, writing, speaking, and listening skills, thereby enabling them to express their points of view and to engage in argumentative discourse. In addition to Japanese literature, readings include academic essays and other texts, which provide a variety of writing styles and serve as sources for classroom discussion. Also, Japanese films are used for various activities in order to broaden students’ cultural awareness and knowledge of Japanese society. Prerequisites: Japan 100B, or Japan 100X.
This course provides a critical survey of prominent and other noteworthy expressions of Buddhist thought and culture in Japanese history. The Japanese experience of Buddhist teachings, practices and institutions, as well as aesthetic expressions in painting, sculpture, architecture, garden design, literature, and theatre will be examined against the backdrop of the transmission of all these forms of Buddhist culture from India to China to Korea to Japan. Special attention will also be given to the fusion of Buddhist and “native” Japanese sensibilities in theater (Noh, Kabuki, and Bunraku) and popular art such as ukiyo-e prints and manga. Prerequistes: None.
An introduction to classical Japanese (bungo), the premodern vernacular, which was used as Japan's literary language until well into the 20th century and remains essential for a thorough grounding in Japanese literature and culture.
Prerequisites: Japanese 10 or Japanese 10B.
This course is an introduction to Japanese modernism through the reading and discussion of representative short stories, poetry, and criticism of the Taisho and early Showa periods. We will examine the aesthetic bases of modernist writing and confront the challenge posed by their use of poetic language. The question of literary form and the relationship between poetry and prose in the works will receive special attention. Prerequisites: Japanese 100A (may be taken concurrently).
This course deals with issues of the usage of the Japanese language and how they have been treated in the field of linguistics. It concentrates on pragmatics, modality/evidentiality, deixis, speech varieties (politeness, gender, written vs. spoken), conversation management, and rhetorical structure. Students are required to have intermediate knowledge of Japanese. No previous linguistics training is required. Prerequisites: Japan 10, Japan 10B, or Japan 10X; or consent of instructor.
This course is designed for those at high-intermediate to low-advanced level of fluency in Japanese to further develop their reading proficiency through detailed grammatical analyses of selected texts. Although adequate knowledge of both vocabulary and grammar is essential for understanding the text, often in foreign-language learning, vocabulary typically receives more emphasis than grammar. Through assigned texts, students learn through a hands-on approach how words are combined to form a phrase, how phrases are combined to form a clause, how clauses are combined to form a sentence, how sentences are combined to form a text. Readings are selected from modern Japanese writing on current affairs, social sciences, history, and literature. Prerequisites: Japan 10B; or consent of instructor
This course surveys modern Japanese fiction and poetry in the first half of the 20th century. Topics will vary.
This semester, we will explore a range of media works with a focus on cinema and anime, including eco-horror, melodrama, and tech-noir. We will approach contemporary Japanese cinema and anime as participants in a series of transnational conversations about cybernetics, media mix, gaming and database aesthetics as well as on emergent forms of sociality (gender, race, sexuality) intimated by the reconfigurations of communication technologies. In addition to discussing the transcultural give and take of media theory, we will explore the various intersections of Japanese cinema with other media forms in order to challenge some of our basic assumptions about the geographies of global media.
Fall 2024 Course Description coming soon
Korean Language and Literature Courses
This course is designed for non-heritage students who have absolutely no prior knowledge of the Korean language. Students will learn written and spoken Korean on self-related and day-to-day topics, and present information both in oral and written forms using formulaic and memorized expressions. They will also engage in simple conversational exchanges on a variety of daily topics. Prerequisites: None.
This course is designed for students who already have elementary comprehension and speaking skills in Korean and have minimum exposure to reading and/or writing in Korean. Prerequisites: Consent of instructor.
This is a continuing course for non-heritage students who have completed K1A or demonstrated an equivalent proficiency level. Students will enhance and broaden their linguistic and cultural competence by learning more essential grammatical structures, daily life expressions and speech acts. The course is also intended to introduce certain cultural aspects through media sources and various activities. Prerequisites: Korean 1A; or consent of instructor.
A survey of pre-modern Korean literature and culture from the seventh century to the 19th century, focusing on the relation between literary texts and various aspects of performance tradition. Topics include literati culture, gender relations, humor, and material culture. Texts to be examined include ritual songs, sijo, kasa, p'ansori, prose narratives, art, and contemporary media representation of performance traditions. All readings are in English.
With equal attention given to speaking, listening, reading, writing, and cultural aspects of the language, students will further develop their language skills for handling various everyday situations. Prerequisites: Korean 1B; or consent of instructor.
This is an intermediate course for students whose Korean proficiency level is higher in speaking than in reading or writing due to Korean-heritage background. Students will elaborate their language skills for handling various everyday situations. Prerequisites: Korean 1BX; or consent of instructor.
This is a third-year course in modern Korean with emphasis on acquisition of advanced vocabulary and grammatical structure. Equal attention will be given to all four language skills: speaking, listening, reading, and writing. Prerequisites: Korean 10B; or consent of instructor.
This is a third-year course in modern Korean with emphasis on acquisition of advanced vocabulary and grammatical structure. Prerequisites: Korean 10BX; or consent of instructor.
This is an advanced course of reading and textual literary analysis in Korean. Advanced reading and writing skills and practice in the use of standard reference tools will also be introduced.
This course is for students wanting to acquire high-advanced and superior level Korean proficiency in Korean business settings through the nuances of job-related communication and cultural expectations. Students master appropriate workplace terminology, expressions, and professional style spoken and written form. They complete job a search, plan a new product, present and negotiate the product status, and finally present the product externally.
This course is designed to help advanced Korean students understand the influence of history and politics on contemporary Korean culture. Students will analyze contrastive views on historical events reflected in writings and media. Structured as a seminar format, students will take active roles in a class by sharing their inquiries and findings on course materials. A superior level of speaking and writing competence will be promoted based on advanced reading and listening competence. Prerequisites: Korean 101 or Korean 102; or consent of instructor.
This course will examine the works of major poets in the first half of the 20th century and will consider the formation of modern Korean poetry. Particular attention will be given to the ideas of lyricism, modernism, and the identity of a poet in the context of the colonial occupation of Korea. Prerequisite: Korean 100A or Korean 100AX.
K160 is designed to provide a comprehensive exploration of the fundamental aspects of the Korean language. This course will serve as a gateway to understanding the intricate structures of Korean grammar and its application in discourse. Students will learn the basic features of Korean linguistics, including phonology, morphology and syntax, with emphasis on investigating how grammar influences meaning and discourse in diverse Korean communication contexts. Through a blend of theoretical study, practical examples, and language analysis, students will develop a solid foundation in Korean linguistics. Additionally, the course will investigate the interplay between grammar and ongoing communication dynamics within Korean society, providing students with insights into the evolving nature of language in cultural context.
This course offers a historical overview of Korean cinema from its colonial development to its present renaissance. It covers Korean film aesthetics, major directors, film movements, genre, censorship issues, and industrial transformation as well as global circulation and transnational reception. In an effort to read film as sociocultural texts, various topics will be discussed. All readings are in English.
Cold War Culture in Korea: Literature and Film. This course examines the formation and transformation of global Cold War culture in South Korean literature and film of the 20th century. It pays close attention to representations of the Korean War and its aftermath in literature and cinema, but opens up the field of inquiry to encompass larger sociocultural issues related to the Cold War system manifest in literature and cinema. Prerequisites: None.
Mongolian Language and Literature Courses
This course introduces students to Literary Mongolian, its phonetics, grammar, vertical writing system and its relation to living spoken language. The course emphasizes reading texts in the Mongol vertical script. As foundation, students receive a basic introduction to Mongolian phonology and grammar as well as learn the Mongol vertical script writing system and a standard system of transcription. After a brief period of introduction students immerse in reading texts. Class time is devoted to reading comprehension, translation, and analysis. Although texts may be drawn to suit student interest, the standard course repertoire will consist of works of Mongolian Buddhist literature and history.
This course covers the history of Mongolian Buddhism from its inception in the Yuan dynasty to the present. The importance of Mongolian Buddhism to the greater dharma lies not only with the ways of its priests but also with the means of its patrons, the Mongol aristocracy, in forging a distinctive tradition in Inner Asia and disseminating it throughout the world. While maintaining a historical thread throughout, this course will examine in detail some of the tradition’s many facets, including Mongolian-Buddhist politics, the politics of incarnation, the establishment of monasteries, economics, work in the sciences, astral science and medicine, ritual practice, literature, sculpture and painting, music and dance, and more.
Tibetan Language and Literature Courses
A beginning Tibetan class developing basic listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills in modern Tibetan (Lhasa dialect). The course also helps students begin to acquire competence in relevant Tibetan cultural issues. Prerequisites: None.