ASCL 60.03 Frontier in Traditional Chinese Thought: Beyond the Great Wall and the Becoming of China
The conceptions of frontier, frontier-heartland relations, unity and territoriality are crucial to the formation of the Chinese cultural and spatial identity from the ancient time to today. At the moment, the frontier space beyond the Great Wall takes up more than half of the entire Chinese territory. The ways Chinese people deal with their ethnic minority regions, differentiate the northerners and the southerners, view their own culture and cultural others and imagine their regional and global roles can all be related to the spatial conceptions with regard to the frontier in pre-modern China. This course will trace the development of these conceptions through a variety of philosophical, cosmological, religious, historical, geographical, and literary texts and images. Classical Chinese texts however are not categorized by discipline but represent a body of interdisciplinary knowledge that reflects the culture's thoughts and values. The course will deal with the materials in a way that relive their a-disciplinary nature while maintaining a critical perspective on them. When relevant, the course will also examine broader theoretical issues such as political morality, gender and sexuality, and border-crossing.
ASCL 60.04 Modern Chinese Literature Across Time, Space and Media
This upper level survey course will introduce participants to major works in modern Chinese literature and related media forms, as well as academic discussions surrounding them. Using a variety of sources, including literary texts, films, music, ballet, installation, and digital arts, students will closely examine each in terms of their content and form. Students will look at associated original texts, undertake critical analyses of their social contexts, consider their influences and the challenges they face in China and the world, and compare different media and genres. By highlighting the temporal development of modern Chinese literature as well as the spatial dissemination of the texts, the course will allow participants to realize both the depth and range of modern Chinese literature.
ASCL 60.05 Love and Desire in Modern Chinese Literature
Spanning a selection of short stories and novels from the early twentieth century to the turn of the millennium, this course explores connections between themes of filial piety, nationalism, revolutionary idealism, nostalgia for the past, ideological constraints placed on love, and attempts to subvert those constraints. Readings and discussions will relate the works covered to key intellectual and political movements, connecting ideas of individual romance and disillusionment to larger issues of modernity and globalization.
- Dist: LIT; WCult: NW
- Gibbs
ASCL 60.10 Eco-Fiction: Ghost Stories in Premodern China
In this class, we will read a selection of stories (anecdotes, full-fledged tales, novel excerpts) from a variety of Chinese literary texts from the third to the nineteenth centuries that feature ghosts. We will consider these ghost stories as a means through which premodern Chinese literary authors explored the natural and the human world ecologically: for example, reflecting on ways of forming connections between human beings and between human beings and other types of being both animate and inanimate. As close reading is the key skill that students will learn and practice throughout the quarter, the class will also incorporate creative writing exercises and creative assignments for students to have an in-depth understanding of techniques of storytelling. Towards this goal, we will be reading selected theoretical texts on ecocriticism and narratology and discussing how premodern Chinese literary texts can respond to questions and propositions posed by modern theorists in creative ways.
- Dist: LIT, WCult: NW
- Zheng
ASCL 60.19/LING 11.02, Languages of China
In this course, we will survey both the history of language in China, and the current linguistic situation. Topics will include geographical and genealogical classification of languages in China; the phonological and grammatical systems of representative languages; the reconstruction of Middle and Old Chinese; ways of writing both Sinitic and non-Sinitic languages; language as a marker of ethnic identity; and past and present language policies, both governmental and non-governmental.
- Dist: SOC; WCult: NW. Fulfills LRP.
- Pulju
ASCL 60.20 Languages and Scripts of Gender, Class, and Nation
While language is commonly believed to be a great "tool" with which we describe our feelings and physical phenomena, it is also the portal through which we understand the world. In other words, language defines, constrains, and colors human experiences. With this premise as the basis, this course attempts to expand our horizons by examining the ways the spoken languages of Japan, Korea, and China convey concepts such as masculinity, femininity, affection, status, and solidarity. In the latter half of the term, we will also explore the layers of complexity embedded in the writing systems of these three nations. In so doing, we will shed light on each society's historical negotiation of its national identity, Sinophilia, and desire to become a first-class nation of the modern world. No previous knowledge of an Asian language is required.
- Dist: INT or TMV; WCult: NW. Fulfills LRP.
- Schmidt-Hori
ASCL 60.21 Body Politics in Japan: Beauty, Disfigurement, Corporeality
The body is a tangible, self-evident entity. Or is it? The premise of JAPN 62.01 is that the body is a political, ethical, sociocultural, and historical phenomenon deeply ingrained in our perceptions of self, other, and the world. This course is an endeavor to understand the politics of the body in premodern and modern Japan through a wide range of primary and secondary texts. In order to consider the multiple perspectives of the body across time, the readings are organized thematically, covering topics from physical beauty as virtue/vice, symbolic meanings of hair and clothing, aesthetics of the Tale of Genji, to disfigurement, disability, aging, race, among other things. This course is open to everyone and no knowledge of Japanese literature or language is required.
- Dist: INT or TMV; WCult: NW
- Schmidt-Hori
ASCL 60.23 Critiquing Modern Japan through the Works of Murakami Haruki
The students will read and discuss several works of Japan's best-known contemporary author, Murakami Haruki. Through focusing on the recurrent themes of violence, isolation, disconnection, materialism, apathy, and sexuality in Murakami's fictions, the students will consider the various societal issues of post-1970s Japan.
- Dist: LIT; WCult: NW
- Schmidt-Hori
ASCL 60.24 Image and Text in Modernizing Japan
Images and text have been variously combined in the Japanese tradition, from the ancient picture scrolls to today's manga (comics). This course traces the evolution of such media in early modern Japan, with a focus on the late nineteenth century shift from the "communal reading" of visually-oriented texts to the silent, solitary reading of fiction. Some consideration will also be given to the re- emergence of the visual imagination in film, manga, and animation.
- Dist: LIT; WCult: NW
- Dorsey
ASCL 60.25 The Art of War: Stories, Paintings, Films, and Propaganda from Japan's Modern Wars
In this course we will examine the relationship between a wide variety of cultural artifacts and modern Japan's experience of war, particularly WW II. Topics addressed within this context include: government censorship, literary subversion, popular culture versus high culture, visual versus written media, postwar cultural memory, the ideology of suicide squads, and the mentality of victimhood. No Japanese language is required for the course, but students with sufficient ability will be expected to make use of original sources.
- Dist: LIT; WCult: NW
- Dorsey
ASCL 60.26 Thinking of Contemporary Issues in Japan through Graphic Novels (Manga)
This course aims to explore some of the critical and interconnected issues of contemporary Japan as they are represented in graphic novels (manga): gender roles (Ōoku, Little Miss P, The Way of Househusband), same-sex intimacy (My Brother's Husband, Whispered Words), disabilities (Real, Silent Voice), body image (In Clothes Called Fat), and more. For the first week, students will learn the basic mechanics of manga, its history, and significance both within Japan and on a global scale, which will help them better understand this medium vis-à-vis "comic books" in the United States. Beginning in Week 2, students will carefully read the assigned work (usually multiple volumes per day; one volume ranges from 200–250 pages) while taking detailed notes. Though it is important for the students to enjoy and appreciate the form and content of the assigned primary texts, they are also expected to read the works introspectively—"What do I think about this trope/story/character and why? Is my evaluation valid?"—and comparatively. All the assigned works are written in English and posted on Canvas. No prerequisites.
- Dist: LIT; WCult: NW
- Schmidt-Hori
ASCL 60.30 Modern Korean Literature in Global Context
With our understanding of Korea and Korean literature increasingly reaching beyond the confines of the peninsula, this course explores modern Korean literatures both from the Korean peninsula and in diaspora. It will introduce participants to canonical works in modern Korean literature and well-known works from Korean diaspora communities in Japan, the US, and China, as well as to the critical discussions surrounding them. We will closely examine how each work, with its particular content and form, engages with the historical development and contemporary dynamics of modern Korea and Korean diaspora communities. From literary and cultural perspectives, this course addresses and problematizes some of the most difficult issues that modern Korea has been working hard to deal with, including colonial modernity, the US occupation and the division, democratic movement and trauma, overseas Koreans, gender and sexuality, and so on.
- Dist: INT or LIT; WCult: NW
- Xie
ASCL 60.92 Theory and Practice of Translation
If the act of translation is straightforward, why are there so many Japanese words for it—honyaku, gendaigo-yaku, eyaku, chokuyaku, iyaku, and even chōyaku? This course will explore the theory and practice of translation, considering the various strategies translators have used in working across English and Japanese, two utterly different languages. We'll look at Japanese and English textbook translations, manga and young adult "translations" of classics like the Tale of Genji, Murakami Haruki's translation of Salinger and Jay Rubin's translations of Murakami. In conversation with some seminal texts of translation theory (read in English), we'll try our hand at translating poetry, jokes, songs, puns, prose and more. Open to students who have completed Japanese 31, the equivalent, or with the permission of the instructor.
- Dist: LIT; WCult: NW
- Dorsey