Chair's Message
For those Rip van Winkle’s who last looked at Chicago’s Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations fifteen or more years ago, and now seeing the same face in the Chair’s slot (though with considerably whiter hair, to be sure) think that nothing much has changed, you are in for a big surprise. Indeed, among faculty members with primary appointments in EALC, only Norma Field and I are still around from that time. Guy Alitto soldiers on in History and Hiroyoshi Noto, Fangpei Cai and Harumi Lory (who has returned recently after a brief stint in Shanghai) provide experience and much more to our language programs, all three of which have expanded dramatically in the last decade. Hiroyoshi has been joined by Youqin Wang and, more recently, by Hi-Sun Kim, in directing our three language programs and their respective excellent staffs: Meng Li, Yuxiang Liu and Jun Yang joining Fangpei in the Chinese program (with Laura Skosey handling classical Chinese); Yoko Katagiri and Misa Miyachi joining Lory-san in the Japanese program; and Hye-Sook Lee ably assisting Hi-Sun in the Korean program.
We've added much more than just new names and faces; there are whole new fields and disciplines for students to explore. Not only do we now offer a comprehensive Korean language program, but we have had a program in Korean literature for over a decade now, under the very able guidance of Kyeong-Hee Choi. Kyeong-Hee is just about finished with a stunning study of literature written under the Japanese occupation of Korea in the first part of the twentieth century. Our program in Korean literature is now poised to develop even further with the arrival of Jongyon Hwang, an eminent historian and critic of modern Korean literature who has joined our faculty from Tongguk University in Seoul.
In Japanese studies, Norma Field continues to be one of the pre-eminent scholars in all aspects of Japanese literature and culture. She has just finished a book (in Japanese) on proletarian literature produced in the 1920s and 30s, with a focus on Kobayashi Takiji. She is joined in studies of Japanese literature by Michael Bourdaghs, an expert in Natsume Sōseki’s literature and theories of literature, and by our most recent appointment, Reginald Jackson, author of an exceptional doctoral dissertation on calligraphic and performative aspects of pre-modern Japanese texts. In addition to the study of literature, Michael Raine, who has a joint appointment in EALC and the Committee on Cinema and Media Studies, has directed all of our attention to the riches of other media in exploring modern culture. Other members of the Department who have joint appointments include our colleagues in the History department, Susan Burns and Jim Ketelaar, both of whom have very broad interests in both pre-modern and modern Japanese social and intellectual history. One sad note to report regarding our program in Japanese civilization: our long-time colleague Bill Sibley passed away this past May; the Department is joining with the Committee on Japanese Studies and many friends of Bill’s to establish a translation prize in his memory. We expect to announce details of this prize during the coming academic year.
On the China side of things, I suppose we still have focuses on ancient China, Ming-Qing fiction, and modern China, but, oh, how things have changed. Our program in pre-modern literature is as strong as ever. Our long-time colleagues David Roy and Tony Yu are now retired (though still both hard at work on their Jin ping mei and Xi you ji translations; David is up to Chapter 79, and Tony is engaged in both a comprehensive revision of his earlier complete translation and also an abridged version). They have been very ably replaced by Yuming He and Judith Zeitlin. Yuming is working on the book market in the late Ming period, while Judith’s early interest in ghosts has now taken her into studies of law, medicine, theatre and even film. Film, especially contemporary avant-garde documentaries, is also just one of the topics studied by Paola Iovene, who joined our faculty two years ago; she also explores modern and contemporary avant-garde literature. Also joining us recently was Jacob Eyferth, who works on the craft industries of the Chinese countryside. With so many new appointments in just the last year or two, Paul Copp, who joined us three years ago, seems like an old-hand; Paul works on Tang religion, especially how spells were drawn in both Buddhist and Daoist manuscripts. Manuscripts also loom large in our study of more ancient periods. Don Harper, who has been a member of the Department for what seems like a long time (but actually only since 2000), is one of the Western world’s leading experts in the study of all aspects of manuscript culture from the Tang all the way back to the Warring States period. My own long-time interest in the inscriptions and literature of the Western Zhou period has now extended up to the Warring States materials that have been discovered in such abundance in recent years. Finally, how could we ever forget Hung Wu, the world’s leading authority on just about every aspect of China’s visual culture, from antiquity up to the most recent exhibitions in Beijing in conjunction with the Olympics; although his primary appointment is in Art History, a great many of our students find their way across campus to his office and his classes.
Speaking of our students, their interests also run the gamut from Shang oracle-bone inscriptions to contemporary Korean and Japanese cinema, and scores of topics in between. I will not try to review all of these topics, but I should mention Chicago’s famous graduate workshops. These workshops, designed and run by the graduate students, are among the most exciting interdisciplinary programs on campus. For East Asia, there are six such workshops: Art and Politics of East Asia; China before Print; East Asia: Politics, Economy and Society; East Asia: Trans-Regional Histories; Literature and Cultural History in Pre-Modern East Asia; and Visual and Material Perspectives on East Asia.
With all of these new faces, new interests and new programs, we ought not lose sight of what hasn’t changed about the University of Chicago, and what makes it the unique place that it is: uncompromising inquiry into the human condition. I remember when last I was chair of this department, being in England and listening to an interview with Isaiah Berlin on BBC radio; when asked of all of the universities at which he had spoken, which had impressed him the most, he replied without hesitation: The University of Chicago. He said that the questions he got from our students were the most challenging he had ever heard. Thank goodness some things don’t change.
Ed Shaughnessy