Undergraduate

This course will address significant issues in teaching and learning an East Asian language through identification and analysis of specific sociolinguisitic and linguistic characteristics of Korean, Japanese, and Chinese. The course will begin with the introduction of linguistic structures of the three East Asian languages to begin discussing the interaction between language acquisition and society. Then, we will explore sociolinguistic issues common to the three languages that underlie the linguistic diversity (and similarities) of East Asia, such as the following topic: (i) the use of Chinese characters, the history of writing reform, and its relation to literacy in East Asian languages; (ii) loan words in East Asian languages, in particular, the use of Chinese characters in modern Japanese and Korean in age of colonialism; (iii) the development and use of honorifics in China, Japan, and Korea, etc. For a comparative approach and perspective to these topics, students will read academic papers for each language on a given topic and discuss the unique sociolinguistic features of each language. Such an approach will allow us to analyze the language influence and interaction among the three languages and how that shapes the culture, society, and language acquisition. Finally, this course will also introduce the field of second language acquisition focusing on how social factors influence L2 learning and acquisition.

This class will explore three sets of paired authors from ancient China and Greece: Herodotus/Sima Qian; Plato/Confucius; Homer/Book of Songs. Topics will include genre, authorship, style, cultural identity, and translation, as well as the historical practice of Greece/China comparative work.

After a general survey of local and oral history studies in 20th century Chinese history, students will examine secondary scholarly literature and primary documents from three ongoing local rural history research projects (a country history, a regional history and a village history). Documents including transcripts of oral interviews and individual life histories, local gazetteers, memorials, edicts, biographies, social surveys, household registrations, essays, and recent county histories. Some of these Chinese documents have English language translations appended. Students will examine two oral history cases studies in detail.

Peking opera (jingju) is the one nationally prominent form of traditional performing arts in China. This course will introduce concepts and methods that can be applied to the study of Peking opera. Emphasis will be put on understanding artistic elements essential to the living tradition of performance - the visual aspects including stylized stage gesture and movement, sets and costumes, and colors; the music and oral transmission. Topics for discussion include "realism", alienation, time and space, connoisseurship, and film. Students will not only engage with scholarly literature that cuts across different disciplines, but also be introduced to a rich body of sources ranging from gramophone recordings, to photographs, opera films and documentaries. Motivated students will also learn some basics of singing and moves. Field trips to Chinese community Peking opera troupes may be arranged. Mandarin a plus but not a prerequisite.

This course surveys major areas of study in the Chinese landscape painting tradition, focusing on the history of its pictorial representation during pre-modern eras. Format will be primarily class discussion following a series of lectures. Areas for consideration may include: first emergence and subsequent developments of the genre in court and literati arenas; landscape aesthetics and theoretical foundations; major attributed works in relation to archaeological evidence. Emphasis is on artistic options and the exercise of choice within the context of social, political, religious, and economic forces. Students are expected to gain skills in formal analysis through looking with reading, and a critical perspective on the processes of art historical placement and interpretation based on assigned readings in secondary literature.

This course is part of a three-quarter sequence on the civilizations of China, Japan, and Korea or Viet Nam, with emphasis on major transformation in these cultures and societies from the Middle Ages to the present. Taking these courses in sequence is not required. This sequence meets the general education requirement in civilization studies.

This seminar (required for all East Asian majors) is intended to expose students to the different disciplines and areas represented in the study of East Asia at the University of Chicago. Students should take this chance to meet fellow majors in the various areas of East Asian Studies and to familiarize themselves with the work of faculty members. Third year students should be already thinking about finding a topic and a faculty advisor for a senior thesis. Conventionally, the Concentrators Seminar is organized around a theme. The goal of this interdisciplinary seminar is to expose students to a range of important problems and methods across time and space in the study of China, Japan and Korea. Guest lecturers and reading assigned by different University of Chicago faculty members are an integral part of the course. Students work on an individual research project tailored to their own interests, which they may subsequently develop into a B.A paper. This course is offered every year; however the quarter may change.

In this course we will explore three distinct but interrelated modes of self-cultivation and the contemplative life from premodern China: those exemplified by the _Laozi_, and in particular by those artists and philosophers who drew upon the text; by the Chan tradition in Tang and Song Buddhism; and by the Song Neo-Confucian philosopher and exegete Zhu Xi (1130-1200). We will read classic texts in these modes (and a few modern ones too) closely, attuning ourselves as best we can to their original contexts, and we will brood together on how we might use them in our own contemplative lives. Central to the course will be careful consideration of the different understandings of the Way (Dao) found in our texts, and how these different Ways structured conceptions of the ideal human life.

This course looks at a crucial 600 years of Chinese history, the period 100-700 AD. I hope we can touch on the high points of dynastic failures and successes, military and border problems, and state economic and military policies, going mostly chronologically. Simultaneously, we shall look at a series of individuals who wrote, thought, and/or advised during these centuries, about these political matters and about private matters. Thus the course analyzes the state and its politics as entwined with written ideas, policy changes, speculations, and even inventions and discoveries. The writer/thinkers whom we look at were China's scholarly elite: they were concerned about personal and factional power: the dynasty's political legitimation and its rewards of wealth and office; also they were concerned about reading, editing, commenting on the classics, writing letters and memoranda, collecting and organizing libraries and artifacts. They invented new genres to express intimate views about self and family and friends, interior thoughts, and even spiritual change and religious beliefs. We will assess and discuss prose, technical achievements, poetry, and letters.

This course is part of a three-quarter sequence on the civilizations of China, Japan, and Korea or Viet Nam, with emphasis on major transformation in these cultures and societies from the Middle Ages to the present. Taking these courses in sequence is not required. This sequence meets the general education requirement in civilization studies.