Undergraduate

This course introduces the basic grammar of the written Chinese language from the time of the Confucian Analects to the literary movements at the beginning of the twentieth century. Students read original texts of genres that include philosophy, memorials, and historical narratives. Spring Quarter is devoted exclusively to reading poetry. The class meets for two eighty-minute sessions a week.

This course explores the Chinese experience of urban modernity in the twentieth century, primarily through the lens of literature, cinema, and ethnographical studies. We will examine the shifting cultural connotations of and dynamics between the country and the city, and trace the ebbs and flows of urban culture from Republican Shanghai, Socialist China, to the colonial city of Hong Kong, the island of Taiwan, and back to fin-de-siècle mainland China. Central to our inquiry is the colonial origin of urban modernity and its evolution and manifestations in twentieth-century China; as an evolving constellation informed by and responding to global forces and cultural trends, as well as to the material conditions on the ground and the individual inspirations of cultural producers. The course will be divided roughly into three parts. First, we will delve into the urban milieu and material culture of Republic Shanghai under semi-colonial capitalism, and inquire the formation of vernacular modernity through its cinematic and literary representations and practices. Second, we will compare the youth cultures in socialist China and colonial Hong Kong during the cold war era. We will then continue to review the search for urban/local identities in Hong Kong and Taiwan, amid a culture of disappearance exacerbated by their colonial histories, the unresolved question of national belonging, and accelerating globalization. Third, we will return to mainland China to consider its breakneck speed of urbanization and globalization in the contemporary era. We will explore the euphoria and discontent, confusion and chaos, as Chinese people in their different social standings and geographical positions experience the brave new world of global modernity in drastically uneven terms. From New Sensationalism to postsocialist realism, melodrama to independent documentary, the figures of dandy and flaneur to migrant worker and alienated youth, this course also investigates the use of literary form and cinematic genre, and the configurations of gender and class identities, in conveying the urban experience in twentieth-century China.

This course is an experiment in rethinking what has conventionally been studied and taught as "postwar Japanese culture" as instances of Cold War culture. We will look at celebrated works of fiction, film and popular music from 1945 through 1990, but instead of considering them primarily in relation to the past events of World War Two, we will try to understand them in relation to the unfolding contemporary global situation of the Cold War. Previous coursework on modern Japanese history or culture is helpful, but not required. All course readings will be in English.

Beginning in the 1910s, Chinese intellectuals discovered a new source of cultural identity for China in the songs, myths, legends and life-ways of the countryside. Over the course of the century, various modes of representing this folk culture were enlisted to help define the nation, from the appropriation of folkloric genres for the creation of modern literary works to the critical study of Chinese history and society through the lens of folk culture, including the politicization of folklore as it was adapted for the dissemination of revolutionary ideology during wartime and afterward. Through the study of folklore itself, modern fiction and poetry, historical sources on the study of folklore, and music and film recordings, this course critically examines how folklore and notions of cultural authenticity have contributed to the construction of the modern Chinese nation.

This year's course focuses on the martial arts film in Hong Kong cinema, in conjunction with a special quarter-long series on this topic at Doc Films. We will pay particular attention to the wuxia genre, tracing the genealogy of the chivalric code in the Chinese literary and performing tradition, and examining its continuous reinvention in the films of masters like King Hu, Chang Cheh, Bruce Lee, and Tsui Hark. Recurrent issues to be examined include the representation of violence, fantasy, and nationalism; the interplay between body, film style, and technology; the performance of masculinity and femininity; and the complex interactions between the global and local in today's trans-national film culture.

What is gesture and how should we understand the aesthetic and political work it performs? How does technological medium alter the shape and significance of bodily movements? This course takes up gesture as a concept through which to explore the relationship between Performance Studies and Japanese Studies. Through close readings of literary, cinematic, and theoretical texts, we will examine a range of issues related to embodiment in Japanese culture. The centerpiece of the course will be a two-week residency by award-winning choreographer and filmaker Yasuko Yokoshi during which she will engage students as she develops her newest dance composition, which melds Kabuki and ballet. Students will develop skills of performance analysis and critical writing. Readings by Tanizaki, Sontag, Sedwick, Zeami, Lamarre, Berlant, J. Butler, A. Lippit, Kittler, Uchino.

This 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 course uses the robust field of Chinese legal history as a starting point for an examination of how historians have used legal records and documents to write different kinds of historical narratives. We will explore the intersection of law and society in modern China through both primary and secondary texts. While historiographic questions from the China field will arise, the class will also consider legal history ideas more generally. We will engage with debates about the role of civil law: How might more contemporary legal practices be a legacy of law or custom? How do societies' definitions of crime change over time. What role does the law play in shaping social attitudes toward different behavior?

This class examines the history of the Aynu peoples, the indigenous peoples of Japan. Particular focus will be given to their oral histories. Ability to read Japanese a plus but not required.

This course examines the politics, society, and culture of East Asia from ancient times until c. 1600.  Our focus will be on examining key historical moments and intellectual, social, and cultural trends with an emphasis on the region as a whole. Students will read and discuss culturally significant texts, and be introduced to various approaches to analyzing them.