Undergraduate

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.

Selected readings in pre-modern Chinese literature from the first millennium B.C.E. to the end of the imperial period. The course covers important works in topics ranging from philosophy, history and religion to poetry, fiction and drama. Specific content varies by instructor.

The Aynu indigenous peoples of Japan have an extensive collection of oral tales that have been collected over the past century. In this course we will read and translate (from Japanese and Aynu originals) into English, various examples of Aynu oral literature. The selections range from everyday tales in the Uwepeker(Talking Tales) genre to the sacred songs of the Aynu Yukar.  Reading ability in Japanese is required.

This course investigates literary and visual strategies in China through which material objects are depicted and animated. Our emphasis will be on reading primary sources and viewing real objects (online) up through the 18th century,  but we’ll also incorporate approaches from anthropology, the history of material culture and technology, literary theory, and art history in a comparative context.  Genres to be covered include the ode on things, the it-biography, tales of the strange, the vernacular novel, handbooks for connoisseurs and collectors, paintings and illustrated books. Students will be guided throughout the term to produce a final research paper. This may take the form of a cultural biography of a real object or class of objects; it could be a study of how objects are depicted in fiction or drama, in painting or a specific site; it could investigate how objects are treated in the antiquarian scholarly tradition, or become a form of obsessive collecting; or how they work in religious worship, commerce, or global exchange, but there are many other possibilities. All readings will be available in English. Some previous background in Chinese literature, history, or art history would be helpful but is not required.

From the earliest centuries of the common era until the 1870s, Japanese writers, artists, and scholars considered themselves to be living in the Sinosphere: the realm of China’s cultural and political centrality. Starting with a consideration of Chinese material culture in the Tale of Genji, we will proceed to address topics such as the relation between Chinese and Japanese handscroll paintings, the spread of Chinese-style ink monochrome painting in Japan, the rise of the Kano school as official painters and Chinese-style painting experts, and the immense popularity of literati painting and calligraphy. Korean painting’s intersection with Chinese and Japanese art in the medieval and early modern periods will also factor into the discussion. We will evaluate the changing dynamics around political power and gender embodied in the Chinese/Japanese oppositional duality and reassess the prevailing narratives concerning how the Sinosphere faded from view in the Meiji era.

In KORE 21300, students will learn basic principles, methods, and techniques in translation and apply appropriate strategies and methods to the practice and description of translation. Students will watch pre- recorded lecture videos, complete their weekly translation assignments (Korean to English and English to Korean), and participate in group or individual sessions to discuss their translation works. Students will also choose a literary work or a text of their own choice for their final translation project. The materials covered in this class include medical guidelines, campaign flyers, newspaper articles, reports, brochures, resume, business/academic emails, and editorials.