Winter

After its modern discovery, Dunhuang—the home of Buddhist grottoes constructed between the 4th and 14th centuries—had been a site of intensive research that paved the way for the rise of Dunhuang Studies later in the twentieth century, including research in cave art and retrieved manuscripts. While these earlier endeavors made an indelible contribution to our knowledge of Dunhuang, this course posits a complexity in building the site into the discourse of modern China and a dialectic relationship between modern Dunhuang and the research of historical Dunhuang. To better understand this complexity, this course foregrounds how Dunhuang came to be known and studied in the politics of Western colonialism and the restructuring of modern China. The course will also trace the trajectory in which modern Dunhuang developed through a spectrum of different “representations” –architectural diagrams, photographs, paintings, exhibitions, etc. By focusing on these representations, students will analyze the agenda in the conception of Dunhuang as a site of national pride and heritage and consider its role in narratives of twentieth-century East Asian Art.

This class will survey the constructions of a variety of Others in Cold War Japanese media and literature, including questions of ethnicity, race, sexuality, gender, and species. We will cover primary sources, including literary texts, films, and music, and we we will also read recent secondary scholarship in both English and Japanese relevant to the topic.  A substantial portion of the course readings will be in Japanese.   

Forbes Magazine has styled the Tibetan Buddhist monk Mingyur Rinpoche, “the happiest man alive.” Like no other religion, Buddhism in the public imagination is associated with providing us with an accessible way towards leading a good and happy life. But what is the “good life” according to the Buddhist tradition, and what is “happiness” supposed to lead us towards? In this course, we will explore these questions through a close reading of Buddhist sources in translation. Through these readings the course will introduce the doctrinal and practical foundations of the Buddhist traditions and serve as a gateway to more specialized studies. Course Note: This course counts as a Gateway course for RLST majors/minors.

What is Zen? Impossibly, seemingly, everything to everybody. In this course, we will explore Zen’s protean transformations through a close reading of primary sources in translation. Rather than asking what Zen is, we will focus on how in these materials the Zen traditions are continually de/re-constructed as contingent religious identities from medieval Japan to the contemporary United States and Europe. The focus of the course will be the premodern Japanese Zen tradition, its background in Chinese Chan, and its reception in the West. The course will include field trips to Zen communities in the Chicago area. Students wishing to take this course are strongly encouraged to also take Prof. Ziporyn’s course on Chan during the fall quarter. 

This seminar explores the interplay of history, fantasy, and theatricality in one of the masterpieces of early Qing chuanqi drama, Changsheng dian 长生殿 (Palace of Lasting Life, 1688), Hong Sheng's 洪昇dramatization of the famous tragic romance between the Tang Emperor Xuanzong and his most favored concubine Lady Yang Yuhan.  The play alternates between a restaging of the An Lushan rebellion based on the playwright’s research into historical sources and the creation of a parallel fantastical universe in the forms of purgatory and paradise.  These seemingly contradictory trends—the increased concern with historical accuracy in drama and the fascination with spectacular, supernatural worlds—are fundamental to many seventeenth-century chuanqi plays.  To understand the play’s genealogy, we will read influential earlier treatments of the Xuanzong/ Lady Yang romance, but we will also examine the play in light of its relationship to contemporary events, particularly the fall of the Ming, and to contemporary debates on historical drama and the role of the playwright in the publication and production of theatrical works. The course will include consideration of the “afterlife” of the play by screening some dvds of important live performances.

How has the discipline of Modern Chinese Literary Studies emerged and evolved in the US and in China, and what are the major debates that have agitated the field? This research seminar surveys various issues and approaches in modern Chinese literary studies, seeking to delineate its main turning points. Students are invited to identify their area of interest early on in the course, and to work on a major research paper throughout the quarter. 

This course is an introduction to Buddhism in East Asia, examined through lenses of texts, art, and thought. We will examine important sources of the major currents of East Asian Buddhist thought and practice stretching from the earliest days of the religion in China to the East Asian Buddhist world of today, giving special consideration to major textual and artistic monuments, such as translated scriptures, Chan/Zen literature, paintings and sculptures, and pilgrimage sites.  

This graduate seminar 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 craft historical narratives. Students of Chinese history will find that exploring the intersection of law and society in modern China through both primary and secondary texts, students will gain an overview of legal codes, the evolution of China’s legal system under successive regimes, as well as an introduction to the diverse materials that might be considered sources for “legal” history. While historiographic questions from the China field will arise, the class will also consider legal history strategies employed by historians beyond the China field. 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 course is the first half of the East Asian Science, Technology, and Medicine series. The second part of the course will be offered in the spring quarter by Professor Jacob Eyferth. In this series, we will read major works on the history of STM in East Asia and constantly are in conversation with studies of this history in the globe.

This course is on the post-imperial and postcolonial history in East Asia. After Japan declared defeat on August 15th, 1945, the empire has officially ended. Yet, the aftermath and afterlife of Japan’s empire still deeply influenced the social and political environment in this region. How did the post-imperial connections shape Japan and its Asian neighbors? How did different actors react to this sudden change of political environment? This course pays close attention to the imperial and post-imperial continuity and changes.