Graduate

This course will explore the ways in which Chinese artists have defined modernity and tradition against the complex background of China’s history from the late nineteenth century to the 1970s. We will study modern Chinese art through the lenses of social and cultural history as well as cross-border comparison. A key issue for this art is the degree to which Chinese artists chose to adopt or adapt Western conventions and the extent to which they rejected them. Equally legitimate positions have been taken by artists whose work actively opposes the legacy of the past and by those who pursued innovations based upon their particular understandings of the Chinese tradition. Through examining art works in different media, including oil painting, graphic design, woodblock prints, traditional ink painting, photography, and architecture, along with other documentary materials including theoretical writing, bibliographical and institutional data, we will investigate the most compelling of the multiple realities that Chinese artists have constructed for themselves.

This course takes a multi-disciplinary approach to the study of craft production in Early China and other ancient civilizations by adopting perspectives developed in anthropological archaeology, history, and art history. The course will be divided into two parts, with the first devoted to reading anthropological literature and case studies of craft production in ancient civilizations. The second half of the course is devoted to the analysis of Chinese data, which range from pottery making, bronze casting, to the making of Qin terra cotta soldiers. Students are expected to become familiar with prevalent theoretical discussions in anthropology and are encouraged to apply, adopt, or revise them in order to analyze examples of craft production of their own choice of geographic area.

Anyang, or Yinxu, the ruins of Yin, is one of the most important archaeological sites in China. The discoveries of inscribed oracle bones, the royal cemetery, clusters of palatial structures, and industrial-scale craft production precincts have all established that the site was indeed the last capital of the Shang dynasty recorded in traditional historiography. With almost continuous excavations since the late 1920s, work at Anyang has in many ways shaped and defined Chinese archaeology and the study of Early Bronze Age China.This course intends to examine the history of research, important archaeological finds, and the role of Anyang in the field of Chinese archaeology. While the emphasis is on the archaeological finds and research, this course nonetheless stresses an interdisciplinary approach by reviewing, in addition, scholarly works in art history and epigraphy. The course will also examine Anyang in the modern social and cultural contexts in terms of world heritage, national and local identity, and the looting and illicit trade of antiquities.

This course will survey the history of China from the late Shang dynasty (c. 1200 B.C.) through the end of the Qin dynasty (207 B.C.). We will explore both traditional and recently unearthed sources, and will take a multi-disciplinary approach.

Thousands of Chinese manuscripts dating between the fifth century B.C. and the tenth century A.D. have been discovered since the beginning of the twentieth century, with new discoveries continuing to the present. This seminar addresses theoretical and methodological approaches to engaging in research on the manuscripts.

Are there spatial dispositions particular to China? How do historical and culturally specific projects reify or challenge spatial categories? This course is an object-orientated exploration of space as an analytical category for the interpretation of Chinese cases: we may consider burials, temples, imperial cities, landscape, etc. Readings will include seminal and recent texts on space and place, and writings in area studies which make use of these concepts. Particular attention will be paid to hierarchical arrangements that conceptualize as infrastructures of power, in particular those that are institutional and/or geopolitical in nature.

The content of this course is reading and discussion of classics of historical literature in modern Chinese history from 1965 through to 2012. Emphasis is placed on how historiographical changes during this period are manifest in each work. Each week we will read and discuss the assigned monograph, and students will write of an informed review essay of it. The final requirement is a term paper in which the student will construct an analytical history of the historical literature of the period.

This course will explore multiple definitions of fascism in relation to modern Japanese culture. We will read works of literature and literary criticism typically identified as fascist, as well as Japanese critiques of fascism, from the 1930s and beyond. We will also read a number of theoretical texts from Japan and elsewhere that analyze fascism as a political and cultural form. Advanced reading knowledge of Japanese is required; a large portion of the course readings will be in Japanese, although some selections will be provided in English.

This course will introduce students to the digital humanities by focusing on the acquisition of a single quantitative method (social network analysis) and its application to a single historical context (literary modernism). The course familiarizes students with ongoing debates surrounding the digital humanities and the use of computational methods for literary critique, but will also move past meta-discussion by providing an opportunity to explore these methods through collaborative projects. Readings will be focused on theories of literary modernism and sociological approaches to the study of culture. Students will learn how to build network datasets, manipulate visualization software, run simple analytics, and think critically about the potential uses of social-scientific methods. No prerequisites required.

What is a ghost? How and why are ghosts represented in particular forms in a particular culture at particular historical moments? This course will explore the complex meanings, both literal and figurative, of ghosts and spirits in Chinese culture across a range of genres: the ghost story, opera, visual imagery, and film. Issues to be explored include: 1) the confrontation of individual mortality and collective anxieties over the loss of the historical past; 2) the relationship between the supernatural, gender, and sexuality; 3) the visualization of ghosts and spirits in art, theater, and cinema; 4) the politics of ghosts in modern times. Course readings will be in English translation, and no prior background is required, but students who read Chinese will be encouraged to work with sources in the original. This year's class will be designed to take full advantage of special Chicago events in spring 2014, notably the exhibition "Performing Images: Opera in Chinese Visual Culture" at the Smart Museum, and Mary Zimmerman's new production of The White Snake at the Goodman Theater.