Graduate

The early Chinese book attributed to Master Zhuang seems to be a patchwork of fables, polemical discussions, arguments, examples, riddles, and lyrical utterances. Although it has been central to the development of both religious Daoism and Buddhism, the book is alien to both traditions. This course offers a careful reading of the work with some of its early commentaries.

Twelve years apart from one another, two Chinese writers were awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature: Gao Xingjian, in 2000, and Mo Yan, in 2012. In both cases, the awarding of the prize was followed by controversies concerning the writers' merits, their political stance, their relation to the Chinese state, and more generally the political purposes of the prize itself. In this course, we will first read these authors' works, to find out who they are, how they write, and whether there are any thematic or formal affinities between them. Secondly, we will read scholarship focusing on what some commentators have described as “China’s ‘Nobel complex’,” namely her quest for global cultural recognition, investigating its historical roots and connecting it to larger questions concerning practices of translation and concepts of world literature. 

In this course, our main purpose will be to read a representative sample of the poems (about one-fifth, some sixty different poems) in the Shi jing 詩經 or Classic of Poetry, China’s earliest collection of poetry.  In addition to reading these poems, we will also discuss related secondary scholarship written in English (students are also most welcome to read secondary scholarship in Chinese).

Are there Chinese musicals? It very much depends on what we would consider a Chinese musical. To answer Adrian Martin’s call for “Musical Mutations: Before, Beyond and Against Hollywood,” this course will look for Chinese musicals in both obvious and unlikely places. The “musical mutations” under discussion include traditional opera adaptation, back-stage opera film, martial-arts opera film, Maoist opera film, musical comedy, song-and-dance film, melo-drama, Hong Kong musical, and most certainly the “apocalyptic” musical named by Martin, The Hole (Tsai Ming-liang, 1998). The tripartite developments of Chinese-language cinemas provide a privileged site to chart the ways the musical genre expands, transforms, and rejuvenates cross time and borders.

This course introduces the basic narrative and critical discourses of the history of early modern Japan, roughly from 1500 to 1868.  The course examines the emergence of the central power that unified feudal domains and explores processes of social, cultural, and political changes that transformed Japan into a "realm under Heaven."  Some scholars consider early modern Japan as the source of an indigenous birth of capitalism, industrialism, and also of Japan’s current economic vitality, while others see a bleak age of feudal oppression and isolation.  We will explore both sides of the debate and examine the age of many contradictions.

How did gender norms change from the Qing era to Republican China? In this graduate course, we will read essays by neo-Confucian thinkers (Zhang Xuecheng) and statecraft authors (Cheng Hongmou, Yan Ruyi), legal texts, excerpts from popular handbooks and encyclopedia (on ritual, reproductive health, and everyday life). In the second half of the course, we will read essays by early twentieth-century writers such as Kang Youwei, Liang Qichao, He-Yin Zhen, Qiu Jin, as well as articles from the popular press. Most of the readings will be in Chinese, though we will use translations alongside the originals, if available.

Building up on fascinating recent research on thought reform, social control, reeducation, spycraft, and police work in the early PRC, we will examine how the new state sought to mold and reeducate its people. We will begin by reading some of the recent English language literature and then move on to read self-criticisms, confessions, petitions, denunciation letters, and police reports in Chinese. Third year Chinese or equivalent is required.