Graduate

This quarter the focus is on the genre of religious/philosophical exegesis. We will read representatives commentaries of the Laozi and the Heart Sūra.

This course will survey works of Japanese fiction and poetry revolving around issues of money stretching from the late 17th through the late 20th century. We will also read key works in the philosophy of money (Adam Smith, Karl Marx, George Simmel, Karatani Kojin), works of critical theory on the relationship between literature and money, and recent scholarship on the history of money in Japan. All readings will be available in English, although some texts will also be provided in Japanese.

Discussion of Wang Bi's (226-249 AD) intellectual and social world, using a selected list of West.-lang. and Chinese-lang. secondary works. Exploration of the history of the metaphor/trope "wanwu" , including the recovered pre-Han text of that name. Discussion of its role in Xici zhuan, as well as its repurposing in Wang's Zhouyi zhu. We shall try to suggest Wang Bi's motivations for his own use of "wanwu" , whether fr

This course examines the relation between historicity and the literary, using Sima Qian's Shiji (Records of the Grand Historian) as the primary example. The Shiji is arguably the most influential Chinese work of historiography, and we will also explore its interdisciplinary and international afterlife. Particular attention will be paid to notions of the immaterial (the unreal, the fictional, the spiritual, the theoretical), the exotic (the non-Chinese, the foreign), and the universal, in traditional Chinese historiography and poetics, in modern archaeology, and in critical theory. Students without classical Chinese reading knowledge are welcome to join and to write their final papers on comparative topics.

(This is a two-quarter course: those who sign up for autumn must also sign up for "EALC 52301 in winter quarter",) Reading and research in Japanese history, which culminates in a major seminar paper at the end of winter term.

This course systematically examines the interrelationship between the 492 Buddhist cave-chapels at Dunhuang in terms of their pictorial and architectural program, spatial relationship, construction sequence, and patronage. It is hoped that this investigation will lay a methodological basis to envision a new history of Dunhuang caves. Chinese reading ability required.

This course is intended for graduate students with research interests in Buddhism in East Asia. We will critically examine the approaches modern scholars have taken to the subject (the sources they have focused on, the methods they have employed, the kinds of things they have construed Buddhism to be) as a way to both learn the field and develop our own skills as scholars. Ability in Chinese and/or Japanese helpful but not required.

This course is intended to be the first segment of a two-quarter long sequence introducing the study of early Chinese inscriptions. The first quarter will begin with a survey of Shang and Zhou oracle-bone inscriptions, with the intent to get a general overview of how to read and interpret these inscriptions. The second half of the quarter will then turn to a similar overview of Western Zhou bronze inscriptions, paying attention to both paleographic and artistic considerations. Much of the focus of this overview will center on questions of periodization. We will consider in particular how notions of periodization have influenced the historiography of Western Zhou bronze studies.

The "furusato" (rural hometown) has played an important, sometimes fraught, role in modern Japanese literature, whether as an invented tradition, as a locus of emotional attachment, or as a site of resistance against the dislocations of modernity. This course will survey a number of important modern Japanese literary texts depicting "furusato," as well as recent scholarship on the topic. It will also look at similar formations in other countries, including Germany and China. A large portion of the course readings will be in Japanese, although some selections will be provided in English.

The passion for opera throughout China during the late imperial period was not restricted to the stage but permeated the visual and material landscape of everyday life, from the court on down. Operatic characters and stories were favored as pictorial and decorative motifs across the full spectrum of visual mediums from tomb carvings and scroll paintings to popular prints, illustrated books, and painted fans, to carved utensils, ceramics, textiles, dioramas, and photographs. In preparation for an exhibition to be held at the Smart in 2014, students will research the representation of Chinese opera and its significance in a variety of visual, textual, and material forms.