2012-2013

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 seminar (required for all East Asian majors) is intended to expose students to the different disciplines and areas represented in the study of East Asia at the University of Chicago. Students should take this chance to meet fellow majors in the various areas of East Asian Studies and to familiarize themselves with the work of faculty members. Third year students should be already thinking about finding a topic and a faculty advisor for a senior thesis. Conventionally, the Concentrators Seminar is organized around a theme. The goal of this interdisciplinary seminar is to expose students to a range of important problems and methods across time and space in the study of China, Japan and Korea. Guest lecturers and reading assigned by different University of Chicago faculty members are an integral part of the course. Students work on an individual research project tailored to their own interests, which they may subsequently develop into a B.A paper. This course is offered every year; however the quarter may change.

In this course we will explore three distinct but interrelated modes of self-cultivation and the contemplative life from premodern China: those exemplified by the _Laozi_, and in particular by those artists and philosophers who drew upon the text; by the Chan tradition in Tang and Song Buddhism; and by the Song Neo-Confucian philosopher and exegete Zhu Xi (1130-1200). We will read classic texts in these modes (and a few modern ones too) closely, attuning ourselves as best we can to their original contexts, and we will brood together on how we might use them in our own contemplative lives. Central to the course will be careful consideration of the different understandings of the Way (Dao) found in our texts, and how these different Ways structured conceptions of the ideal human life.

This course looks at a crucial 600 years of Chinese history, the period 100-700 AD. I hope we can touch on the high points of dynastic failures and successes, military and border problems, and state economic and military policies, going mostly chronologically. Simultaneously, we shall look at a series of individuals who wrote, thought, and/or advised during these centuries, about these political matters and about private matters. Thus the course analyzes the state and its politics as entwined with written ideas, policy changes, speculations, and even inventions and discoveries. The writer/thinkers whom we look at were China's scholarly elite: they were concerned about personal and factional power: the dynasty's political legitimation and its rewards of wealth and office; also they were concerned about reading, editing, commenting on the classics, writing letters and memoranda, collecting and organizing libraries and artifacts. They invented new genres to express intimate views about self and family and friends, interior thoughts, and even spiritual change and religious beliefs. We will assess and discuss prose, technical achievements, poetry, and letters.

This course 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 introduces the basic grammar of the written Chinese language from the time of the Confucian Analects to the literary movements at the beginning of the twentieth century. Students read original texts of genres that include philosophy, memorials, and historical narratives. Spring Quarter is devoted exclusively to reading poetry. The class meets for two eighty-minute sessions a week.

(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.