2025-2026

This course is open to students who have previously taken fourth year modern Chinese or who are placed into this level. The goal of this course is to help learners get an in-depth knowledge on Chinese culture, society, and history, to further develop students literary reading and writing skills in Chinese, and to help students master the skills of writing Chinese essays on a wide variety of topics. This course will use films and television shows as basic content. Students get the opportunity to view different genres of films. Formal expressions, Chinese grammar patterns and sentence structures for advanced level language learning will be introduced. Learners at this level are expected to be able to participate in discussions on various topics and be able to explain in detail and narrate with accuracy. They are also expected to demonstrate the ability to write on different topics by meeting the academic writing needs.  Class meets for three one-hour sessions each week. 

Open to both graduate and undergraduate students. This sequence introduces a range of essays by journalists and scholars on Chinese cultural and social issues after 2001. Students will not only expand their vocabulary and knowledge of grammatical structures, but also learn sophisticated speaking and writing skills through intensive readings and discussions. Class meets for three one-hour sessions each week. Additional two one-to-one tutorial sessions during the quarter will be arranged for each student to prepare for their language projects.

For both graduates and undergraduates. The goal of this sequence is to help students develop advanced proficiency in reading, listening, speaking, and writing. This sequence emphasizes more advanced grammatical structures, and requires discussion in Chinese on topics relevant to modern China. Over the course of this sequence, the emphasis will shift to authentic Chinese texts in an effort to better prepare students to deal with original Chinese source materials. Class meets for five one-hour sessions each week.

This three-quarter sequence is intended for bilingual/heritage speakers of Mandarin Chinese. Paralleled with the Intermediate sequence for non-heritage speakers, the goal of this sequence is to further develop students’ reading, speaking, and writing skills by dealing with topics in personal settings and some academic or professional settings. Upon completing this sequence, students are expected to pass the Practical Proficiency Test to earn a certificate on their transcript. The class meets for three one-hour sessions a week.

Part 1 of this sequence aims to enhance students' reading, listening, speaking, and writing skills by dealing with topics at an intermediate linguistic level. In addition to mastering the content of the textbook, students are required to complete two language projects each quarter. Chinese computing skills are also taught. Class meets for five one-hour sessions each week.

This three-quarter sequence introduces the fundamentals of modern Chinese. By the end of the spring quarter, students should have a basic knowledge of Chinese grammar and vocabulary. Listening, speaking, reading, and writing are equally emphasized. Accurate pronunciation is also stressed. A video project is required in spring quarter, which will be entered in the competition for the Chinese Video Project Award. Class meets for five one-hour sessions each week. Additional small group discussions of 40 minutes per week will be arranged. Maximum enrollment for each section is 18. Must be taken for a letter grade. No auditors permitted.

This quarter we will read selected tales from Liaozhai zhiyi 聊齋誌異, Pu Songling's蒲松齡seventeenth-century masterpiece. Problems to be addressed include how to deal with allusions (diangu 典故) and engage with period/ individual style in literary Chinese. We will work on not only understanding the meaning of the text but also on producing stage by stage polished English translations.

Selected readings in pre-modern Chinese literature from the first millennium B.C.E. to the end of the imperial period. The course covers important works in topics ranging from philosophy, history and religion to poetry, fiction and drama. Specific content varies by instructor.

This course examines key texts from antiquity through the 18th century related to music and sound. “Literature” is construed broadly to include the many genres in which music or sound play a principle part: philosophical and scientific essays; anecdotes, biographies, and tales; poems and informal essays; songbooks, formularies, and scores; encyclopedias and manuals. The course will be organized historically and thematically. Some of the issues we hope to investigate: the role of music in ritual and governance; theories of the voice and sound production; the translation of sound into words, and what is lost and gained; the pictorial representation of sound and listening; the relation between music and emotion; the social roles of musicians and entertainers; and the cultural significance of musical instruments.

Anyang 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 studies in the field of Chinese archaeology. While the emphasis is on archaeological finds and the related research, this course will also attempt to define Anyang in the modern social and cultural contexts in terms of world heritage, national and local identity, and the looting and illegal trade of antiquities.