Autumn

This course is designed for students aiming to advance their Korean proficiency through close reading and analysis of selected texts from Korean short stories and novels. Students will engage in discussions, compositions, and presentations to critically reflect on these works. By exploring themes such as love, gender, family, human rights, and relationships, the course offers deeper insights into the customs, values, and beliefs that shape Korean society and culture, as well as the universal human experiences conveyed through literature. The course meets on Tuesday and Thursday for eighty minutes.

KORE 21100 is the first course in the fourth-year Korean sequence, designed for students who aim to improve their speaking, listening, reading, and writing skills to an advanced level. Successful completion of the third-year Korean sequence or equivalent skills is required to enroll in this course. This course will focus on enhancing speed, accuracy, and comprehension in advanced listening and reading of authentic texts, such as newspaper articles, essays, poems, and reports. Additionally, it will refine writing skills in various styles. Students will also discuss social and cultural issues in Korea, utilizing their analytical skills and knowledge acquired in class. The course meets on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays for eighty minutes

KORE 20100 is the first course in the second-year Korean sequence, designed for learners who have completed the First-Year Korean sequence or have prior knowledge of Korean language and culture. The course aims to build students’ language skills, with an emphasis on enhancing speaking ability, writing skills, and the use of more complex constructions. Classroom activities and assignments will be designed and conducted primarily to facilitate students' learning processes. Furthermore, the medium of instruction will be Korean, and students are expected to use the target language as much as possible throughout the course. Active participation is key to success in this course. This course meets Monday through Friday for fifty minutes.

KORE 10100 is the first segment of the first-year Korean sequence, designed to establish a strong foundation in modern Korean language and culture. Students will learn to read, write, and type in Hangeul (the Korean writing system), while actively engaging in communication on diverse daily topics such as self, family, location, food, and activities. Through integrated listening, reading, speaking, and writing tasks, students will enhance their ability to navigate real-life scenarios using acquired vocabulary, grammar, and cultural knowledge. Additionally, students will have the opportunity to participate in cultural activities and events hosted by the University of Chicago Korean Program. This course meets Monday through Friday for fifty minutes.

What can the body tell us about religion? How do people use their bodies in ritual? Can the body escape death? What happens to the body after death? In this course, we explore how medieval Chinese Daoists and Buddhists imagined, disciplined, and transcended the body. Through close readings of primary and secondary sources, we will look at practices such as food and sexual abstinence, visualization, body sacrifice, mummification, and the gendered quest for immortality or enlightenment. Along the way, we will notice both similarities and differences between these traditions, helping us better understand the rich diversity of Chinese religious experience.  Open to MAPH students with consent.

Remediate: 1) provide a remedy for, redress or make right 2) Restore by reversing or stopping environmental damage. See also remediation: “the formal logic by which new media refashion prior media forms.” (Bolter and Grusin 1999, 273) Synonyms: amend, rectify, remedy, repair. This class examines the various ways in which Chinese literature, cinema and media remediated the theorizations and representational practices of socialism during one of the most transformative periods of China’s twentieth century. Topics will include: the debates on socialist alienation; rethinking the division of labor and the rural-urban divide; cultural nationalism and culture fever; the role of art and aesthetics; linguistic rebellions; and cultures of protest. Materials in Chinese and English.

This course explores Korea’s many diasporas in the twentieth century. What factors shaped twentieth-century Korean migration? How were individuals and families impacted by their diasporic contexts? We will examine migration trajectories from Korea to other parts of the Asia-Pacific, to Europe, and to the Americas, tracing the historical processes of colonization, war, marriage migration, international adoption, and labor migration. We will also engage with questions of citizenship, identity, and memory. Readings will include a range of primary sources such as personal letters, diaries, interviews, and artwork, as well as selected excerpts from literature and film. By the end of the course, students will have a deeper understanding of the diversity of experiences within Korea’s twentieth-century diasporas.

This course is designed to explore the notion of “global China” and examine its role and impact in
global society. China’s increasing presence concerns not only its economic power and massive
investments in the Global South, but also its growing cultural, social, and religious influence—its socalled
soft power in the world. This course will look at major scholarly discussions of Chinese global
engagements from both historical and contemporary perspectives to explore how we can advance an
understanding of global China that is no longer restricted to a nation-state framework, or to a linear
or singular approach. By combining theoretical discussion with ethnographic studies on diaspora,
migration, Chinese capital, soft power, race, and racism in global Chinese contexts, the course will
offer useful frameworks and perspectives for raising critical inquiries and tackling cutting-edge issues
related to global China. By the end of the course, the students will develop their own research
subject on a topic that is related to global China; write a thorough literature review on their chosen
topic; and present their research to the class.

In an era of globalization and rapid technological innovation, “adaptations” are becoming increasingly widespread and diverse. In addition to discussions of an adapted work’s fidelity to the prior material, this advanced seminar aims to develop multiple approaches to adaptation by conceptualizing it as a process of negotiating with changes across time, space and medium. By examining a variety of selected media objects including films, TV series, animations, short stories, theater performances and online games from or about East Asia, students will practice analyzing a cultural product’s narrative and form in relation to the sociopolitical contexts of its production, circulation and reception. In the course of the quarter, students will de-Westernize adaptation studies while generating nuanced understandings of Korea, China, and Japan as relational constructs emerging as a result of negotiating with other cultures and wielding various technologies. All required readings will be in English, either originally or in translation, and all viewing materials will be available with English subtitles. This seminar is for advanced undergraduate students and graduate students in East Asian Languages and Civilizations, Cinema and Media Studies, and the Master of Arts Program in the Humanities and the Social Sciences.