Autumn

This course is an introduction to the arts of China focusing on the bronze vessels of the Shang and Zhou dynasties, the Chinese appropriation of the Buddha image, and the evolution of landscape and figure painting traditions. This course considers objects in contexts (from the archaeological sites from which they were unearthed to the material culture that surrounded them) to reconstruct the functions and the meanings of objects, and to better understand Chinese culture through the objects it produced.

The course offers panoramic views as well as close-ups of cinematic landscapes of East Asia and Southeast Asia. We will cover a variety of films—including animation and documentary—from Japan, Korea, China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Indonesia, and Malaysia, with a focus on site-specific works and trans-regional co-productions, circulations, and exchanges. Combining critical readings with truly close analyses of films, this course seeks to develop: (1) solid understandings of cinema’s peculiar and intricate relations to space and time; (2) conversations between cinema and other art forms, such as photography, painting, and calligraphy; (3) methods and skills of conducting film analysis. Proficiency in East Asian languages is NOT required.

This class will trace the emergence of the vernacular short story as a new genre in the late Ming and early Qing. We will focus on the seventeenth-century story collections of Feng Menglong, Ling Mengchu, Aina Jushi, and Li Yu, whose stories map the social whole of late imperial China—from merchant schemes to courtesan romances, from the friendships of students to the follies of emperors. Alongside close readings of selected stories, we will examine the structure, sources, and publication histories of these collections and locate them in a broader discussion of the meanings and functions of vernacular literature. All readings in English, though students with Chinese reading ability will be encouraged to read the original texts.

This course centers on yōkai (monsters or fantastic creatures) and theories of the fantastic in cinema and media. Historically, it spans the range from medieval emaki and Edo chōnin culture through 20th and 21st century manga and anime. Inquiry into yōkai and the fantastic is intended to develop new strategies for putting cinema and media into dialogue with theories of political sovereignty and capitalism in the context of everyday life and its urban myths.

This course surveys a variety of scholarly approaches to the study of popular music in East Asia since 1900, including questions of authenticity, gender, media technologies, circulation, and translation. The course will introduce a variety of musical genres from China, Japan, Korea, Hong Kong and Taiwan, ranging from forms considered 'traditional' to contemporary idol and hiphop music. All readings will be available in English, and no background in music is required or expected

For course description contact East Asian Languages.

Studies of media in recent years have increasingly turned toward questions about ecologies and environments, energy and elemental forces, relational theories and non-discrete objects.  The first aim of this seminar is to introduce some of the key problematics associated with this ‘turn’ in media studies. At the same time, due to the proliferation of turns (elemental, environmental, ecological, energetic), objects (media forms, devices, platforms, networks, infrastructures) and concerns (more-than-human life, settler colonialism, indigenous struggles, migration), this seminar aims to provide a practical focus for doing media ecology or thinking media ecologically. The problematic for fall 2022 is Plant Media or “thinking with plants through media.” Topics includes contemporary research on plant intelligence, which raises questions about intelligence without physical correlates, forcing us to deal with intelligence in terms of the whole plant as an ecology.  We will also consider the mediating role of media, from self-writing plants to time-lapse audio and video to parse movement as intelligence. Finally, this ecological approach encourages a reconsideration of eco-agriculture and alternative paths of cultivation.

Fulfills translation requirement for EALC graduate students. Must be arranged with individual faculty member. Register by section with EALC faculty.

Independent reading course.

For course description contact East Asian Languages.