Autumn

In this course, we will focus primarily on reading (in English) the Laozi and Zhuangzi, paying attention both to philosophical and historical issues. We'll also read several ancillary texts, such as the "Nei ye" chapter of the Guanzi and the "Yu Lao" and Jie Lao" chapter of the Han Feizi, as well as such unearthed manuscripts as the Tai Yi sheng shui and Heng xian. In all cases, we will be concerned first of all with what these texts may have meant to people in the Warring States period, and then only incidentally with how they have been understood in subsequent periods and places.

How can the Buddhist axiom "All Life is Sacred" describe a universe which contains the atrocities of WWII? Osamu Tezuka, creator of Astro Boy and father of modern Japanese animation, wrestled with this problem over decades in his science fiction epic Phoenix(Hi no Tori), celebrated as the philosophical masterpiece of modern manga. Through a close reading of Phoenix and related texts, this course explores the challenges genocide and other atrocities pose to traditional forms of ethics, and how we understand the human species and our role in nature. The course will also examine the flowering of manga after WWII, how manga authors bypassed censorship to help people understand the war and its causes, and the role manga and anime have played in Japan's global contributions to politics, science, medicine, technology, techno-utopianism, environmentalism, ethics, theories of war and peace, global popular culture, and contemporary Buddhism. Readings will be mainly manga, and the final paper will have a creative option including the possibility of creating graphic work.

This course takes the fictional genre of satire as a unique window on Chinese history. Placing novels and novellas from Republican China, the PRC, and Taiwan alongside excerpts from classic satirical novels from world literature, we will focus not only on the literary merits and themes of these diverse texts but also on their social, political, and historical contexts. What essential elements constitute satire, and how can we understand a historical moment better if we think with this form of literature? What does literature reveal and what does it deliberately or inadvertently obscure? We will consider the ways in which satire advances -- or declines to advance -- or advocate alternative realities (utopias/dystopias), the cultural critique offered by satire and its national and supra-national contexts.

This course is about ways some fundamental questions about life have been asked and answered in Chinese traditions. What is the world—especially what we today might call the “natural” or “living” world? How should one live, and see one’s life, within it? What is our relationship with it? How can we best understand it? How should our understanding guide our own lives and practices? We’ll explore some traditional Chinese responses to these questions as they have been expressed in religious practice, painting, literature, philosophy, gardening, and travel. Programmatically, the course is a hybrid: a “great works” course in the classic mold grafted onto a survey of some recent writings in the “environmental humanities.” These texts will both provide a set of conversation partners for our classic Chinese works and outline possible resources for reading and thinking about them here in our present age of ecological catastrophe generated, in large part, by our modern human practices.

What does it mean to write as a native speaker? How do we hear in our mother tongue? It is often said that people have a natural affinity with their native language, one which allows creators to more freely and wholly express their thoughts and experiences, and which allows audiences to understand the full nuances of a work. But there are also many who do not have a straightforward relationship with a native language. For instance, colonized writers who are forced to write in a language that is not their own, films which depict people in multilingual environments, writers who can speak but not write in their first language. This course surveys literary and artistic works from China, Japan, and Korea that mourn, celebrate, and push the boundaries and potentials of language. Through the analysis of these works, we will explore the ways in which language relates to larger social, political, and cultural contexts including ethnic minorities, diaspora, gender, technology, and more. All works will be provided in English translation.

This course will introduce students to the study of literature in modern East Asia. In particular, it examines the evolution of the novel in Japan, China, and Korea as a form of imaginative writing. We will examine major canonical works from each country: three from the early 20th century; three from mid-century; and three from the early 21st century. How did the novel form develop in East Asia relative to other parts of the world? How has it responded to the shifting geo-political and economic positions of Japan, China, and Korea? How has it attempted to represent social and cultural conflict? Authors to be read include Natsume Soseki, Lu Xun, Xiao Hong, Han Kang, Tawada Yoko, and Cixin Liu. All works will be read in English translation. 

Course description