Autumn

A distinctive feature of Tibetan religion is its tradition of ‘Treasure discovery’ (gter ma), in which prophesied individuals reveal hidden treasures of sacred texts, sacred objects, and sundry other items, concealed in the landscape, the elements, or even the mind. Much of Tibet’s most influential religious literature is revealed in this way, so the Treasure traditions have attracted considerable academic interest. Why and how did this unique tradition arise? Early scholars tried to explain it predominantly as a device for religious innovation that drew on the pre-Buddhist burial cults of the ancient emperors, but neither of these propositions now remain entirely tenable. By contrast, many more salient features have so far remained under explored: gter ma’s dense intersections with the cosmologies of Tibet's non-elite indigenous ‘nameless’ religion; its cultural interconnectedness with the contemporaneous textual revelatory traditions of the non-dual Śaivism of Kashmir; the efforts of early gter ma apologists to present it as a continuation of the Indian traditions of nidhi, including the nidhiśāstra materials shared by Śaiva and Buddhist tantrists in India; the widespread adaptation of Mahāyāna narrative tropes of prophesied dharmabhāṇakas that characterised much early Tibetan tradition-building; and more. This course will present materials from a book in progress that rethinks the nature and origins of gter ma.

The 16th century Chinese iconoclast Li Zhi (Li Zhuowu) has been rightly celebrated as a pioneer of individualism, one of history’s great voices of social protest, an original mind powerfully arguing for genuine self-expression, and more. He was a Confucian official and erudite in the classics, yet in his sixties he takes the Buddhist tonsure, and late in life befriends the Jesuit Matteo Ricci. He sought refuge in a quiet monastery devoting his life to scholarship, yet invited constant scandal. His A Book to Burn “sold like hotcakes,” and attracted enough trouble that reportedly readers would surreptitiously hide their copies tucked up their sleeves, and was later banned by the state soon after his death. In this seminar, we will place Li both within the context of the history of “Confucian” thought, and within the literary, religious, and philosophical conversations of the late Ming. Using his writings as a productive case study, we will think about topics including “religion,” tradition and innovation, “spontaneity” and “authenticity,” and the relationship between “classics” and commentaries. Throughout, we will bring our discussions into comparative analysis, considering views of thinkers and traditions from other times and places. Chinese not required; for those interested, we will read select essays of Li’s in Chinese and students may choose translation as a final project.

Japan's imperial expansion in East Asia in the late nineteenth and twentieth century have drafted influenced social, political, technological, and environmental relations between different areas in this region. In recent years, we have seen a growing number of scholarship that discusses the influences and process of Japan's imperial expansion in Asia. Besides focusing on the political and social influence of Japan's imperial domination, these scholarships also show new ways to research empire and imperialism through the lens of technology, material culture, immigration, and transnational history. With a focus on recent scholarship on Japanese imperialism and Japan's empire-building, this course will familiarize students with the current debates and discussions on this topic and facilitate students to generate their own research topic. In this course, alongside analyzing and dissecting the current scholarship and their analyses and perspectives on Japan's empire, students will have the chance to build up skills to write a research paper from analyzing primary documents to drafting annotated bibliographies, outlines, proposals, and the final paper.

This course examines the politics, society, and culture of East Asia from ancient times until c. 1600. Our focus will be on examining key historical moments and intellectual, social, and cultural trends with an emphasis on the region as a whole. Students will read and discuss culturally significant texts and be introduced to various approaches to analyzing them.

How have insects affected ways of knowing and relating to the world?

This course opens a dialogue between insects and Japanese audiovisual cultures, including fiction, poetry, visual art, manga, anime, and film. We aim to address the important and profound challenge that recent trends in animal studies, environmental humanities, and eco-criticism pose to received ways of studying human cultures and societies. The challenge lies in offering alternatives to the entrenched reliance on a nature-culture divide, which gives culture explanatory preference over nature. In the case of Japan and insects, for instance, there exists a fairly significant body of scholarship on how Japanese people respond to, interact with, and represent insects, and yet priority is generally given to culture, and Japan is treated monolithically. To offer alternatives to this monolithic culturalism, in this course we will (a) open dialogue between culture accounts of insects and scientific accounts and (b) explore different forms of media offering different milieus where human animals and more-than-human insects come into relation without assuming the ascendency of one over the other.

This course defines “Chinese state” as a state that uses Chinese Script to define its legal institutions. A rich variety of this kind of state can be observed in the history of East Asia, showing a wide range of different ethnic, cultural and socio-economic backgrounds. The objective of this course is to highlight the fundamental breaks in the history of these Chinese states, which often hide under a thick curtain of linguistic continuity. Though contemporary Chinese states are undoubtedly rooted in history, this course avoids diminishing the history of the former Chinese states to a pre-history of any contemporary Chinese state. This course is divided into part I (Autumn term) and part II (Winter term). Part I concentrates on the first Chinese states, covering a period when written history in East Asia was still limited to Chinese history. Interstate relations were thus limited to international relations between Chinese states or to Chinese state relations with states without indigenous script systems. This period commences in the early Bronze Age and reaches the seventh century CE. The course will show that the legacy of script, language and concepts did not limit the plurality of legal institutions, which may be considered a natural result of differing socio-economic needs. Part II starts from the eighth century. At that time, the state of Tang became the first Chinese state for which we have evidence that it concluded equal international treaties with non-Chinese states.

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. This course meets on Tuesdays and Thursdays for eighty minutes.

The great Chinese-Manchu novel “Honglou meng” (ca. 1750) has been assigned one major author, Cao Xueqin, whose life has been the subject of much investigation. But before 1922 little was known about Cao, and interpreters of the novel were forced to make headway solely on the basis of textual clues. The so-called “Three Commentators” edition (“Sanjia ping Shitou ji”) shows these readers at their creative, polemical, and far-fetched best. We will be reading the first 80 chapters of the novel and discussing its reception in the first 130 years of its published existence (1792-1922), with special attention to hermeneutical strategies and claims of authorial purpose. Familiarity with classical Chinese required.

This course is intended to improve Japanese reading, speaking, writing, and listening ability to the advanced low level as measured by the ACTFL (American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages) Proficiency Guidelines. Weekly assignments require students to tackle modern Japanese texts of varying length and difficulty. Organized around a range of thought-provoking themes, reading assignments include academic theses, literary texts, and popular journalism. After each reading, students are encouraged to discuss the topic in class and are required to write their own thoughts on each reading along with a summary. The class meets for two eighty-minute sessions each week.

This course is an exploration of concepts of the wonderous and marvelous in Japanese literature and performance up to 1900. Primary texts and materials will include setsuwa collections, such as the Nihon ryoiki and Konjaku monogatari, poetry and poetics, late Heian monogatari, early modern travel fiction, theater, and encyclopedias.We will also consider theater's engagement with the spacial and embodied aspects of wonder through noh performance and theory, spectacle shows and circuses, exhibitions and worlds fairs, the operating theater and the human body. Alongside these primary texts and performances, we will survey recent scholarship on the history of wonder and marvel, considering along the way theories of fictionality, theatricality, affect and the senses, "objective agency" and the stage prop, and intersections between science, medicine, and the ludic.

Readings will be available in English and no prior coursework in Japanese literature or history is required.