Winter

KORE 21200 is the second course in the fourth-year Korean sequence, designed to continue improving students' speaking, listening, reading, and writing skills to an advanced level. This course will focus on enhancing speed, accuracy, and comprehension in advanced listening and reading of authentic texts, such as interviews, movies, novels, essays, and reports. Additionally, it will refine writing skills in various styles. Students will also discuss social, cultural, and political issues in Korea, utilizing their analytical skills and knowledge acquired in class. The course meets on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays for eighty minutes.

KORE 20402 is the second course in the third-year Korean sequence. The course aims to further develop students’ high-intermediate proficiency in speaking, listening, reading, writing, and grammar. Students will learn a variety of grammatical patterns and expressions that enable them to engage in conversations across a range of real-life situations. Authentic materials, including news reports, films, and television dramas, will be incorporated to further develop students’ Korean language proficiency and deepen their understanding of Korean culture and society. The instructor primarily uses Korean in class, and students are expected to communicate in the target language as well. The course meets on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays for eighty minutes.

KORE 20200 is the second 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 continue building students’ language skills with emphasis on enhancing speaking ability, writing skills, and usage of more complex constructions. Hence, classroom activity and assignments will be designed and conducted with the main purpose of facilitating students' learning process. Furthermore, the medium of instruction will be in Korean, and students are expected to use the target language as much as they can throughout the course. Students’ active participation is the key to success in this course. Approximately 50 Chinese characters will be introduced for the achievement of basic literacy. This course meets Monday through Friday for fifty minutes.

KORE 10200 is the second course in the first-year Korean sequence, designed to continue building a solid foundation in modern Korean language and culture. Students will learn to communicate on various daily topics, such as self, family, daily routines, school activities, weekend plans, and holiday or birthday celebrations. 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, the course will introduce Korean culture through media, music, and other cultural activities. This course meets Monday through Friday for fifty minutes.

This course examines the varied forms of prostitution and sex work in different societies in East Asia and the Asia Pacific region from the early modern period to the present. Paying close attention to the shifts in the organization of prostitution and sex work, state regulation and societal attitudes, the class explores how prostitution and sex work relates to broader questions of gender, sexuality, labor, family, and the state. This class is both thematic and loosely chronological. We cover prostitution, courtesans and social status in Qing China, Chosǒn Korea, and Tokugawa Japan, state-regulated prostitution in modernizing states in the early twentieth century, military prostitution and sexual violence during WWII and in the postwar period, as well as contemporary forms of sex work and queer sex work in the Asia Pacific. Through an examination of how prostitution was historically situated and regulated in the Asia-Pacific region, we will also engage with theoretical and contemporary debates about sex work. What counts as sex work? Should sex work be considered work or sexual violence? In other words, can sex work be interpreted as exercise of agency by women or is the work inescapably sexually violent and exploitative such that the “choice” to sell sex can never be freely made? How should the state regulate sex work?

This lecture course surveys the history of the island of Taiwan from the 16th through 21st Centuries. Beginning during the period of European mercantile expansion, we explore the successive regimes that have sought to control the island, as well as the historical arguments and narratives that constitute the cultural identity of this diverse and contested place. The course also seeks to understand Taiwan’s place as a seafaring part of the Pacific world and to consider legacies of different layers of colonial encounter. Concluding in the 21st century the course engages with questions of contemporary sovereignty, social movements, political party formation, as well as economic and technological innovation. Students can anticipate reading across disciplinary genres and learning how to develop evidence based historical arguments through brief writing assignments.

This class offers an overview of the history of feminism in China, with a focus on the genres of writing (manifestos, pamphlets, essays, poetry and fiction) and media (journals, posters, zines, digital platforms, hashtags) through which feminist ideas emerged and circulated from the late 19th century to this day. Topics to be discussed include: feminism and the public sphere, feminism and nationalism, the question of women's literature, feminism in the socialist revolution, family laws, feminism and trans and queer rights. No prior knowledge of Chinese is required.  Open to MAPH students.

This course examines the cultural, political, and technological dimensions of digital technologies in East Asia, with a specific focus on digital media. Through readings in media theory, cultural studies, and science and technology studies, as well as screenings and hands-on digital labs, students will explore the intersection between regional histories and the forms and practices of digital culture. Analytical topics include the Internet, platform economies, video games, digital culture, and emerging debates around AI. Alongside theoretical inquiry, the course also introduces digital humanities methods such as text mining, network analysis, and visualization, asking students to critically engage both the media they study and the tools that may be constitutive to new kinds of research projects. By the end of the quarter, students should gain an understanding not only theories and methodologies of digital technologies in general, but also their sociocultural development in the region of East Asia.

China has been in the "post-Mao" era for 50 years (or 48 years, if we take 1978, not 1976, as the turning point) - longer than the Mao or Republican eras (27 and 38 years), respectively). The post-Mao years have seen unprecedented economic growth, the transformation of a predominantly rural into an advanced industrial society, the lifting of millions out of poverty, the formation of a new working class composed of rural migrants and laid-off urban workers, and the rapid rise of inequality. China went through several severe crises: it is easy to forget that in the 1990s, the central government seemed to be losing control over the coastal provinces and observers predicted the imminent breakup of the country. Topics covered include the socialist legacy (state owenership of enterprises, the danwei and hukou system), the events around Mao's death, rural economic reforms (household responsibility system, township and village enterprises), urban reforms (SPecial Economic Zones, new labor laws, privatization), rural-urban migrations and its consequences, the Tiananmen protests, China's accession to the WTO, the 1997 and 2008 financial crises, and the recentralization of economy and society under Xi Jinping. While the focus is on large structural changes in society and economy, we will also discuss changes in gender norms and family life, and cultural change more broadly. All readings will be in English.

This course offers an interdisciplinary introduction to the histories, methodologies, and practices foundational to Korean visual, literary, oral, and performing traditions. Its central concern is how historical overlaps, ruptures, and interactions among diverse media and various cultural origins have shaped Korean artistic and cultural production—and contributed to its contemporary global visibility. The first half surveys Korean history, writing systems, and philosophical thought from ancient to modern periods, organized around the thematic framework of "heaven (ch'ŏn; hanŭl), earth (chi; ttang), and people (in; saram)." This triad has underpinned the Korean vernacular script (han'gŭl), indigenous belief systems, and artistic practices from antiquity to the present. The second half turns to intertwined studies of visual and literary sources ranging from the late Chosŏn period (eighteenth and nineteenth centuries) through the pre-digital contemporary era—the era in which Korea was richly and irrevocably exposed to the world outside. Designed for undergraduate and graduate students with limited or no prior exposure to Korea who wish to incorporate Korean materials into their studies or deepen their understanding of Korean culture, the course requires no prior knowledge of Korea or the Korean language.