Winter

The early Chinese book attributed to Master Zhuang seems to be a patchwork of fables, polemical discussions, arguments, examples, riddles, and lyrical utterances. Although it has been central to the development of both religious Daoism and Buddhism, the book is alien to both traditions. This course offers a careful reading of the work with some of its early commentaries.

Twelve years apart from one another, two Chinese writers were awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature: Gao Xingjian, in 2000, and Mo Yan, in 2012. In both cases, the awarding of the prize was followed by controversies concerning the writers' merits, their political stance, their relation to the Chinese state, and more generally the political purposes of the prize itself. In this course, we will first read these authors' works, to find out who they are, how they write, and whether there are any thematic or formal affinities between them. Secondly, we will read scholarship focusing on what some commentators have described as “China’s ‘Nobel complex’,” namely her quest for global cultural recognition, investigating its historical roots and connecting it to larger questions concerning practices of translation and concepts of world literature. 

This seminar (required for all East Asian majors) is intended to expose students to the different disciplines and areas represented in the study of East Asia at the University of Chicago. Students should take this chance to meet fellow majors in the various areas of East Asian Studies and to familiarize themselves with the work of faculty members. Third year students should be already thinking about finding a topic and a faculty advisor for a senior thesis. Conventionally, the Concentrators Seminar is organized around a theme. The goal of this interdisciplinary seminar is to expose students to a range of important problems and methods across time and space in the study of China, Japan and Korea. Guest lecturers and reading assigned by different University of Chicago faculty members are an integral part of the course. Students work on an individual research project tailored to their own interests, which they may subsequently develop into a B.A paper. This course is offered every year; however the quarter may change.Religion and Politics of East Asia.

In this course, our main purpose will be to read a representative sample of the poems (about one-fifth, some sixty different poems) in the Shi jing 詩經 or Classic of Poetry, China’s earliest collection of poetry.  In addition to reading these poems, we will also discuss related secondary scholarship written in English (students are also most welcome to read secondary scholarship in Chinese).

Are there Chinese musicals? It very much depends on what we would consider a Chinese musical. To answer Adrian Martin’s call for “Musical Mutations: Before, Beyond and Against Hollywood,” this course will look for Chinese musicals in both obvious and unlikely places. The “musical mutations” under discussion include traditional opera adaptation, back-stage opera film, martial-arts opera film, Maoist opera film, musical comedy, song-and-dance film, melo-drama, Hong Kong musical, and most certainly the “apocalyptic” musical named by Martin, The Hole (Tsai Ming-liang, 1998). The tripartite developments of Chinese-language cinemas provide a privileged site to chart the ways the musical genre expands, transforms, and rejuvenates cross time and borders.

This course explores issues of gender within Japanese history from ancient to modern times, with a focus on the period from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries.

The rise and fall of the Japanese colonial empire in the first half of the twentieth century is an event of singular important in the history of modern Japan as well as its concurrent East Asia. This course surveys the imperial or colonial roots of the formation of modern East Asian nations-mainly Japan but also Taiwan, Korea, and China-with a focus on the complex interplays between nationalism and imperialism or colonialism. By examining several key issues of colonial studies, we will look at the intertwinement and tensions between empire-building and nation-forming. All readings are in English.

What is culture, and how is cultural identity developed and communicated in a diverse global context? This course explores representations of Japanese culture-both by the non-Japanese audience and by Japanese themselves throughout key moments of Japan's cultural identity crisis in the modern era. We will use examples of representations from Japanese history as windows through which to explore issues of nation-consciousness, the physical and mental "nature" of a people, membership in a culture, propaganda and cultural conflict, and how these issues arise and are shaped with each iteration of cultural representation.

This course is an introduction to the visual arts of Korea from prehistory to the contemporary period and is organized both chronologically and thematically. The course considers objects within a variety of contexts (i.e., archaeological, cultural, historical, social, and ritual/religious) to both examine the meaning and function of the objects and to consider the issues of cultural transmission and exchange. In addition to better understand Korean culture, the aim of the course is to develop the skills of formal analysis, critical thinking, and writing about visual arts.

This course aims to provide groundwork skills for conducting primary research in Chinese painting history. Emphasis will be on sinological tools and standard resources relevant to the study of early periods, especially the Song and Yuan Dynasty. To develop proficiencies in analyzing materials (silk, paper, mounting, ink, color) and investigating provenance (identifying seals, inscriptions). To gain familiarity with the scholarship on issues of connoisseurship, authenticity and quality judgment. Weekly task-based reports. Final research paper.