Spring

In this course we will read a number of works by renowned Confucian, Shinto, and the Nativist scholars in Japan's early modern period, while concurrently reading the major historiographical debates about them.  We will also study the social context of these thinkers in which they attempted to define the core of Japan's cultural identity. 

Autobiographical writings have thrived in modern China. Why this is the case and what the writing of one's life has meant at different moments in twentieth-century China are among the questions that this course addresses. We will examine various forms of writings, including real and fictional diaries and memoirs by Chinese intellectuals from the 1910s to the 1980s, and will consider in which ways these texts qualify as autobiography, thematically, structurally, and linguistically. Theoretical and scholarly studies on autobiography and diary will help orient our discussions toward issues of gender, space, time, and performativity.

This course introduces the basic narrative and critical discourses of the history of early modern Japan, roughly from 1500 to 1868.  The course examines the emergence of the central power that unified feudal domains and explores processes of social, cultural, and political changes that transformed Japan into a "realm under Heaven."  Some scholars consider early modern Japan as the source of an indigenous birth of capitalism, industrialism, and also of Japan’s current economic vitality, while others see a bleak age of feudal oppression and isolation.  We will explore both sides of the debate and examine the age of many contradictions.

This undergraduate course examines the cinematic representation of modern Korean history, politics, and gender in South Korean films, aiming to establish a comprehensive understanding of Korean film history from its early stage to its contemporary global recognition. While proceeding chronologically, we will interrogate key problematic subjects in South Korean cinema such as gender politics, the discourse of modernity, the representation of historical and political events, and practices of film culture and industry. The film texts examined in this course include not only break-though masterpieces of prominent film auteurs but also popular genre films that enjoyed box-office success. Through these examples, we will examine how the most influential art form in South Korea has recognized, interpreted, and resolved current societal issues through creative endeavor. The course also seeks to establish a balance between understanding Korean cinema as both a reservoir of historical memory and as an example of evolving world cinema. Being presented with methodological issues from film studies in each week’s film reading, including the question of archives, national cinema discourse, feminist film theory, auteurism, and genre studies, students in this course will learn to analyze Korean filmic texts not only as a way to understand the particularity of Korean cinema and history but also as a frontier of cinematic language in the broader film history. All the materials are available in English and no knowledge of Korean language is required.

Thousands of Chinese manuscripts dating between the fifth century B.C. and the tenth century A.D. have been discovered since the beginning of the twentieth century, with new discoveries continuing to the present. This seminar addresses theoretical and methodological approaches to engaging in research on the manuscripts.

Are there spatial dispositions particular to China? How do historical and culturally specific projects reify or challenge spatial categories? This course is an object-orientated exploration of space as an analytical category for the interpretation of Chinese cases: we may consider burials, temples, imperial cities, landscape, etc. Readings will include seminal and recent texts on space and place, and writings in area studies which make use of these concepts. Particular attention will be paid to hierarchical arrangements that conceptualize as infrastructures of power, in particular those that are institutional and/or geopolitical in nature.

The content of this course is reading and discussion of classics of historical literature in modern Chinese history from 1965 through to 2012. Emphasis is placed on how historiographical changes during this period are manifest in each work. Each week we will read and discuss the assigned monograph, and students will write of an informed review essay of it. The final requirement is a term paper in which the student will construct an analytical history of the historical literature of the period.

This course will explore multiple definitions of fascism in relation to modern Japanese culture. We will read works of literature and literary criticism typically identified as fascist, as well as Japanese critiques of fascism, from the 1930s and beyond. We will also read a number of theoretical texts from Japan and elsewhere that analyze fascism as a political and cultural form. Advanced reading knowledge of Japanese is required; a large portion of the course readings will be in Japanese, although some selections will be provided in English.

This course will introduce students to the digital humanities by focusing on the acquisition of a single quantitative method (social network analysis) and its application to a single historical context (literary modernism). The course familiarizes students with ongoing debates surrounding the digital humanities and the use of computational methods for literary critique, but will also move past meta-discussion by providing an opportunity to explore these methods through collaborative projects. Readings will be focused on theories of literary modernism and sociological approaches to the study of culture. Students will learn how to build network datasets, manipulate visualization software, run simple analytics, and think critically about the potential uses of social-scientific methods. No prerequisites required.

What is a ghost? How and why are ghosts represented in particular forms in a particular culture at particular historical moments? This course will explore the complex meanings, both literal and figurative, of ghosts and spirits in Chinese culture across a range of genres: the ghost story, opera, visual imagery, and film. Issues to be explored include: 1) the confrontation of individual mortality and collective anxieties over the loss of the historical past; 2) the relationship between the supernatural, gender, and sexuality; 3) the visualization of ghosts and spirits in art, theater, and cinema; 4) the politics of ghosts in modern times. Course readings will be in English translation, and no prior background is required, but students who read Chinese will be encouraged to work with sources in the original. This year's class will be designed to take full advantage of special Chicago events in spring 2014, notably the exhibition "Performing Images: Opera in Chinese Visual Culture" at the Smart Museum, and Mary Zimmerman's new production of The White Snake at the Goodman Theater.