Spring

EALC 24517/34517 Human Rights in China

(HIST 24516, HIST 34616)

This seminar explores the diverse range of human rights crises confronting China and Chinese people today. Co-taught by Teng Biao, an internationally recognized lawyer and advocate for human rights, and University of Chicago China historian Johanna Ransmeier, this course focuses upon demands for civil and political rights within China. Discussions will cover the Chinese Communist Party's monopoly on power, the mechanisms of the Chinese criminal justice system, and the exertion of state power and influence in places like Tibet, Hong Kong, Xinjiang, and Taiwan, as well as the impact of the People's Republic of China on international frameworks. We will discuss the changing role of activism and the expansion of state surveillance capacity. Students are encouraged to bring their own areas of interest to our conversations. Throughout the quarter we will periodically be joined by practitioners from across the broader human rights community.

J. Ransmeier
2020-2021 Spring

EALC 56600 Seminar on the Chin P'ing Mei – II

Open to undergraduates and gradute students who do not read Chinese, although those who can do so will be expected to read the text in its original form. Paper will be required end of second course. A careful reading and discussion of this major work of traditional Chinese fiction in both the original language and in English translation, with excursions into the relevant secondary scholarship.

D. Roy
2012-2013 Spring

EALC 45530 Manuscript Culture in Ancient and Medieval China

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.

2012-2013 Spring

EALC 44610 Spatial Strategies in the Chinese Tradition

(ARTH 44610)

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.

P. Foong
2012-2013 Spring

EALC 40455 Selected Readings in Modern Chinese History

We will read and discuss important English-language works on modern Chinese history that have appeared in the past five years or so. The emphasis is on social and cultural history, with some flexibility to accommodate interests of participating students. The aim of the course is to introduce graduate students in EALC, history, and related disciplines to current debates in the field. Expect to read two books per week.

2012-2013 Spring

EALC 31851 Zhuangzi: Literature, Philosophy, or Something Else?

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.

Prerequisites

Knowledge of classical Chinese.

2012-2013 Spring

EALC 28200/38200 Reading the Revolution: Chinese Social History in Documents

(HIST 24505, HIST 34505)

How can we reconstruct the life experience of "ordinary" people at a time of revolutionary change? What are the sources for a history of the Chinese revolution? What can we learn from newspaper articles and official publication? What kind of information can we expect to find in unpublished sources, such as letters and diaries? How useful is oral history, and what are its limitations? We will look at internal and "open" publications and at the production of media reports to understand how the official record was created and how information was channeled, at official compilations such as the Selections of Historical Materials (wenshi ziliao), at "raw" reports from provincial archives, and finally at so-called "garbage materials" (laji cailiao), i.e. archival files collect from flea markets and waste paper traders.

2012-2013 Spring

EALC 27900/37900 Asian Wars of the 20th Century

(HIST 27900, HIST 37900)

This course examines the political, economic, social, cultural, racial, and military aspects of the major Asian wars of the twentieth century (e.g., Pacific, Korean, Vietnam). The first part of the course, pays particular attention to just war doctrines. We then use two to three books for each war (along with several films) to examine alternative approaches to understanding the origins of these wars, their conduct, and their consequences.

B. Cumings
2012-2013 Spring

EALC 27410/37410 Historicizing Desire

(CMLT 27000, CMLT 37001, CLCV 27706, GNSE 28001)

This course examines conceptions of desire in ancient China and ancient Greece through an array of early philosophical, literary, historical, legal, and medical texts. We will explore the broader cultural background of the two ancient periods, and engage with theoretical debates on the history of sexuality, feminist and queer studies, and East/West studies.

T. Chin
2012-2013 Spring

EALC 26900/36900 Gender in Korean Film & Dramatic Television

(GNSE 26902, GNSE 36902)

The course introduces a group of representative cinematic and television dramatic texts with the assumption that the ideas and practices surrounding gender and sexuality have been integral to the development of dramatic art forms in modern Korea. The primary objective is to discuss the ways in which various discourses and features of modern gendering are interwoven into the workings of filmic structure and image-making. While attending to distinctive generic characteristics of film as distinct from literature and of dramatic television as distinguished from film, the course explores the concrete possibilities, challenges, and limits with which cinematic texts address the questions of gender relations and sexuality.

2012-2013 Spring
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