This seminar will consider exemplary texts from the Madhyamaka school(s) of Buddhist philosophy, particularly focusing on notable points of divergence and/or concord between the Indian schools with which the tradition originated, and the various Chinese schools that reflect China's distinctive appropriation of the tradition. Brook Ziporyn and Dan Arnold
The Chinese 1980s are now remembered as a highly creative period in literature and arts, and as a time of diverse political aspirations that culminated in the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. Many debates and experiments throughout the decade revolved around the notion of “culture.” What did this term mean in 1980s China, why was it considered important, and how to situate its meanings historically, both in relation to the Mao Era and to the changes that came after 1989? These are some of the questions we will address in this course, which will examine a variety of texts including poetry, fiction, interviews, diaries, and documentaries from and about the cultures of an exciting time. Texts will be in Chinese and in English.
This course engages with the various uses of sound in Japanese literary texts, ranging from the late Edo period through the contemporary era. We will also read recent sound-oriented approaches to literary and cultural studies in both Japan and Anglo-American criticism. Readings will be in both English and Japanese.
This course examines changes in the working lives of East Asian women from the late nineteenth to the 21st century. Most of the readings will be on China but we will also discuss Korea and Japan. All readings are in English.
“Bronze Age” in China conventionally refers to the time period from ca. 2000 to about 500 BC, during which bronze, an alloy of copper and other metals such as tin and lead, was the predominant medium used by the society, or to be more precise, the elite classes of the society. Bronze objects, in the forms of vessels, weapons, and musical instruments, were reserved for the upper ruling class of the society and were used mostly as paraphernalia during rituals and feasting. “Bronze Age” in China also indicates the emergence and eventual maturation of states with their bureaucratic systems, the presence of urban centers, a sophisticated writing system, and advanced craft producing industries, especially metal production.
This course surveys the important archaeological finds of Bronze Age China, and the theoretical issues such as state formation, craft production, writing, bureaucratic systems, urbanization, warfare, and inter-regional interaction, etc. It emphasizes a multi-disciplinary approach with readings and examples from anthropology, archaeology, art history, and epigraphy. This course will also visit the Smart Museum, the Field Museum, and the Art Institute of Chicago to take advantage of the local collections of ancient Chinese arts and archaeology.
An exploration of the writings of Lu Xun (1881-1936), widely considered as the greatest Chinese writer of the past century. We will read short stories, essays, prose poetry and personal letters against the backdrop of the political and cultural upheavals of early 20th century China and in dialogue with important English-language scholarly works.
This course will provide an overview of Chinese unearthed documents, beginning with the oracle-bone inscriptions of the Shang dynasty and the bronze inscriptions of the Western Zhou dynasty, and then concluding with bamboo and silk manuscripts of the Warring States, Qin and Han dynasties. By reading selections from these materials, we will seek to gain a general sense of both how they were produced and used at the time and also how their modern study has evolved.
As Japanese leaders in the mid 19th century faced the threat of colonization at the hands of the Western powers, they launched a project to achieve “Civilization and Enlightenment,” quickly transforming Japan into a global power that possessed its own empire. In the process fiction became a site for both political engagement and retreat. A civilized country, it was argued, was supposed to boast “literature” as one of its Fine Arts. This literature was charged with representing the inner life of its characters, doing so in a modern national language that was supposed to be a transparent medium of communication. Between the 1880s and the early 1900s, a new language, new literary techniques, and a new set of ideologies were constructed to produce the “self” in novels and short stories. As soon as these new practices were developed, however, they became the objects of parody and ironic deconstruction. Reading key literary texts from the 1880s through the 1930s, as well as recent scholarship, this course will re-trace this historical and literary unfolding, paying special attention to the relationship between language and subjectivity. All readings will be in English.
China's shift from a predominantly rural country to an urban majority is one of the greatest social and demographic transformations in world history. This course begins with the roots of this story in the early modern history of China's cities and traces it through a series of momentous upheavals in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. We will learn about how global ideas and practices contributed to efforts to make Chinese cities "modern," but also how urban experiences have been integral to the meaning of modernity itself. We will discuss urban space, administration, public health, commerce and industry, transportation, foreign relations, and material culture. In addition to tackling these important topics in urban history and tracing the general development of Chinese cities over time, another primary concern of our course will be the place of urban history in English-language scholarship on Chinese history more broadly. We will track this development from Max Weber's observations on Chinese cities through the rise of "China-centered" scholarship in the 1970s through the "global turn" of the 2000s. During the course students will develop the skills necessary for writing an effective historiography paper, i.e., doing background research, writing annotated bibliographies, and using citation management software. Students will put these skills to work by writing a critical historiographical review of scholarship on a topic of their choice.
