Spring

How has the digital revolution changed the way that creative works, especially literature, are produced and consumed in contemporary East Asia? How has the growth of regional and global online platforms altered the field of cultural production? What do all of these changes mean for the study of culture itself? This seminar takes up these questions in the course of surveying recent theoretical and empirical work on social media platforms, the digital revolution in publishing, and user-generated content. We will survey some of the recent forms that the platformization of culture has taken in East Asia, including internet literature in China, Japanese cellphone novels, and Korean webtoons, putting all of these into comparative perspective with developments elsewhere. We will also look to specific historical forms of platformization in literary culture (e.g., newspaper serialization, mass-market anthologies) to reflect on what is distinct about the platforming of creativity in the digital age.

The recent popularization of “true crime” in film, television shows, and podcasts has prompted critical discussions about the ethics of mixing documentary with entertainment and fact with fiction, as well as concerns about whose narratives are given public attention as others are ignored. Using these considerations as a starting point, this course examines some of the mainstays of the genre of “true crime”—scandal, violence, disaster, law, and the supernatural—in fiction and theater in early modern Japan in order to trace the fluctuating relationship between news, fiction, and performance over the course of the Edo period. This course examines the many ways that works of literature and stage were already deeply invested in these tropes of rumor, scandal, sensation, spectacle, and documentary long before the advent of regularly circulating printed newspapers in Meiji Japan, as well as how these existing configurations of sense and sensationalism informed later developments in media and fiction. The goal of this course is for students to gain not only a breadth of knowledge about various literary and theatrical forms in early modern Japan but also a critical awareness of how early modern spectacles of infamy or violence intersected with categories of class, gender, sexuality, and disability to transform some figures into targets of sympathy and others into paragons of villainy or horror. 

All course readings will be available in English. The course is designed for undergraduate students but graduate participation is welcome with advanced consultation.

This course surveys traditional theater and performance in East Asia, including their histories and intersections, but also their modern transformations and contemporary status as living practices and cultural objects. Mixing theatrical texts and readings from performance studies with videos or documentaries about these traditions, the course encourages students to reconsider what constitutes a “tradition,” how knowledge is codified or transmitted (and how certain means of transmission might be privileged over others), and the implications of these performance traditions being recast as cultural products for tourism or soft power. In addition to introducing the major performance traditions of China, Japan, and Korea, the course aims to incorporate perspectives from rural performance, circuses or spectacle shows, and traditional East Asian theater performed by Asian-American artists and communities.  All course readings will be available in English.

Each week will focus on a particular sense or sensation (sound, touch, horror, wonder, etc.) in works of premodern Japanese theater and fiction, paying particular attention to performance (broadly defined to include noh, kabuki, and puppet theater as well as comic storytelling and spectacle shows) as a public site for the exploration of intimacy and alienation, the circulation of feelings, and the staging of somatic difference. Considering, for example, anti-theatrical bias and discourses of contagion, scenes of possession and physical transformation, and the psychologizing of emotion and the senses, the course will engage with theories of embodiment, emotions, disability, and wonder. All readings will be available in English.

This course introduces students to modern Japanese literature through the form of the novel. We begin in the late-nineteenth century, when a new generation of writers sought to come to terms with this world historical form, and end in the twenty-first, with writers trying to sustain the form through graphic art and digital media. Along the way, we will consider some of the key debates that have structured the novel's evolution: between elite and mass forms, truth and fiction, art and politics, self and other, native and foreign. The course also looks at how the form has evolved in response to shifting modes of cultural production and shifting patterns of literary consumption. Authors covered may include Natsume Soseki, Yokomitsu Ri'ichi, Hayashi Fumiko, Oe Kenzaburo, Takahashi Takako, and Tawada Yoko. All works will be read in English.

The third of three consecutive courses focuses on improving speaking, listening, reading, and writing skills to high-advanced level. Through intensive readings and discussions, students will build extensive vocabulary and complex grammatical structures as well as developing sophisticated speaking skills and academic writing skills. The materials introduced in this class include newspaper articles dealing with current social, cultural, or economic issues in Korea, literary works such as poems and novels, and authentic media such as TV documentaries or movies.

This course introduces readings from a wide selection of written styles including journalistic pieces, college-level textbooks and literary prose. The class focuses on exercises in reading comprehension and discussions on various topics/issues related to contemporary Korea. Some audio and videotapes (e.g., televised news programs, movies, and dramas) will be used in order to improve the students' capacity in advanced Korean. Classes are conducted in Koran and meet for eighty-minute periods two times a week.

As a continuation of Beginning Korean, this course is to help students increase their communication skills (both oral and written) in the Korean language. Through an integrated framework of listening, speaking, reading, and writing, this course aims to increase fluency and accuracy in Korean. Videotapes and additional reading materials will be used in a supplementary fashion and approximately 100 Chinese characters will be introduced for the achievement of basic literacy. Classes are conducted mostly in Korean and meet for fifty-minute periods five times a week. Must be taken for a letter grade.

KORE 10300 is the third quarter of the Introductory Korean sequences. It is designed to continue to build students’ solid foundation in modern Korean language and culture. Students will learn how to communicate on a variety of familiar topics and how to handle straightforward social situations or transactions. In order to provide sufficient practice and opportunity to use what has been learned in class in real life situations, there will be small group sessions. In addition, the course will introduce students to Korean culture through media, music, and other cultural activities.

Open to both undergraduates and graduates. This course is designed to improve Japanese reading, speaking, writing and listening ability to the advanced high level as measured by the ACTFL (American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages) Proficiency Guidelines. Weekly assignments will require students to tackle modern Japanese texts of varying length and difficulty. Organized around a range of thought-provoking themes (from brain death and organ transplants to Japanese values on work and religion), reading assignments will include academic theses in psychology and anthropology, literary texts, and popular journalism. After completing the readings, students will be encouraged to discuss each topic in class. Videos/DVDs will be used to improve listening comprehension skills. There will also be writing assignments.