The following is a selected list of departmental course offerings:

Historical Epics of China and Japan G33.0726  Roberts. 4 points.
An in-depth study of the major epics of China, Japan, and Vietnam, from the historical-military and the social-romantic. The Chinese historical epic Three Kingdoms is read against the Japanese epic Tale of the Heike. Emphasis is placed on the political nature of the dynastic state form, the types of legitimacy and the forms of rebellion, the process of breakdown and reintegration of an imperial house, the empire as dynasty and as territory, and the range of characterology. In the second half of the course, the Chinese classic Dream of the Red Chamber is read against the Japanese The Tale of Genji. In addition to the above-mentioned topics, attention is given to the role of women and marriage in a governing elite, the modalities of social criticism in a novel of manners. The Vietnamese national classic Tale of Kieu is used as an introduction to the course because it combines all of the key topics. Particular attention is given to the ways in which Buddhist, Daoist, and Confucian doctrines function in each work.

First-Year Seminar: Introduction to Critical Asian Studies G33.1001  4 points.
This course is an introductory seminar offered to first-year graduate students in East Asian studies. The seminar provides a critical overview of the social, political, intellectual, and institutional history of the field of East Asian studies.

Readings in Japanese Humanities and Social Sciences: Academic Prose and Critical Terminology G33.1280  Hanawa. 4 points.
Scholarly reading and research in modern Japanese. With varied content, approaches, and organization, this course exposes students to modern literary and expository works, and particularly to academic prose. Texts are selected to reflect circuits of knowledge and the development of disciplinary characteristics in style. Some emphasis is paid to the choice of text in order to facilitate familiarization of critical terminology. Particular attention is given to the role of translation as a means of considering the circulation of academic and intellectual terminology (and concepts) and the development of language by which academic discourse is conducted. The course also introduces students to some of the key reference work and methodology for solving problems of reading and interpretation at an advanced level.

Ethnographic Traditions: East Asia: Anthropology of China G33.1315  Identical to G14.1315. Zito. 4 points.
This course provides an opportunity to encounter ethnographies produced by field-working anthropologists working in the People’s Republic of China and in Taiwan and the methodological and theoretical problems they raise. The course opens with discussion of the founding of anthropological inquiry and pursues its vexed relationship to the state all along the way. Areas of social life that are covered include issues of family, embodiment, exchange, memory, sexuality and gender, minority ethnicity, religious life, violence. Students have the opportunity to watch some films and hear invited anthropologists share experiences with them.

History and Capitalism G33.1747  Identical to G57.1747. Harootunian. 4 points.

Material Culture in Chinese History G33.1917  Identical to G57.1917. Waley-Cohen. 4 points.
Material culture and the nature of consumption in China, focusing mainly on the mid-Ming to the late Qing period, approximately 1550-1850. The course has three main, interlocking goals. First, it introduces students to some of the current theoretical scholarship on material culture and consumption in the West; second, it provides students with a deep knowledge of Chinese elite social and cultural practices during this period; and third, it addresses, within the context of material culture and consumption, the currently much-debated issue of continuity and change from the late Ming to the period immediately preceding the age of imperialism in China. Overarching themes include periodization, urbanization, commercialization, internationalization, gender, and aesthetics. Students explore these issues through a number of specific aspects of material culture, including printing and publishing; court culture; textiles, clothing, and fashion; art, including collecting and connoisseurship; and architecture and gardens.

Problems in the History of Early Modern China G33.1919  Identical to G57.1919. Waley-Cohen. 4 points.
Advanced reading-intensive course intended for those who have already taken at least one and preferably two courses in Chinese history and/or those with an interest in world history. Explores some of the most hotly debated issues concerning China 1500-1900. General topics include empire and ethnicity; China and the global economy; intellectual life; gender relations; urbanization; material culture and consumption; civil society and the existence of a public sphere. Requirements include intensive reading assignments, active class participation, and three papers (5-10 pages each).

The Asiatic Mode of Production: Theory and History G33.2530  Karl. 4 points.
Investigates aspects of the historical interpretation of China in the 19th and 20th centuries, focusing on the genesis and development of one of the most debated and enduring tropes of the historiography of China: the Asiatic mode of production.

Colonialism and Modernism in East Asia G33.2570  4 points.
An exploration into the cultural and intellectual history of modernism in East Asia. Particular attention is given to the relationship between modernism and various East Asian social formations of colonialism. Concepts such as colonial modernity, semicolonialism, and postcolonialism are interrogated through intensive reading both of theoretical work on modernism and colonialism and modernist cultural texts. Although a major emphasis is placed on literary modernism, it is understood as part of a broader historical phenomenon that encompassed artists, philosophers, and other intellectuals. Contemporary essays are juxtaposed with novels and short stories, and, where possible, other media. The course also builds on the recent proliferation of research on modernism in East Asia. Where possible, emphasis is placed on the interconnected nature of modernism in East Asia.

Structures of Modernity G33.2700  Looser. 4 points.
This course starts with—and aims to rethink—the basic theoretical terms and practical conditions of mass culture and everyday life as definitive of modernity. In part, the course is framed by claims made in new media theory (especially with regard to the advent of digital electronic technologies) and the ways in which new media supposedly are placing us within new world horizons. Modernity, however, is made up of multiple moments of “new media”; this course provides historical perspective on these moments. Nor does the course assume a technological determinism; in addition to changing relations between “new” media (including theatre, film, and animation), it examines the changing structuring of experience in terms of narrative form; architecture; art; and urbanism. One of the unifying concerns, however, is history itself and the ways in which differing material conditions create new visions of, and positions within, history. History, therefore, is one of the means through which new media conditions claim to allow the rethinking of, and critique of, the grounds of modern experience. Emphasis is placed on Japan, but comparative material is drawn from elsewhere in Asia and the West; the context is for the most part global.

Literary Theory: Comparison and Comparability: Theoretical Considerations on Comparative Literature and Area Studies G33.3610  Identical to G29.3610. Xudong Zhang. 4 points.

Cinema and Modernity: Melodramatic Imaginations G33.3615  Yoshimoto. 4 points.
Examination of melodrama as a quintessential film genre and as a mode of imagination specifically articulating modern experiences. Melodrama has been extensively studied and analyzed since the early 1970s. Unfortunately, a vibrant theoretical inquiry into melodrama has been almost exclusively based on the study of Hollywood even though melodramatic film practices occupy a central position in cinemas of so many other countries. In this seminar, students focus on Japanese film melodrama as a genre and as a mode of imagination negotiating the Japanese self-identity in the age of modernity leading up to our contemporary times. The seminar’s approach is fundamentally comparative: first become familiar with Hollywood melodrama and the extensive scholarship on this subject; then, closely dissect concrete Japanese films and relevant written texts not only to probe into the specificity of Japanese film melodrama but also to critique and revise the existing melodrama theory and criticism.

RELATED INSTITUTE OF FINE ARTS COURSES

Theories of Modernity G43.2536  Hay. 4 points.
This colloquium seeks to introduce, and critique from a non-Western perspective, some of the theories of modernity that have been developed in recent decades by Western historians (De Certeau), sociologists (Giddens, Luhmann), and cultural theorists (Jameson). The course consists of a mixture of lectures by the instructor and collective close readings by the class. This “pure theory” course should be particularly useful to students specializing in modern or early modern art.

Seminar: Ink Painting in Socialist China, 1949-1976 G43.3010  Hay. 4 points.
The arrival of the Chinese Communist Party to power in 1949 led many artists with a modernist training to give up the media associated with modernism in favor of ink painting; these artists were later joined by others originally trained in socialist realism. It also led to a demand for the depiction of socialist themes by ink painters of all kinds, including those with a purely traditional training. As a result, ink painters developed new iconographies for both landscape and figure painting; introduced new symbolisms into the genres of flower, plant, and tree painting; and created new rhetorics of style. Once considered outside China as mere curiosities, to be appreciated despite their socialist themes for their evident skill, these paintings of the 1950s and 1960s have benefited from historical distance. Today, it can be argued that they represent a more considerable artistic achievement than Chinese socialist realism, which itself has recently been the object of positive reevaluation. This course reconstructs this achievement in its broad lines and makes the case for the integration of post-1949 ink painting into a global history of modern art. No prior study of Chinese painting is required.

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