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Course Criteria
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4.00 Credits
Offers a broad cultural history of Japan, roughly from the eighth century through the mid-19th. The focus is on visual regimes-differing conventions and practices of seeing-and on changing roles for what is now thought of as aesthetics; these visual regimes are then taken as a means of understanding fundamental transformations in structures of power, community, and subjectivity. Draws on a range of materials, from literature to landscape gardens, visual arts, architecture, and technologies, as well as on a diversity of disciplinary perspectives.
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4.00 Credits
Focuses on Japanese cinema from 1989 to the present, or the so-called "new Japanese cinema." Major questions considered include why Japanese cinema has succeeded in reinventing itself after 20 years of hiatus; how the resurgence of genres such as yakuza movies and J-horror has contributed to the reinvention; who are some of the major players of the new cinema; what specific roles socioeconomic conditions have played in the radical transformation of Japanese cinema; and how globalization is Department of East Asian Studies fundamentally affecting the production, distribution, and consumption of films in Japan now. Students closely watch and analyze films by Takeshi Kitano, Takashi Miike, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Shinji Aoyama, Shinya Tsukamoto, Hirokazu Kore-eda, Hideo Nakata, Takashi Shimizu, and other directors.
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4.00 Credits
The development of the cinema in 20th-century China is inextricably linked to the emergence of the modern Chinese nation-state. As early as the 1920s, film became a vital and influential site of cultural production. This course emphasizes the thematic, cultural, and historical content of films, as well as formal issues of filmmaking techniques. All periods of Chinese film are explored, from the earliest Chinese cinema to contemporary fifth- and sixthgeneration film, Hong Kong, and contemporary transnational Chinese cinema.
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4.00 Credits
Looks at transformations in the basic terms and conditions of mass culture in Japan, largely from the early 20th century to life in Japan today. It includes considerations of differing theoretical positions on mass culture, everyday life, and modernity in Japan. Materials taken up in the course include examples from cinema, animation, literature, and theatre, as well as new media and the fine arts. Although the focus is on Japan, a comparative perspective with the rest of Asia and with the West is retained throughout.
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4.00 Credits
Looks at the terms and conditions of Japanese animation (primarily, though not exclusively, anime) as, in many ways, a new and unique mode of expression. Examines the ways in which anime might, or might not, shift earlier modes of expression (both literary and animated): the prevalence of mythology in animation and the tension between mythology and ideology; the importance of genre; and the impact of "old" and "new" media on narrative structure and reception. Implications of these conditions for thinking about "Japanese" culture are also considered.
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4.00 Credits
Introduces students to the rich world of Japanese animation or anime, its form and style, history, popular genres and themes, major authors, and fan culture. Explores the popularity of anime in relation to the cultural conditions of contemporary Japan and that of the world.
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4.00 Credits
Topics vary semester by semester.
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4.00 Credits
Exposes students to some of the most provocative and entertaining novels written in Japanese since the end of the Second World War. Students see how the collapse of totalizing ideologies brought by Japan's defeat led to an extremely fertile, yet somewhat atomized, literary landscape. In this new postwar terrain, it became increasingly difficult to think of literature in terms of "schools" or "influences," as questions of cultural and individual identity became harder and harder to answer in a world of material prosperity and cultural hybridization.
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4.00 Credits
Covers Chinese thought during the period ca. 500 B.C.E. to 280 C.E., starting from the era of Confucius (d. 479 B.C.E.) down to the unification of the realm in 206 B.C.E., the pre-imperial period that is also known as the warring states. During this time the main schools of Chinese philosophy (except Buddhism) were established. For this portion of the course, we read seven original works in translation. We begin with the Analects to establish the key elements of Confucius' ethical and political philosophy and to explore the implications of his main philosophical terms. We then proceed to examine his critics and followers: the utilitarian Mozi, the metaphysicians Laozi and Zhuangzi, and the legalist Han Feizi are the critics. Mencius elaborates the thought of Confucius, and Xunzi is both a follower and a critic. This brings us to the transition (ca. 200 B.C.E.) from the pre-imperial to the imperial periods. The course ends with two historical readings: Sima Qian's Record of the Historian (excerpts) and the novel The Three Kingdoms. The former addresses the moment of transition and the establishment of the Qin and Han dynasties; the latter chronicles the fall of the Han dynasty some four centuries later in 220 C.E. and the reconstitution of a unified realm in 280 C.E.
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4.00 Credits
Mainly, a comparative study of four major narratives. We compare two military epics of China and Japan, Department of East Asian Studies The Three Kingdoms and The Tale of the Heike; and then two romantic epics, The Tale of Genji and The Dream of Red Mansions. These four readings (of which The Tale of Genji alone was written by a woman) are thematically central to their respective cultures. The military epics raise crucial questions about the nature of dynastic rule and the qualifications for kingship, about the relationship of the ruling dynasty to the territory and the people that it rules, and about how diplomatic and military strategies interact. The romantic epics deal with the intrigues of the royal court and the noble elite, the observations and roles of the female characters, and the problem of generational continuity. The course begins with two short readings: the Vietnamese national classic, Tale of Kieu, which is based on Chinese works, and the Chinese fantasy travelogue Monkey (abridged). Confucianism, Buddhism, and Daoism play a large role in these complex narratives, and due attention is given to how the ideals and doctrines of these three ways of thinking inform the motives and the fates of the characters and the larger design of the authors.
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