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Course Criteria
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3.00 Credits
This lecture and discussion course on the religion, philosophy, and intellectual history of China that introduces the student to the world view and life experience of Chinese as they have been drawn from local traditions, as well as worship and sacrifice to heroes, and the cult of the dead. Through a close reading of primary texts in translation, it also surveys China's grand philosophical legacy of Daoism, Buddhism, "Confucianism" and "Neo-Confucianism," and the later religious accommodation of Christianity and Islam.
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3.00 Credits
This lecture/discussion course will introduce the student to the plural religious traditions of the Chinese as manifested in ancestor worship, sacrifice, exorcism, and spirit possession. From an understanding of these practices, the course will offer insight into the mantic foundations of Chinese philosophy, especially metaphysics, to reveal how these foundations undergird the ordinary. Readings will consist of texts in translations of the texts popular cults, including Falun gong, as well as scholarly interpretations of these phenomena. No prior knowledge of Chinese history, language, or literature is required.
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3.00 Credits
A Chinese Mosaic is a special topics class that provides an introduction to the diverse life ways constituting the puzzle of the Chinese people. The course will chart this terrain of current Chinese practice as it has been shaped from the contending, and often contentious, influences of religion, philosophy, and politics, introducing students to the heralded works of the Chinese intellectual tradition while requiring critical engagement with the philosophic and religious traditions animating this culture today. Thus, as they learn about China, students also will reflect on how Chinese and Westerners have interpreted it.
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3.00 Credits
Today China is undergoing a revolution (a word used so frequently as to be meaningless, but very meaningful in this case as we will learn) in society, politics, economy, and thought perhaps as significant as that which brought the Chinese Communist Party to national power in 1949. The objective of this course, constructed through film and new media investigation, along with readings on social status, identity, sexuality, work, home, youth culture, gender, business, education, sports, ecology, is to come to an understanding of the multiple domestic forces that have made China a global power. Furthermore, the course will familiarize the student with the very complex ramifications of the passionate national quest for international recognition as it affects every aspect of present-day life while exploring the mercurial manner in which the economic transformation of China has been represented in the media. In this last respect, it represents an experiment in cultural studies in that its avowed subject, contemporary China, is studied in dialogue with the United States - the two nations most exemplifying the promise and terror of modernization. No knowledge of Chinese or previous knowledge of China is required.
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3.00 Credits
This introductory course is designed for students without extensive prior knowledge of Korea or Korean culture. Starting from its unique historical background, various aspects of Korea such as religion, thoughts, literature, politics, arts, life styles and pop culture (`Korean Wave) will be explored and discussed throughout the course. The in-depth examination of traditional features will guide students to extensive understanding of contemporary phenomena in Korea. Lecture-based teaching format will be enriched by a variety of supplementary channels such as movies, documentaries, and so on. Students will have a presentation on their own topic related to Korean culture at the end of the semester.
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3.00 Credits
This course examines interfaces of religion and literature in the Chinese tradition. Students are introduced to the essential teachings of Daoism, Buddhism, and Confucianism and ways in which such teachings are represented or reflected in literary works, including poetry, prose essays, and fiction.
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3.00 Credits
This course provides training in understanding and engaging history as a series of wide-ranging debates. The class will examine three issues: first, the politically charged question of Japan's origins in myth and archeology; second, the question of whether the forces of Chinese culture or nature as disease and environmental degradation defined the Yamato state from the sixth to the ninth century; and, third, whether Heian court power until about 1200 rested on economic, political, military, judicial, or aesthetic grounds. The second purpose of the course, the development of the disciplined imagination necessary to enter another culture and another time, relies on the reading of primary texts in translation. There will be three tests and several classroom assignments.
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3.00 Credits
Japan boasts the longest, unbroken imperial line extant today, but what does this continuity really mean? This course looks at Japan's emperors and empresses from antiquity to the present, raising questions about the nature of power, the idea of good government, gender, divinity, war responsibility, and the liberty of the family now called upon to symbolize a purportedly democratic nation. Although most of the course will focus on modern emperors, it begins with Japan's earliest political structures in order to ask such questions as: Was the Imperial House an indigenous idea or was it an imitation of Chinese ideas of power? Why were there so many powerful women leaders in ancient Japan and why did Japan stop having empresses on the throne? What is the relationship between the imperial house and the various religions of Japan? The course will then consider the medieval and Tokugawa periods asking why powerful samurai failed to overthrow the militarily impotent emperors. Finally, the course will turn to the modern period, beginning in the middle of the 19th century with the elevation of the Meiji Emperor to unprecedented prominence. Why was the ancient imperial house used to modernize Japan? Even though sex of emperors has been male for centuries, why were ancient emperors female and why is the imperial gender (and Japan as a whole) in the modern period often regarded as female? Was Hirohito guilty of fomenting war? What is the function of the Imperial House today? This course sweeps through myth and 1500 years of Japanese history, tracing the permutations, continuities, and discontinuities of the imperial line.
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3.00 Credits
Japanese culture embraced the camera almost as soon as it was invented in Europe. Even while the Japanese government rigorously controlled contact with outside nations, this new device for recording and exploring the world entered a Japanese port and was put to use by Japanese and, eventually, by foreigners to document Japan's opening to the West, its military adventures, its transformation into an industrial and consumer society, and its erotic longing. This course uses photography and film and writing about art and politics as a way of exploring key issues in Japanese society.
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3.00 Credits
This course explores the interactions of the states and societies in the east Asian region, focusing mainly on the relationships of China and Japan, their interactions with each other and with the outside "Asian" powers, the United States and Russia (Soviet Union). Topics include: the China-centered system in east Asia prior to the intrusion of the new world system carried by western imperialism; The western impact, including colonialism, the Chinese revolution, and Japan's "defensive modernization"; the clash between Japanese and Chinese nationalism;the diplomacy of the Second World War and postwar developments; the cold war; decolonization and the emergence of new states and nationalism; the Sino-Soviet rift; the failure of the American policy of deterrence in Vietnam;the diplomatic reconciliation of the United States and China; the liberal reforms in China and their partial disappointment; the end of the cold war; China's growth as a potential world power; Japan's perhaps increasing restiveness in serving as an American surrogate; Asian assertiveness against perceived American hegemonic aspirations; potential tensions and rivalries within the region itself; the collapse of the Asian economic boom and the onset of a period of chronic economic troubles. Specific readings have yet to be decided. Course requirements include assigned readings and class participation; a midterm and final examination; completion of two brief research papers dealing with the foreign policy of one of the "smaller" Asian countries (that is, one of the countries other than China and Japan).
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