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Course Criteria
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3.00 Credits
This course surveys Chinese culture and civilization from the beginnings to the present time. Readings include traditional historical, philosophical, political, religious and literary texts as well as modern scholarship. Students are encouraged to bring in their experience, living or reading, of Western culture in order to form comparative and reflective perspectives.
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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 was designed as a survey of Japanese poetry, fiction, and drama from the earliest times through the mid-18th century. All texts are in English; no special knowledge of Japan or Japanese is required. The course is divided into three parts. In Part I we will begin with the development of court poetry (waka) as found in the Man-yoshu (Collection of Ten Thousand Leaves), the Kokinshu (the first Imperial Anthology), and the Tales of Ise. The centerpiece of this unit, however, is Murasaki Shikibu's epic of courtly love, The Tale of Genji (ca. 1000 A.D.); we will read an abridged version of the first 17 chapters. In addition to social and historical factors influencing the development of a courtly aesthetic, we will also consider the influential role played by Buddhism and Chinese literature. In Part II, we will look at how Japanese literature developed during the medieval period (13-16th centuries) of the samurai warrior-aristocracy with readings of plays from the No theater, linked verse (renga) and philosophical essays such as An Account of My Hut and Essays in Idleness. Of special interest here is the influence of Zen Buddhism on a wide range of aesthetic practices, including the tea ceremony, landscaping and painting. In Part III, we will study the "popular" literature of the 17th and 18th centuries, the products of a new merchant-class culture that flourished in Edo (now Tokyo), Kyoto and Osaka. The main topics will be haiku poetry by Matsuo Basho.
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3.00 Credits
Study of the contemporary Chinese political system and process in the light of Chinese history and culture. Some of the topics treated include: the traditional political order; the revolutionary movements; the rise of communism; Maoism and the rejection of Maoism; the political structure; leadership, personalities, and power struggles; economic policy; social policy and movements; problems of corruption and instability; prospects for democratic development. There will be some attention to Taiwan and to Hong Kong as special Chinese societies
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3.00 Credits
This introduction to modern Japanese history focuses on political, social, economic, and military affairs in Japan from around 1600 to the early post-World War II period. It considers such paradoxes as samurai bureaucrats, entrepreneurial peasants, upper-class revolutionaries, and Asian fascists. The course has two purposes: (1) to provide a chronological and structural framework for understanding the debates over modern Japanese history, and (2) to develop the skill of reading texts analytically to discover the argument being made. The assumption operating both in the selection of readings and in the lectures is that Japanese history, as with all histories, is the site of controversy. Our efforts at this introductory level will be dedicated to understanding the contours of some of the most important of these controversies and judging, as far as possible, the evidence brought to bear in them.
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3.00 Credits
A thematic introduction to the pan-Asian (i.e., South, Southeast, and Central Asian as well as East Asian) Buddhist tradition exploring the fundamentals of Buddhist doctrine and practice while also sampling major themes in the religion's social, cultural, and material history. Among the particular topics to be covered are: the life of the Buddha (history & hagiography), the "Four Noble Truths" (the essentials of the Buddhist "creed"), the Buddhist canon (the nature and scope of Buddhist scripture), Buddhist cosmology (Buddhist conceptions of the formation and structure of the universe, i.e., of time and space), Buddhist monasticism, meditation and the Buddhist contemplative life, Buddhist ethics, the ritual lives of Buddhists, Buddhism and politics, Buddhist "family values," Buddhism and the arts, etc.
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3.00 Credits
Buddhism is the only one of the major religions traditionally regarded as Chinese that did not originate in China. China is arguably the Asian civilization in which Buddhism underwent its most extensive development and its most thoroughgoing transformations. This course is designed to be a thematic and historical overview of the development of Buddhist thought and practice in China with special emphasis on the process of mutual influence by which Buddhism, without ceasing to be Buddhist, became also a Chinese religion while China, without abandoning its indigenous religious heritage, became also a Buddhist culture. As such the course will serve a threefold purpose: it will introduce students to fundamental Buddhist beliefs and values as they took shape in China; it will acquaint them with essential elements of Chinese civilization attributable to Buddhism's presence; and it will provide an opportunity to study what may well be world history's most remarkable instance of successful cross-cultural religious communication.
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3.00 Credits
Relying chiefly on English translations of primary, mostly east Asian canonical sources, this course will examine varieties of Buddhist meditation practice while posing theoretical questions abut he nature of meditation as a form of religious life; its ethical implications; its relations with other elements of Buddhism like doctrine, ritual, art institutions; etc. - all considered against the background of theological and philosophical concern with the role of contemplative experience in the religious life.
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3.00 Credits
An introduction to Buddhism in East Asia (principally China, but also Japan, Korea and Vietnam) with emphasis less on what Buddhists think or believe and more on what they actually do in their public as well as private lives - - e.g., the rituals they perform; their disciplines of self-cultivation; the institutions they establish; the ethical, political and economic decisions they make.
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3.00 Credits
This course analyzes prominent resistance movements in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. We first examine the conceptual tools of contentious politics, domination and resistance, state-society relations, and violent vs. nonviolent strategies of resistance. We then examine various nationalist independence movements, revolutionary movements, communist insurgencies, civil wars, and peaceful democracy movements. "To better understand resistance movements from the perspectives of leaders and participants, we will watch a series of documentaries and read the (auto-) biographies of Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Aung San Suu Kyi, the Dalai Lama, Wei Jingshen, and others." In analyzing democracy movements, we will further examine what the third wave of democracy entails, why some movements succeed while others fail, how new democracies should reconcile with past dictators, to what extent constitutional engineering can solve past problems and facilitate successful transitions, and why some new democracies remain fragile.
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