| Course | Title | Instructor | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| EAS 55 | TRADITION AND MODERNITY | HU YING | How do we, in the twenty-first century, relate to a cultural tradition of three thousand years ago? How did generations of Chinese in the past relate to it? How did they form, reform and transform this cultural tradition over time? In what ways did it supply resources for responding to perennial concerns of humanity? And in what ways is it relevant to our contemporary challenges? In this course, we will consider these questions as we read selected works in the Chinese literary tradition. Our reading material includes fiction, biography, poetry, and science fiction. All readings are in English. Grades are based on active participation, discussion posts and examinations. |
| EAS 123 | STRUCT OF JAPANESE | RIGGS, H. | This course is an overview of the linguistic features of modern Japanese. Its main goal is to provide students a systematic introduction to the nature and characteristics of the language, including: Genealogical tree of the Japanese language; Orthography (What are various writing systems used in modern Japanese?); Phonetics and phonology (How can we describe the sounds of Japanese words?); Morphology (How are Japanese words constructed and organized?); Regeneration of lexicon (How are new words created?); Syntax (How are Japanese sentences structured?); Semantics. Through this course students will also explore the structure of the Japanese language and its historical development in conjunction with socio-cultural factors. Upon completion of this course, students should understand the idiosyncratic behavior of Japanese as a language. (same as 65095 LSCI 165B, Lec A) |
| EAS 130 | KOREAN SOC & CULTRE | CHOI, C. | This course surveys social, cultural, and political aspects of contemporary Korea. We will examine and interpret some of the key cultural institutions and social changes including family and gender relationships, the impact of Korean War and national division, rapid industrialization and its legacies, social movement, labor and marriage migration, and popular culture and culture industry. We will also explore the life and society of North Korea and issues of North Korean refugees in South Korea. As part of class activities, we will follow closely some of the current events and interpret them in light of what we learn in class for the purpose of enhancing the students’ critical skills to analyze Korean society. Course materials include scholarly articles, films, and literature. (same as 26101 GlblClt 103A, Lec A; and 64535 Intl St 179, Lec E) |
| EAS 140 | BEING AND BELONGING | SUH, S. | This course surveys modern Korean literature with a critical focus on the issue of community. Modern Korean literature often portrays individuals struggling to reconcile themselves with the community to which they happen to belong, whether it is a colonized nation, a country stricken by violent clashes of ideologies, or a society under authoritarian dictatorship. Students will read stories that exemplarily show the ways in which one is striving to make sense of one’s inevitable fate of belonging to a community. To situate the literary texts in the context of modern Korean history and understand critical issues related to the problem of community, students will also read excerpts from a modern Korean history book as well as seminal works on the subject in critical theory. |
| EAS 150 | SOUNDS OF KOREA | SUH, S. | This course looks at modern Korean literature (1945 to the late 1980s) in connection with popular music. Popular music is reflective of the prevailing sentiment of society. It is particularly true in Korea that experienced political upheavals and economic turbulence in its modern history. Popular music loved by the masses in Korea has certainly echoed the milieu of a society undergoing drastic changes. The course juxtaposes literary texts with popular songs contemporaneous with and thematically related to them. Some of these stories resonate with the sentiments of the songs paired with them, but other stories counterpoint those coupled with them, sounding out of tune with the latter’s sentiments. In either case, these stories and songs, through their tones of emotion and messages, help students sense the general sentiment of Korean society at such crucial moments in its history as the division of the Korean nation, a fratricidal war and its aftermath, and authoritarian rule. The course eventually intends to have students appreciate the significance of the literary texts in the context of modern Korean history from the time of political turmoil after the end of colonial rule through the decades of authoritarian regimes in the 1960s, 70s, and 80s. |
| EAS 155 | ATOMIC BOMB MEDIA | PITT, J. | This course examines the web of media that documented, speculated about, and dealt with the aftermath of the invention of the atomic bomb. We will discuss the history of the atomic bomb from its development in Los Alamos, New Mexico (in partnership with the University of California) to its use in Japan at the end of World War II, and ultimately trace the legacy of the bomb into the 21st century in relation to the nuclear meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Reactor in 2011. We will critically engage with the question of how the atomic bomb and its lingering radioactive effects have been visualized and narrated across the decades since 1945, and how both the development and use of the bomb affected not only human beings, but the natural world as well. How have both the top-secret Manhattan Project and the catastrophic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki been depicted in media ranging from feature films to anime, from manga to novels and poetry? We will read and watch both US and Japanese media related to the atomic bomb. No Japanese language skills are required. (same as 26875 History 172G, Lec B) |
| EAS 160 | KOREAN CINEMA | KIM, K. | This course examines the South Korean cinema today, and seeks to understand how it is shaped by re-interpretation of history and genre bending. The course will explore the Korean film history, aesthetics, and commercial industry, and also analyze several key texts that are critical to their understanding. This class, I insist, is on learning how to watch, think about, and write about film; in the same vein that we need to learn how to think about literature or other topics in humanities. Please be advised that some of the films featured in this class may contain scenes of explicit sexual or violent nature. All films listed on the syllabus as required viewing will be available with English subtitles. (same as 24250 Flm&Mda 160, Lec A) |
| EAS 160 | CONTEMPORARY CH FILM | SCRUGGS, B. | How do Chinese films project the present on screen? How do we interpret them as the present becomes the past? This course focuses on contemporary fiction films produced in China since the 1980s. It also necessarily includes contemporary Chinese society, economy, cinema, politics, and culture since the 1980s. In class we primarily examine and interpret the films themselves, the narratives, the themes, and the cinematic elements, and, by and large, let the films dictate our interpretive discussions. Each of the films assigned in class is available with English subtitles online or in the Media Resource Center in the Science Library. |
| EAS 190 | CH HOMETOWN STORIES | SCRUGGS, B. | This course focuses on narratives associated with hometowns (guxiang) and homegrown (xiangtu) fiction. Students get to read, analyze, and discuss fiction about Shaanxi by Jia Pingwa and Hunan by Shen Congwen and scholarly writing on the authors and their fiction. At the same time, students also get to do research on a hometown or native place found in the work of an author from their own East Asian region of specialization and write a research paper. The course grade is based on a reading blog and a research paper. |
| EAS 220 | KARATANI & FRIENDS | LONG, M. | In 2022 Karatani Kojin won the “Nobel Prize in Philosophy,” the Berggruen Prize. He is the most important philosopher in modern Japan. He is also one of the most insightful readers of modern Japanese literature. This seminar examines his essays on literature in tandem with the works they discuss, by “friends” ranging from Soseki, Akutagawa, ÅŒe and Tsushima to Freud, Marx, and Foucault. We ask three core questions. First, how did Karatani convince the Japanese public, in a series of essays for a monthly literary journal in 1974, that the key to understanding Capital Volume I is reading Saussure? Students who do not have a background in post-structuralism will learn the basics from Karatani’s lucid prose. Second, how did Karatani turn a year as a visiting professor with Frederic Jameson and Paul de Man at Yale in 1975 into Origins of Modern Japanese Literature (1980), the most insightful book ever written on “interiority” “landscape” and “creativity”? Students who have never read Japan’s modern canon will see it take shape before their eyes. Third, how should we understand Karatani’s insistence, in books like History and Repetition (2004) that a semiotic “aporia” or “gap” is our only reliable deterrent to fascism? Students who may be living in fascism for the first time will appreciate the vigilance of Japanese public intellectuals, for whom it was nothing new. Throughout, we consider Karatani’s expressed disinterest in feminism and the environment, and what it says in broad strokes about the compatibility of post-structuralism and environmental humanities. (same as 28614 Human 270, Sem A) |