| Course | Title | Instructor | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| EAS 55 | SPECULATIVE JAPAN | PITT, J. | How do we envision the future? What do our anxieties about and hopes for future generations tell us about the world in which we currently live? This class looks at works of Speculative Fiction from Japan in order to examine how writers and filmmakers imagine the future of humanity, Japan, the Earth, and the solar system beyond. We will read science fictional works of literature and watch films (both anime and live action) that present varying visions of the world(s) to come. We will analyze how concerns about race, gender, science, and environmental destruction influence how we speculate about the road ahead. |
| EAS 110 | GNDR & MODRN CH LIT | HUANG, M. | This course will focus on several fictional texts produced during the twentieth century. We will examine how gender and gender relationships were being reconstructed and renegotiated as China was pursuing her “modernity.” Emphasis will be on close reading and critical thinking. There will be mid-term and final examinations plus quizzes (both take-home)/ Class attendance and discussion participation will count considerably toward a student’s final grade. Students are also expected to view a movie based one of the novels. |
| EAS 120 | GENDER POSTWAR JP | GHANBARPOUR, C. | This class focuses on the experiences of women and men during Japan’s transformation from a post-nuclear wasteland to the world’s second largest economy in roughly four decades’ time, from 1945 to 1989. How did the roles and positions of women and men change in this time period, what were their problems, and how did they interact with each other and with the institutions and traditions that changed so markedly after the war? We will study women's and men's economic, social, political, and cultural roles, looking particularly at changes in sexuality, consumption, and entertainment; artistic and political movements, including women’s movements; and the legacy of World War II. This course is designed for students interested in Japanese history and culture and those interested in gender studies. (same as 25170 Gen&Sex 171, Lec A; and 26840 History 172G, Lec A) |
| 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 the 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 65440 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 relationship, the impact of Korean War and national division, rapid industrialization and its legacies, social movement, globalization of market and Korean struggle for competitiveness, labor and marriage migration and multiculturalism, and popular culture and culture industry. We will also explore the life and society of North Korea and the 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’ practical skills to analyze the Korean society. Course materials include scholarly articles, films and literature. (same as 64525 Intl St 179, Lec B) |
| EAS 140 | SACRIFCE KOREAN LIT | SUH, S. | This course revolves around a simple idea, that is, life is a series of decision-making, and once we make our decision, we’d better stick to it but also need to take its consequences. Decision-making inevitably requires sacrifice because by choosing one option over other possible ones, we cannot help but sacrifice those our decision leaves out. Furthermore, our full commitment to our decision often takes precedence over other obligations we might have and thus forces us to sacrifice them as well. No matter how much carefully and sincerely we attempt to make the right decision by taking every single factor into consideration, it produces unintended effects that might hurt others around us. By drawing on literary texts coming from or set in Korea, the course intends to lead students to think about the inevitable sacrifice embedded in our decision-making, and question and answer how much responsible we should be held for it. |
| EAS 150 | WAR NOVELS & PEACE | LONG, M. | This class introduces novels and plays about Japan’s post-war “peace constitution” and the problem of persistent violence. Article Nine of the 1946 constitution bans military aggression. Many think there is no better way to honor those who died from Japanese imperialism. But is it possible to have peace without war? Ethics without aggression? Society without sacrifice? Three of our authors (Oda, Inoue, ÅŒe) founded a grass-roots group called the “Article Nine Association” to resist politicians who want Japan to be a “real nation” with a real military. In their fiction, however, they focus on the persistence of violence and victimization, both in an international sphere and an interpersonal one. How do we make sense of this? We will read Japanese novels and plays on the Viet Nam war (Kaiko Takeshi), the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal (Kinoshita Junji, Takeda Taijun), the American military presence in Okinawa (Medoruma Shun), and post-Fukushima anti-nuclear activism (Muto Ruiko; Kamanaka Hitomi). Assignments include short papers, bibliographic posts, pecha-kucha presentations, and reading quizzes. (same as 26100 GlblClt 103A, Lec A) |
| EAS 155 | TRUM HEAL KR FLM LI | CHOI, C. | Throughout the 20th century, the people of Korea have experienced a series of traumatic events: Japanese colonial rule, two major wars –the Pacific War and the Korean War –and the national division of North and South, decades of military dictatorship and massive democracy movement in the midst of intense industrialization. While fighting for independence and democracy, Koreans have endured oppression, injustices and sacrifices. These social and political upheavals result in collective trauma that has persisted through postmemory generations. In this course, we will examine the works of contemporary Korean writers, film makers and some visual artists as they tell the stories of their inherited historical trauma and seek ways of healing through their respective aesthetic media while engaging critical theories of trauma, postmemory, transitional justice, truth-telling, reconciliation and healing. The topics we will examine include freedom fighting, Comfort Women, war memories, uprisings, defection and diaspora. (same as 26110 GlblClt 103B, Lec B) |
| EAS 155 | CHINESE REGIONALISM | SCRUGGS, B. | This course examines the literature and media of twentieth-century China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. Our focus will be on the rendition of the regional with attention to both form and content: we will analyze how writers and filmmakers re-create local cultures. Moreover we will also scrutinize the relationship of local culture to national culture by reflecting on distinctive locales and their particular cultures, dialects, and values. Some of the writers and filmmakers we will examine include Shen Congwen, Wang Chen-ho, Dung Kai-cheung, Han Shaogong, Lee Chiao, Xi Xi, Jia Zhangke, Yang De-chang, and Heiward Mak. |
| EAS 160 | TAIWAN CINEMA | SCRUGGS, B. | This course is designed to introduce students to several Taiwanese filmmakers and their films as well as the Taiwan they render using film or digital technology. Towards reaching this goal we will consider the historical moments in which these films were made as well as the eras portrayed, in order to evaluate levels of engagement and reflexivity. Moreover, an equally important focus of this course is the art and artifice of direction; sound design and editing; cinematography; and the audio-visual literacy which stitches sounds and images into a story for audience members. Towards realizing this second goal we will asses ideas such as editing, genre, the viewing subject, and gendered voices and lenses among others. In a nutshell, if we are to glean anything about Taiwan from the films we will watch together, it will stem from understanding how the story is told in addition to understanding the story told and the story-teller. |
| EAS 170 | CHNSE MASCULINITIES | HUANG, M. | The course explores issues such as how bonding among men has been conceived of and practiced in China, how such bonding is related to people's conceptualization of masculinity and the complicated implications when a relationship becomes sexualized. Reading focuses on primary sources while secondary sources are also included. Emphases on close reading and critical thinking as well as historicization. There will be mid-term and final exams plus pop quizzes. |
| EAS 190 | BOTANICAL EAST ASIA | PITT, J. | What happens when plants do not stay silent? Are humans more like plants than we care to admit? With these questions in mind, this colloquium pairs theoretical readings from the field of Critical Plant Studies with novels, short stories, poetry, and films from Japan, China, and South Korea in which plants likes trees and moss are prominently featured. Through seminar-style discussion and student presentations, we will consider various depictions of plants, including plants as spiritual beings and at times as horrific monsters. How can cultural media from East Asia, including modern literary and cinematic works of drama, horror, and sci-fi teach us to see the botanical world in a new way? |
| EAS 220 | MODERN KOREAN LIT | SUH, S. | This seminar surveys modern Korean literature with a critical focus on the issues of sacrifice and community. By drawing on seminal works of critical theory on sacrifice and community as well as literary texts from Korea, the seminar explores the possibility of sacrifice as the passage through which one exits from itself toward a communion with the other. The seminar ultimately looks at the relevance of literature to envisioning a mode of community that does not pivot on the principle of utilitarian sacrifice for its unity but allows of a communion between heterogeneous beings. By locating this vision in the literary texts that are firmly situated in Korea’s turbulent history, the seminar intends to rethink the role of literature in society. All readings are in English. For those who want to read the original Korean language texts, the instructor will provide the biblical information. |
| EAS 220 | GAIA, LIT, JAPAN | LONG, M. | This seminar is for grads interested in environmental humanities, feminism, the intersection of these fields (care-work theory, gaia theory, eco-semiotics). Our primary texts are a “hidden” (new!) canon of writers from modern Japan whom we’ll discover were working at this intersection throughout the twentieth century. Each week we combine readings in contemporary theory with works in Japanese and English translation by our canon. Topics include 1) the difference between ecocriticism, capitalocene critique, anthropocene panic, and environmental humanities 2) genealogies of feminist care theory in the US and Japan (Federici, Tronto, Ueno) 3) the overlap between eco-semiotics and indigenous poetics and 4) the difference between abjection in psychoanalysis and “chaos” in gaia theory. Authors include Anarchists ÅŒsugi Sakae and ItÅ Noe, Indigenous Ainu Poet Chiri Yukie, vitalist queer anthropologist Minakata Kumagusu, Hisabetsu buraku writer Nakagami Kenji, Neurodiversity parent and Nobel laureate ÅŒe KenzaburÅ, Decolonial feminist and environmental activist Morisaki Kazue, and Mercury-poison memoirist Ogata Masato. We will also study eco-documentaries by Tsuchimoto Noriaki. Theorists include Ursula Heise, Elizabeth DeLoughrey, Jason Webb, Joanna Zylinska, Elizabeth Grosz, Dylan Robinson, Max Liboiron, Elizabeth Povinelli, Gilles Deleuze, Isabelle Stengers, Julia Kristeva, Erin Manning and Alison Kafer. Assignments include a seminar paper and one short in-class presentation. The class is designed to work both for students who read Japanese and students who do not. |
| EAS 220 | GLOBAL ASIAS | LEE, J.W. | Global Asias is an intellectual and political paradigm invested in understanding, in Tina Chen and Eric Hayot’s terms, “the intersection between Asia and the globe” (p. xi). This course thus aims to study the contemporary and historical cultural ecologies of Asia not only within a predefined geographic space, but instead examines the various issues related to “Asia” as a global phenomenon. Global Asias works beyond the onto- and geopolitical mappings of the nation-state paradigm through emergent analytical and epistemic paradigms. Reflective of a broader interest in “global studies” across the humanities and social sciences, Global Asias reflects in particular a concerted effort to bridge the historical divide between area studies (e.g., Asian studies) and ethnic studies (e.g., Asian American studies). As such, students will be invited to consider the extent to which an epistemological vantage point of Global Asias can facilitate the desedimentation of extant logics guiding the politics of knowledge production from within their own disciplinary orientations. (same as 22642 Clt&Thy 289, Sem B; and 23842 English 210, Sem B) |
| EAS 220 | CH HISTORICAL DOCS | GUO, Q. | This seminar is designed to introduce graduate students to some of the major genres of primary sources for research in late imperial and twentieth-century Chinese history. Reading material includes Qing documents, local gazetteers, short biographies, diaries, short stories, journal articles, newspaper articles, speeches, scholarly prose, and field reports. Each week will focus on one or two texts, representing the above-mentioned genres. Most of these documents are written in classical Chinese; some of them are not punctuated. The course should give the seminar members some sense of the pitfalls and pleasures of working with Chinese historical documents. Typicality and brevity are the guiding principles for the selection of these texts. The main purpose of the seminar is to provide advanced language training for graduate students. It is expected that through studying these typical texts, the seminar members will receive some preparation in dealing with similar sources in their future research. The meetings will focus on the language of the texts and the genres they represent, while briefly discussing their contexts and larger meanings. Students are encouraged to ask questions about the grammar, allusions, idioms, and whatever else they might not understand about the reading materials. To get a better understanding of the historical genres covered in the seminar, as well as of various related issues in a general nature, the seminar participants are encouraged to read through Endymion Wilkinson’s enormously useful handbook, Chinese History: A Manual. It is essential for the seminar members to learn how to use Chinese dictionaries (not Chinese-English dictionaries) for checking difficult characters, special terms, cultural allusions, etc. The instructor intends to focus on two important and most commonly used Chinese dictionaries, to be introduced in the first meeting: 1) Cihai, a kind of encyclopedia which is good for checking background knowledge about Chinese culture and language; and 2) Ciyuan, particularly good for classical Chinese terms. It is strongly suggested that each participant prepare at least two questions for each meeting. The seminar members will be asked in class to translate parts of the texts to be read for each week; it is therefore expected that students will have finished the assigned reading prior to the class meeting. |