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Asian Literature and Culture Courses

Courses marked with an * are available for graduate credit.

Asian Humanities

ASIAN LC 290 – East Asian Religious Classics

Overview of Course

This course explores some of the most influential texts of the major East Asian religious and philosophical traditions including Confucianism, Daoism, Chan/Zen Buddhism, and Tibetan Buddhism still prominent in China, Japan, Tibet, and several other Asian societies today. The goal is to understand their significance in East Asian cultures, as well as consider what we can learn from these texts today. This course will probe the following questions: What are the major themes, dilemmas, and issues these texts address? How can humans achieve contentment in the world? What are the moral values these texts instill? Beyond this historical focus, this course will also reflect on ways that these literary and religious texts have been appropriated and adapted in the modern context. Each period dedicated to a specific text will be preceded by an introduction to the tradition it represents offering a historical background together with biographical and/or content outlines. Format The course format will include a combination of lecture and discussion. Students will be encouraged to exercise critical thinking and to participate in class discussions. Students will analyze primary source material in translation, critically evaluate content and concepts, and will be encouraged to synthesize the information and communicate it effectively and thoroughly.

ASIAN LC 290 – Intro to Tibetan Literature

Overview of Course
What are Tibetan literature’s distinctive features? In what ways has Buddhism determined Tibetan literary genres? How have modern forms of Tibetan literature developed? Students in this course will read Tibetan literature in English translation along with secondary sources to learn and reflect upon the long history of Tibetan literature up to the present. Given the impact that religious concerns have had among Tibetans for centuries, in the first part of the course students will analyze the ways in which Buddhism and Tibetan literary forms are intertwined from the Tibetan imperial period forward. The second part of the course will survey modern and contemporary Tibetan literature and its myriad influences, such as Chinese literary and political theory. Students will gain familiarity with diverse genres of Tibetan literature in translation including fiction, poetry, biographies, and historical treatises.

Teaching Method
Lecture and Discussion

Evaluation Method
In-class presentation, weekly response papers, midterm and final term papers

Class Materials (required)
Tsering Döndrup, "The Handsome Monk and Other Stories." Columbia University Press, 2019 - ISBN 978-0231190237
Tenzin Deckie. "Old Demons, New Deities. 21 Short Stories from Tibet." OR Books, 2017 - ISBN 978-1944869519

Class Materials (suggested)
PDFs provided by instructor

ASIAN LC 390* – Buddhism and Gender

Overview of Course
The unifying theme of this seminar is gender and Buddhism. We take as our point of departure Carolyn Bynum's statement: "No scholar studying religion, no participant in ritual, is ever neuter. Religious experience is the experience of men and women, and in no known society is this experience the same." Bearing this in mind, we will explore historical, textual and social questions relevant to gender in the Buddhist worlds of India, Tibet, and the Himalayas from the time of Buddhism's origins to the present day. Topics covered in this course will include the roles of women, men, femininity, and masculinity in Indian and Tibetan Buddhism, Buddhism and the family, gender and the body in Mahayana Buddhism, the roles of female goddess figures such as dakinisin Vajrayana Buddhism, Buddhism and sexuality, and the status of Buddhist nuns.

ASIAN LC 390* – Buddhist Cultures and the Rhetoric of Violence

Overview of Course
This course investigates the intersections between religion and violence in the context of Buddhist Asia while also considering why in many religious traditions there seem to be a link between the two. The course will be structured in two parts: in the first part students will be encouraged to build expertise in the basic concepts, definitions, and general academic consensus (as well as debates) about categories including “religion,” “violence,” “sacrifice,” “ritual,” “martyrdom,” and also “nationalism,” “politics,” and “terrorism” through reading both primary sources (in English translation) and secondary sources (scholarly writings). We will then move into an analysis of case studies that focus on specific circumstances where Buddhist rhetoric, scriptural authority, and religious practices have played a role in violence including suicide, terrorist-related actions, and self-immolation predominantly in pre- and modern Asia. Some of the provocative questions that this course asks include: Why and how is religion involved in politics? Is Buddhism a pacifist religion? How does religion rationalize violence? How can some Buddhist leaders embrace terror as a political tool? Are the recent practices of self-immolation in Tibet acts of violence? Can non-violence be violent?

Teaching Method
Lecture and class discussion

Evaluation Method
In-class participation and presentation Weekly response papers Term paper

Class Materials (required)
Mark Juergensmeyer and Margo Kitts, Princeton Readings in Religion and Violence, Princeton University Press, 2011 - ISBN 978-0691129143 Michael Jerryson & Mark Juergensmeyer (eds), Buddhist Warfare. Oxford University Press, 2010 - ISBN 978-0195394849

Class Materials (suggested)
Michael Jerryson, If You Meet the Buddha on the Road: Buddhism, Politics, and Violence. Oxford University Press, 2010 - ISBN 9780190683566 Michael K. Jerryson, Buddhist Fury: Religion and Violence in Southern Thailand. Oxford University Press, 2011 - 978-0199793242 Brian Victoria. Zen at War, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.; 2nd edition (June 28, 2006) - ISBN 978-0742539266

ASIAN LC 390* – Martial Arts, Religion, and Philosophy in East Asia

Overview of Course
This course offers the opportunity to investigate martial art culture in Japanese society in the centuries between the Tokugawa shogunate takeover in the sixteenth century until the aftermath of WWII. Students will learn how samurai military culture and the Japanese art of sword fighting (kenjutsu) evolved conceptually from a system of fighting to cut down an adversary to one aimed at personal spiritual growth and cultivation of the mind. Course readings include treatises, essays, and poetry (waka, haiku) by several expert Japanese swordsmen including feudal lords, samurai, Buddhist monks, and philosophers who highlight not just actual combat techniques, but also the inward aspects that can lead to psycho-spiritual realization.

Grounded in Confucian virtues, Buddhist doctrine, and the Shinto worldview, these figures discuss martial arts not only as mere external techniques of death, but also as inner techniques of life. In this course students will read works in English translation by and about several authors including Yagyu Munenori (1571-1646), Soho Takuan (1573-1645), Miyamoto Musashi (1582-1645), Kaibara Ekiken (1630-1714), Yamamoto Tsenetomo (1659-1719), Daidoji Yuzan (1639-1730), Yamaoka Tesshu (1836-1888), Takahashi Deishu (1835-1903), Daisetsu Teitaro Suzuki (1870-1966), Morihei Ueshiba (1883-1969), Taisen Deshimaru (1914-1982), and Omori Sogen Roshi (1904-1994).

Some of the probing questions we will address are: what instigated the separation between traditional martial systems (bujustu) and modern martial arts (budo)? Where do the spiritual and the physical intersect in martial arts? What is the relationship between Buddhist doctrine and violence in the art of the sword? What does it mean for Aikido to be promoted as an “art of peace”? What kind of values can modern martial arts instill in their practitioners?

Learning Objectives
Understand the difference tradition and modernity in East Asian martial arts.
Understand where spirituality and violence intersect in the practice of martial arts in Japan.
Grasp Buddhist, Confucian and Shinto values that martial culture instill(ed) in practitioners.
Understand the role of Buddhist philosophy in the elaboration of modern Japanese swordsmanship.
Discuss the content of some of the most famous treatises of Japanese martial art.

Teaching Method
Lecture and Discussion

Evaluation Method
Weekly Response paper; in-class presentation; in-class discussion; term paper.

Class Materials (required)
Takuan Soho. The Unfettered Mind: Writings from a Zen Master to a Master Swordsman. 2012 - ISBN 978-1590309865

Musashi, Miyamoto and Thomas Cleary - The Book of Five Rings: A Classic Text on the Japanese Way of the Sword (Shambhala Library) Mass Market Paperback - ISBN 978-1590302484

Yagyu Munenori and Hiroaki Sato - The Sword and the Mind - Overlook Press 1986 - ISBN 978-0879512569

William S. Wilson - Budoshoshinshu (Paperback) - Shambala ISBN 978-1569571897

Taisen Deshimaru - The Zen Way to the Martial Arts - ISBN 978-0140193442

Morihei Ueshiba - The Art of Peace: Teachings of the Founder of Aikido (Paperback) - Shambala ISBN 978-0877738510

Class Materials (suggested)
PDFs and additional material will be provided in class.

ASIAN LC 390* – Buddhist Literature and Translation


Overview of class
In this course, students will read writings from Buddhist canonical and non-canonical literature on a variety of subjects to gain an introduction to the variety of literary genres used in Buddhist works, as well as to consider the central tenets of the Buddhist literary tradition these works convey. Who was the Buddha? What did he preach? Why do we suffer and how do we realize enlightenment? How should one follow the Buddhist path? What metaphors and parables have Buddhists used to convey these insights over the centuries? Students will be able to explore these and other questions through a selection of English translations of original texts in Sanskrit, Pali, Chinese, and Tibetan including the life of the Buddha, his sayings, Buddhist sutras, and Buddhist autobiographies. As this course is an introduction to Buddhist literature, there are no prerequisites, and students will gain familiarity with Buddhist teachings through engaging directly with primary sources in translation.

Teaching Method
Lecture
Discussion

Evaluation Method
Paper, final
Presentations
Class participation
Paper, mid-term

Class Materials (Required)
- The Life of the Buddha (Penguin Classics 2015 - by Tenzin Chogyel and Kurtis R. Schaeffer. 978-0143107200 - The Dhammapada (Penguin Classics) Paperback - 2010 by Valerie Roebuck (Editor, Translator, Introduction) ISBN 978-0140449419 - The Platform Sutra: The Zen Teaching of Hui-neng, by Red Pine, Counterpoint 2008, ISBN 978-1593761776 - Himalayan Hermitess: The Life of a Tibetan Buddhist Nun 1st Edition, by Kurtis R. Schaeffer, ‎Oxford University Press, 2004 - ISBN 978-0195152999

ASIAN LC 390* – Fate, Fortune, and Karma in East Asia

Overview of class
Are our actions free or fated? What larger forces shape the choices we make? To what do we owe our successes, and what is to blame for our mistakes? In East Asian religions, such questions have been answered with reference to a variety of different concepts of fate, fortune, and karma. These concepts shape not only how people have viewed the world, but also how they have made their way through life. This class focuses on religious approaches to questions of destiny in premodern East Asia. We begin by studying Indian Buddhist ideas of karma and early Chinese notions of fate and fortune preceding Buddhism's arrival in China, then turn to the ways people in China and Japan negotiated these various concepts over the many centuries following the arrival of Buddhism. In the end, we discover important throughlines amid the diversity of religious responses to the problem of destiny in East Asian history.

Learning Objectives
1. Learn about the history of religion in East Asia by studying concepts of fate, fortune, and karma 2. Engage with key themes and methods in the academic study of religion 3. Develop skill in analyzing textual and visual primary sources, as well as in engaging with secondary scholarship 4. Build skill in critically and constructively analyzing complex subjects through reading, writing, discussing, undertaking research, and formulating original arguments

Class Materials (Required)
All assigned readings will be uploaded to Canvas.


ASIAN LC 390* – Chan/Zen Buddhism

Overview of class
The Chinese Chan (Japanese Zen) Buddhist tradition is one of the most famous branches of Buddhism in the world, but also one of the most widely misunderstood. This course explores the history, literature, philosophy, visual culture, and monastic practices of Chan/Zen Buddhism in East Asia. We pay special attention to the ways Chan/Zen innovated within the Buddhist tradition to establish a uniquely East Asian school of Buddhism. Along the way we consider the changing place of meditation in Chan/Zen practice, closely read Chan/Zen sermons and koans, analyze the role of women and gender in Chan and Zen, and conclude by considering the modern reception of Zen in the West.

Learning Objectives
- Understand the history of Chan/Zen Buddhism from its origins in China to its spread across East Asia and transmission to the US - Become familiar with the main genres of Chan/Zen literature through close reading of primary sources in English translation as well as secondary scholarship - Engage with key themes in the study of religion, including how religious authority operates, how religious traditions construct and remember their own histories, and how religious ideals relate to everyday practice - Develop skill in critically and constructively analyzing complex subjects through reading, writing, discussing, undertaking research, and formulating original arguments

Class Materials (Required)
All readings will be uploaded to Canvas as PDFs.

 

ASIAN LC 392 – Media in East Asia

Overview of Course

The seminar is designed to foster dialogues between Media Studies and Area Studies. The key questions we will be asking are: What is media and its relationship to our subjectivity? How are media practices in East Asia related to the formation of certain subjectivities and cultural identities? How are these practices related to our everyday experience and immersion in the contemporary global media landscape? What are the social contexts and histories that propel us to study East Asia (East Asian media in this case)? Who constitutes this we? How do we study East Asia while avoiding an orientalist lens in our analysis and othering the other? While learning about various media practices in East Asia, students will be asked to be self-reflective in considering these questions.

Teaching Method
Discussion with lectures

Evaluation Method
1. Regular attendance, preparation of all readings, and active participation
2. Short writing assignments
3. Discussion leading
4. Final paper

Class materials (required)
All assigned readings are accessible through Canvas.

 

ASIAN LC 397 – Senior Seminar

Overview of Course
This course will offer an focused and in-depth introduction to research methodology in the humanities with a focus on Asian languages and cultures. Course meetings will pair secondary readings on theoretical approaches to the field with structured exercises designed to hone students’ understanding of the research and writing process. These exercises will lead students toward the completion of a major research paper which is to be submitted at the end of the quarter. Though each student will pursue their own individual projects, they will engage one another’s ideas and questions collectively. Each week, students will present their progress, discuss their difficulties, and explore potential avenues of thought through collective discussion. In the final weeks of the course students will exchange drafts and provide commentary and feedback. Students whose projects do not engage South Asia, the field in which I focus, are encouraged to identity a faculty member working in their field with whom they will consult on their projects independently.

Teaching Method
Seminar

Evaluation Method
Writing assignments; final research paper

Class Materials (required)
None

ASIAN LC 492* – Readings in Tibetan Texts: Religious & Literary Texts

1)   Overview of Course

This class over three quarters is designed to assist students who already have the equivalent of at least two-years of Tibetan language study. The course is intended to build on this foundation so that students gain greater proficiency in reading a variety of classical Tibetan writing styles and genres, including (especially in the third quarter) texts relevant to their research.

We will explore various genres: canonical and other religious texts, religious songs (mgur), poetry (snyan ngag), biographies (rnam thar), avadanas (rtogs brjod), and histories. We will also look at administrative documents (gzhung yig), other manuscripts and scrolls to become familiar with the most common forms of Tibetan calligraphy. Students will gain facility in the use of Tibetan dictionaries essential for reading classical texts, in particular for understanding kāvya-derived ornamental vocabulary and rhetorical devices.

2)   Learning Objectives 

Students will learn to identify commonly found vocabulary, grammatical constructions and other conventions appearing in Classical Tibetan texts, including religious, literary, and historical genres. In the third quarter, students will be introduced to texts in dbu-med scripts and the abbreviated words (skung yig) often employed in these. They will learn how to identify texts helpful for their research and begin reading those texts.

3)   Teaching Method:

Online only

 

4) Evaluation Method:

 

Class participation & Homework

Percentage of Final Grade

30%

3 Short quizzes

15%

Mid-Term

25%

Final Examination

30%

 

  1. མར་པ་ལོ་ཙཱ་བའི་རང་རྣམ་མགུར། Autobiographical Song of Marpa the Translator

Author: མར་པ་ཆོས་ཀྱི་བློ་གྲོས།  Marpa Chokyi Lodroe, 1036-1102

 

  1. Selected Excerpts from བཀའ་ཐང་སྡེ་ལྔ། (Five Chronicles)

Terma by ཨོ་རྒྱན་གླིང་པ། Ogyen Lingpa (b. 1323-1360/67/74?)

 

  1. རྣམ་ཐར་ཁོག་འབུབ། (An overview of Tibetan life-writing forms)

Author: ཀརྨ་ཆགས་མེད།  Karma Chakmé (1613-1678)

 

  1. གཏེར་འབྱུང་ལོ་རྒྱུས་བསྡུས་པ། Brief of history of Terma

Terma by Do Khyentse Yeshe Dorjé, 1800-1859?

 

  1. རྩེ་སློབ་གྲྭའི་བཅའ་ཡིག The regulations or guidelines (bca' yig) for the Rtse School

Author: 13th Dalai Lama, 1876-1933

 

  1. ཚིགས་བཅད་ཀྱི་རྩོམ་སྟངས། The rules for metrical verse composition

Author: དུང་དཀར་བློ་བཟང་འཕྲིན་ལས།  Dungkar Lozang Trinlé, 1927-1997

 

 

 

 

ASIAN LC 492* – Readings in Tibetan Texts: Manuscripts and Research-Focused Readings

1)   Overview of Course

This class over three quarters is designed to assist students who already have the equivalent of at least two-years of Tibetan language study. The course is intended to build on this foundation so that students gain greater proficiency in reading a variety of classical Tibetan writing styles and genres, including (especially in the third quarter) texts relevant to their research.

We will explore various genres: canonical and other religious texts, religious songs (mgur), poetry (snyan ngag), biographies (rnam thar), avadanas (rtogs brjod), and histories. We will also look at administrative documents (gzhung yig), other manuscripts and scrolls to become familiar with the most common forms of Tibetan calligraphy. Students will gain facility in the use of Tibetan dictionaries essential for reading classical texts, in particular for understanding kāvya-derived ornamental vocabulary and rhetorical devices. 

2)   Learning Objectives

Students will learn to identify commonly found vocabulary, grammatical constructions and other conventions appearing in Classical Tibetan texts, including religious, literary, and historical genres. In the third quarter, students will be introduced to texts in dbu-med scripts and the abbreviated words (skung yig) often employed in these. They will learn how to identify texts helpful for their research and begin reading those texts. 

3)   Teaching Method:

Online only

 

4) Evaluation Method:

 

Class participation & Homework

Percentage of Final Grade

30%

3 Short quizzes

15%

Mid-Term

25%

Final Examination

30%

 

  1. མར་པ་ལོ་ཙཱ་བའི་རང་རྣམ་མགུར། Autobiographical Song of Marpa the Translator

Author: མར་པ་ཆོས་ཀྱི་བློ་གྲོས།  Marpa Chokyi Lodroe, 1036-1102

 

  1. Selected Excerpts from བཀའ་ཐང་སྡེ་ལྔ། (Five Chronicles)

Terma by ཨོ་རྒྱན་གླིང་པ། Ogyen Lingpa (b. 1323-1360/67/74?)

 

  1. རྣམ་ཐར་ཁོག་འབུབ། (An overview of Tibetan life-writing forms)

Author: ཀརྨ་ཆགས་མེད།  Karma Chakmé (1613-1678)

 

  1. གཏེར་འབྱུང་ལོ་རྒྱུས་བསྡུས་པ། Brief of history of Terma

Terma by Do Khyentse Yeshe Dorjé, 1800-1859?

 

  1. རྩེ་སློབ་གྲྭའི་བཅའ་ཡིག The regulations or guidelines (bca' yig) for the Rtse School

Author: 13th Dalai Lama, 1876-1933

 

  1. ཚིགས་བཅད་ཀྱི་རྩོམ་སྟངས། The rules for metrical verse composition

Author: དུང་དཀར་བློ་བཟང་འཕྲིན་ལས།  Dungkar Lozang Trinlé, 1927-1997

 

 

 

 

ASIAN LC 492* – Readings in Tibetan Texts: Historical texts and Biographies

1)   Overview of Course

This class over three quarters is designed to assist students who already have the equivalent of at least two-years of Tibetan language study. The course is intended to build on this foundation so that students gain greater proficiency in reading a variety of classical Tibetan writing styles and genres, including (especially in the third quarter) texts relevant to their research.

We will explore various genres: canonical and other religious texts, religious songs (mgur), poetry (snyan ngag), biographies (rnam thar), avadanas (rtogs brjod), and histories. We will also look at administrative documents (gzhung yig), other manuscripts and scrolls to become familiar with the most common forms of Tibetan calligraphy. Students will gain facility in the use of Tibetan dictionaries essential for reading classical texts, in particular for understanding kāvya-derived ornamental vocabulary and rhetorical devices. 

2)   Learning Objectives

Students will learn to identify commonly found vocabulary, grammatical constructions and other conventions appearing in Classical Tibetan texts, including religious, literary, and historical genres. In the third quarter, students will be introduced to texts in dbu-med scripts and the abbreviated words (skung yig) often employed in these. They will learn how to identify texts helpful for their research and begin reading those texts.

3)   Teaching Method:

Online only

 

4) Evaluation Method:

 

Class participation & Homework

Percentage of Final Grade

30%

3 Short quizzes

15%

Mid-Term

25%

Final Examination

30%

 

  1. མར་པ་ལོ་ཙཱ་བའི་རང་རྣམ་མགུར། Autobiographical Song of Marpa the Translator

Author: མར་པ་ཆོས་ཀྱི་བློ་གྲོས།  Marpa Chokyi Lodroe, 1036-1102

 

  1. Selected Excerpts from བཀའ་ཐང་སྡེ་ལྔ། (Five Chronicles)

Terma by ཨོ་རྒྱན་གླིང་པ། Ogyen Lingpa (b. 1323-1360/67/74?)

 

  1. རྣམ་ཐར་ཁོག་འབུབ། (An overview of Tibetan life-writing forms)

Author: ཀརྨ་ཆགས་མེད།  Karma Chakmé (1613-1678)

  1. གཏེར་འབྱུང་ལོ་རྒྱུས་བསྡུས་པ། Brief of history of Terma

Terma by Do Khyentse Yeshe Dorjé, 1800-1859?

 

  1. རྩེ་སློབ་གྲྭའི་བཅའ་ཡིག The regulations or guidelines (bca' yig) for the Rtse School

Author: 13th Dalai Lama, 1876-1933

 

  1. ཚིགས་བཅད་ཀྱི་རྩོམ་སྟངས། The rules for metrical verse composition

Author: དུང་དཀར་བློ་བཟང་འཕྲིན་ལས།  Dungkar Lozang Trinlé, 1927-1997

 

 

 

 

 

ASIAN LC 492* – Approaches to Asia

Overview of Course

This seminar considers methods of cultural analysis that have shaped the field of Asian Studies and questioned its status as an academic discipline and institutional formation. We begin with a brief history of the field, examining its roots in the philological practices and colonial knowledge production of its various subfields, before moving through the critique of area studies and into contemporary developments. While attending to the epistemological and political stakes of producing scholarship about literature, media, theory, and other forms of cultural production in Asia, we will explore the efficacy of particular practices of interpretation: from modes of theorization and historicization to close reading and translation. In terms of praxis, we will consider how we position ourselves within and between fields through the methods we use in our research. We will ask, for example: how can we make our work legible to scholars in overlapping disciplines and areas while remaining focused on a specific project? How and why might we put our work into dialogue with scholarship from academic fields outside of the Euro-American context? What role does translation play in the interpretive and writing process? How do we identify our audiences and how do we speak to them? Designed for students whose research involves studying aesthetic media and cultural practices in Asia, this seminar will approach these issues by examining the methods employed in recent and past scholarship in the fields that constitute Asian studies.

Registration requirements
Open to graduate students; undergraduate students with permission of the instructor

Teaching Method
Seminar discussion, student presentations

Evaluation Method
Attendance and participation, in-class presentations, final assessment

Class Materials (required)
All materials will be available on Canvas for download

ASIAN LC 492* – Fanon Now: Race, Gender, Coloniality

Overview of Course
A revolutionary, thinker, psychiatrist, and physician, Frantz Fanon (1925-1961) has produced a diverse and groundbreaking life work from Martinique to Algeria that has shaped and continues to shape generations of activists and scholars today.

This graduate seminar will examine major writings of Fanon, from his early to late life, and a selection of scholarship on and influenced by Fanon in the fields of critical race theory, feminist theory, and decolonial thought, such as Gordon, Karera, Maldonado-Torres, Zambrana, Mbembe, Al-Saji, Snorton, and Wynter, among others. The range and nature of responses to Fanon’s work since his time speaks to the continued problem of colonialism, anti-Blackness, and the racialized gender system, as well as the changes in paradigms and discourse surrounding these issues. The course encourages seminar participants to think critically with and about Fanon’s work, to find ways to incorporate Fanon into their respective research agendas and explore the renewed significance of Fanon’s work today.

Teaching Method
Seminar

Evaluation Method
Long Paper

Class Materials (required) 

  1. Black Skin, White Masks. Frantz Fanon. Trans. By Richard Philcox. ISBN: 978-0802143006
  2. Toward the African Revolution. Frantz Fanon. Trans. By Haakon Chevalier. ISBN: 978-0802130907
  3. The Wretched of the Earth. Frantz Fanon. Trans. By Richard Philcox. ISBN: 978-0802158635

 

ASIAN LC 492* – Comparison and Interdisciplinarity

Overview of Course

This seminar considers methods of comparison and interdisciplinarity in relation to the field of Comparative Literature. It offers a brief history of that field and some of its influential texts as a starting point for thinking through alternative methods of “doing” comparative and relational literary and cultural studies today. Of particular concern is the challenge of working within (or between) Eurocentric fields that struggle to make equal space for different traditions and the methods, questions, and theories best suited to them. What does it mean to work in a field that doesn’t necessarily understand the work you’re doing and why you’re doing it? Of equal importance is the challenge of working across fields that are epistemologically and institutionally isolated from one another. How, for example, do you bring insights from other fields (in which you are not formally trained) to bear on your own research, particularly when both home and “outside” fields are not in conversation with one another? What does scholarly rigor look like when it comes to interdisciplinary work? We will approach these challenges and questions by looking at recent comparative and interdisciplinary scholarship in several broad fields, including the environmental humanities.

Teaching Method
Discussion

Evaluation Method
Attendance, Preparation, Participation: 20% Response Papers: 20% Presentation: 10% Final Essay: 50%

Course Materials (required)
Course Reader

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Chinese Culture

ASIAN LC 200 – Dao of Sex

Overview of Course
This course will focus on sexual culture in China, from pre-Qin times to the early modern period. Using sources such as ancient medical texts, Daoist manuals, court poetry and Confucian classics, paintings and illustrated books, as well as legal documents and fiction written in the classic and vernacular languages, we will explore discourses about sex, sexuality, and desire in order to reconstruct their genealogies in the longue durée. The topics covered include sexual yoga, prostitution, sexual violence, human trafficking, and pornography. In addition to the primary sources, representative theoretical work in the fields of Chinese culture, history, gender theory, and sexuality studies, will be incorporated as much as possible. Previous knowledge of these disciplines, though helpful, is not required.

Learning Objectives
-Acquisition of knowledge about sexual culture and the history of sex in early and early modern China. This will entail exposure to primary sources (in English, and for those students able to, in Chinese) produced by Chinese authors of the time, as well as to related secondary sources.
-Development of methodological skills in studying, reading, and analyzing the primary and secondary sources related to the themes of the course.
-Growth as independent researchers in the fields of Asian humanities, Chinese cultural studies, and sexuality studies.
-Growth as independent academic thinkers and writers.

Teaching Method
Lecture and discussion

Evaluation Method
The final grade will be based on the following criteria:
-Active class participation (attendance, preparation, and discussion) 30%
-Assignments (writing statements, short papers, in class presentations, etc.) 35%
-Final Project 35%

Class Materials (required)
All class materials will be available on Canvas

ASIAN LC 202 – Taiwanese New Wave Cinema

Overview of Course
“New wave” is a ubiquitous but imprecise term that has been applied to various trends in cinema that emerged around the world beginning in the mid-1950s. As an historical term it is used to delineate shared styles, themes, and techniques that define certain national and international film movements. As a kind of descriptive shorthand, it has been applied more broadly to movements that abandoned conventional narrative techniques in favor of experimentation with the cinematic medium, while also confronting social and political problems specific to the context of production. Thus, the inaugural French New Wave has lent its title to film trends in Britain, Iran, Japan, Hong Kong, and many other locations around the world. This course offers a critical and historical introduction to one of these latter-day new waves, the “New Taiwan Cinema,” which emerged in the early 1980s as a reaction against contemporaneous commercial cinema. Through a careful investigation of the work of the three most important representatives of this “new” cinema—Hou Hsiao-hsien 侯孝賢, Tsai Ming-Liang 蔡明亮, and Edward Yang 楊德昌—this course will consider not only the experimental form and social consciousness of the Taiwanese New Wave but also the specific economic, social, and institutional structures—national and transnational—that shaped it. We will also study critical and theoretical writings on this cinema to better understand both the Taiwanese cultural milieu that produced it, and the broader global film culture of which it has become such an important part. Whenever possible, we will place individual Taiwanese films in dialogue with the Asian and European film cultures that influenced them as well as the films and filmmakers that they have influenced. There are no prerequisites for this class and no previous knowledge of Chinese or Taiwanese literature, culture, language, or history is assumed.

Learning Objectives
To learn how to use methods of “close viewing,” “close reading,” and analysis effectively

To acquire a formal vocabulary for discussing and writing about film in general

To develop a more sophisticated understanding of the techniques used in experiments with cinematic form

To develop techniques for writing clearly and effectively about film

To understand the historical, cultural, and economic contexts that shaped Taiwanese filmmaking in the period under discussion

To critically explore the category of “New Wave” and to consider Taiwanese film in its broader global cinematic contexts

Teaching Method
Lecture and Discussion

Evaluation Method
Participation, Attendance, and Preparation: 20% Review Posts: 15% Scene Analysis: 5% Essay 1: 20% Essay 2: 20% Essay 3: 20%

Course Materials (required)
course reader

ASIAN LC 300* – China as Threat

Overview of Course coming soon!

ASIAN LC 300* – Chinese Feminisms

Overview of Course
The aim of this course is to introduce the histories of feminism and feminist consciousness in modern and contemporary mainland China, and to thus provide students with exposure to non-Western-centered cases of feminist struggles for human rights and social justice from the late nineteenth century to the present. To achieve this goal, we will analyze a variety of sources, including literature, films, and other media by authors and activists concerned with the lives and realities of Chinese women. We will be joined in this enterprise by guest speakers based in the USA, mainland China, and Taiwan who, in their roles as scholars and activists, will help us navigate questions like:
What do Chinese women wish to liberate themselves from, how do they enact this and to what end? In what ways does the problem of gender complicate the ideological advent of modernity in China? How do different technologies of communication and exchange, from the literary journal to cinematic narratives to cyberspace, help and/or hinder activism aimed at fostering gender equality and diversity in China? What connections exist between feminists and gender, sexuality, the body, media, nationhood, and politics? What changes and breakages do we see in the paradigms of traditional Chinese culture and the evolving expectations of women under Confucianism, communism and capitalism in the late nineteenth, twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, especially in the contemporary situation of globalization?

Learning Objectives
• Learn about feminisms and their histories in mainland China, and, where possible and relevant, in other Sinophone areas, including the ways feminist projects across time intersect with debates on colonialism, postcolonialism, and globalization. • Become familiar with theoretical discussions of power and agency in recent feminist discourses as well as specific information on the situation of women in China in various historical settings. • Become familiar with the terms of feminism, activism, media and technology, gender, and sexuality that are crucial to understand the past and current cultural, political, social, and economic trends occurring within mainland China, and, where possible, in the Sinophone. • Apply key theoretical concepts from the course to understand and analyze social issues related to gender, sexuality, new media, social equity and justice from a feminist perspective. • Critically investigate, explain and analyze the readings and topics of the course in class discussion and writing assignments, and improve analytical skills in these two connected spheres. •Reflect on questions of location and privilege especially in relation to scholarship and activism. • Integrate course insights into one’s daily lives and cultivate activism about gender equality and diversity that takes into consideration global, regional, political, historical, and cultural contexts. • Understand the cultural logic of a time and place not our own

Teaching Method
Lecture, discussion, films, group work, guest speakers, presentations, readings, research and creative projects

Evaluation Method
The final grade will be based on the following criteria: -Active class participation (attendance, preparation, and discussion) 30% -Assignments (writing statements, short papers, in class presentations, etc.) 35% -Final Project 35%

Class Materials Required
All course materials will be provided on Canvas.

ASIAN LC 300* – Grassroots Revolt in China Today

Overview of Course
How have urban Chinese challenged the authoritarian rule of the Chinese Communist Party in the twenty-first century? What are the activist causes around which urban Chinese have rallied despite the risk of state repression? Given that activists risk persecution, prison, and torture, who would do this? How do activists maintain the emotional resilience to stand up to authoritarian rule? What are activists’ tactics and strategies? To answer these questions, we will study reporters, labor organizers, environmental activists, religious activists, lawyers, and feminist activists. Many activists oppose the authoritarian state in the name of freedom. I have found that many urban Chinese are happy, or at least content, in their lives today. The insight that hundreds of millions of people can be happy or content even though they are lacking freedom is so astonishing to me, I have begun to question my own understanding of freedom. Is freedom a specifically Western concept? Should the notion of freedom have universal relevance? Should we demand of the Chinese people that they democratize? Or is this demand Orientalist? Or racist? Is the demand that Chinese democratize another way of saying, “They must become like us”? The Chinese Communist Party is a threat to United States democracy. Thinking about China and acting toward China, how are we to combine the defense of our democracy and the injunction to stay clear of Orientalism? Who is a greater threat to our democracy, the Chinese Communist Party or the Republican Party? It turns out that we, unfortunately, cannot study Chinese activists without finding a framework to evaluate Chinese authoritarian rule in political and ethical terms. Evaluating Chinese authoritarian rule involves thinking about ourselves. Are some Americans benefitting from authoritarian rule in China? Is the Chinese Communist Party profitable for some Americans? Would the United States economy collapse without Chinese poverty? Who are we in moral, political, and ethical terms to claim the high ground and criticize the Chinese Communist Party? It is possible to argue that Western modernity is flawed beyond rescue. From this perspective, are we in a desperate search for an alternative modernity? Can China be our inspiration for an alternative modernity? Or, would you agree with those Hong Kong activists who have coined the term Chinazi to indicate that, in their view, China increasingly resembles Hitler’s Germany?

Registration Requirements
No prerequisites. All teaching materials are in English

Learning Objectives
This class shall alert students to the fragility of democracy: Is our democracy in existential peril? Does the Chinese Communist Party pose a threat to our democracy? What is life like under authoritarian rule? What are the odds in the struggle of ordinary people against an authoritarian state? Which Americans have benefitted from Chinese authoritarian rule? Can we make demands on Chinese people in the name of universal values? Given the planetary scope of human-made global warming, can we demand that Chinese people restructure their economy?

Teaching Method
Discussion

Evaluation Method
You will read about sixty pages per class meeting, or circa one hundred twenty pages per week. To participate actively in class discussion, you must prepare the assigned readings outside of class for six hours per week. This includes taking good reading notes and bringing your reading notes to class. Class Discussion 50% Take-home Exam 15% Final Paper 35%

Course Materials (required)
We will discuss select chapters from the following books. All of these required books are available to you as e-books through the Library’s website.

Sebastian Veg. Minjian. The Rise of China’s Grassroots Intellectuals. New York: Columbia 2019. 978-0-231-19140-1

Ching Kwan Lee. Against the Law. Labor Protests in China’s Rustbelt and Sunbelt. Berkeley: California 2007.978-0-520-25097-0

David Ownby. Falun Gong and the Future of China. New York: Oxford 2008. 978-0-19-973853-3

Joshua Goldstein. Remains of the Everyday. A Century of Recycling in Beijing. Oakland: California 2021.

Rongbin Han. Contesting Cyberspace in China. Online Expression and Authoritarian Resilience. New York: Columbia 2018.

Leta Hong Fincher. Betraying Big Brother: The Feminist Awakening in China. New York: Verso 2018. 978-1-78663-364-4

Margaret Hillenbrand. Negative Exposure: Knowing What Not to Know in Contemporary China. Durham: Duke 2020. 978-1-4780-0800-2

ASIAN LC 300* – Religion and Politics in the People's Republic of China

Overview of Course
This course will examine the role of religion in post-1980’s China with an emphasis on the political implications of the practice of religion in the People’s Republic of China. Students will read various forms of literature and policy documents to assess the extent to which Marxist theory is central to the interpretation of “religion” in Communist China. Primary sources will include Chinese constitutional articles, white papers, and editorials in English translation. Secondary sources will cover a wide range of interpretations and perspectives on the position of religious institutions and religious practices in the PRC. The first part of this course will investigate the expression of religiosity under Communism in China; the rehabilitation of Confucian values; the constitutional protection of religion and religious belief in China; the relationship between ethnicity and religious policies; the Sinicization of religion; and the administration of the five officially accepted religious traditions in the People’s Republic of China (Catholicism, Protestantism, Buddhism, Daoism, and Islam). The second part of the course will focus on the recent cases related to the Muslim Uyghurs of Xinjiang and the Tibetan Buddhists of Western China. The class will explore some of the most controversial issues related to these two ethnic minorities including terrorism, religious violence, nationalism, assimilation, foreign influence, and soft power.

Teaching Method
Lecture and discussion

Evaluation Method
In-class participation and presentation Weekly response papers Final paper

Class Materials (required)
Anna Sun, Confucianism as a World Religion: Contested Histories and Contemporary Realities, Princeton University Press, 2015 (2013) ISBN 978-0691168111 Adam Yuet-Chau, Religion in China. Polity Press, 2019 - ISBN 978-0745679150

Class Materials (suggested)
Ian Johnson, The Souls of China: The Return of Religion after Mao. Pantheon Books, 2017 ISBN 978-1101870051 Fenggang Yang, Religion in China: Survival and Revival under Communist Rule, Oxford University Press 2011 - ISBN 978-0199735648Return To Top

Japanese Culture

ASIAN LC 221 – The Floating World

Overview of Course
This course examines the “floating world” (ukiyo) of early modern or Edo-period Japan: an ephemeral and eroticised world of urban leisure and consumption, simultaneously apart from and intertwined with the realities of everyday life. This “floating world” was also linked to the early modern media complex, a quasi-imaginary realm produced and existing through representations in literature, theater, and print culture; we aim to understand both the nature of this virtual world and the social realities behind it. We approach these issues as a form of popular culture: what social subjectivities constituted the “popular” in early modern Japan, what forms of culture did they use to express themselves, and how did, these dynamics result in the particular forms and functions of the “floating world”? We give particular attention to the stratification of society and culture by status, class, and gender, as well as the ways in which different subjectivities intersect and hybridize in cultural production and consumption. Topics include the rise of a merchant class and the emergence of a commercial marketplace for literature, theater, and sex; warrior identity and the culture of revenge; satire and social critique; illustrated narrative and early modern book culture; and more. No prerequisites. All readings are in English, no prior study of Japan required or expected.

Teaching Method
Lecture and Discussion

Evaluation Method
Attendance (10%), participation and discussion (10%), response postings (10%), extension essays (20%), quizzes (20%), final exam (30%)

Class Materials (required)
All required readings will be provided in PDF format.


ASIAN LC 223 – Contemporary Japanese Culture

Overview of course
This course offers an introduction to Japanese literature, film, animation, and manga from the 1960s to the present. We will consider these media in relation to the historical developments that defined this period such as globalization, the “bursting” of the bubble economy, natural and human-made disasters, and the extension of digital technology into daily life. We will pay special attention to the transformations in media culture that shaped the production, distribution, and consumption of these cultural forms. An overview of Japanese culture in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, this course provides training in the analysis of literary texts and forms of visual narration.

Learning Objectives
This course introduces students to humanistic approaches to analyzing the literature and visual culture of contemporary Japan. Students will learn:
1. methods for interpreting the significance of formal techniques used in literature, film, animation, and manga.
2. how to connect these media to their historical contexts
3. how to write clearly and incisively about these media.

Teaching Method
Lecture and Discussion

Evaluation Method
Attendance and Participation
Weekly Discussion Posts
Three Short Essays
Final Assessment

Class Materials (required)
All Materials will be available on Canvas

ASIAN LC 321* – Paying For It: Sex, Money, and LIterature in Early Modern Japan

Overview of Course
In early modern or Edo-period (1600-1868) Japan, the licensed prostitution quarters of the three main cities (Kyoto, Osaka, Edo) were among the most fertile sites of literary production, and the courtesan was one of the most complex literary figures. This course examines the relationship between prostitution and literature in Japan during this period: how was the commodification of literature, through the emergence of a commercial publishing industry, related to the commodification of sex? Topics addressed include representation and the use of the courtesan as a literary symbol; tensions between literary image, lived experience, and embodied performance; questions of agency and identity politics, and the methodological challenges of reconstructing marginalized historical subjectivities; the role of media in producing sexual desires and norms of gender; ideological functions of the figures of courtesan and “geisha” in modern cultural imaginaries; and more. Our orienting concern is with understanding the logics of commodification in the early modern context: what was the impact of the commodity form on cultural production and social relations in early modern Japan, and how was it shaped by hierarchies of gender, class, and status? All readings are in English; no knowledge of Japanese is required or expected.

Teaching Method
Lecture and Discussion

Evaluation Method
Attendance (10%), participation (10%), forum essays (15%), response comments (5%), working annotation (10%), midterm paper (20%), final paper (30%)

Class Materials (required)
All materials will be provided in PDF format.

ASIAN LC 322* – Video Games in/as Japanese Culture

Overview of Course
What kind of stories do video games tell, and what do these stories tell us about the cultures that produced them? How does the uniquely interactive nature of games give shape to the stories that they tell and the meanings that they convey? Where does the experience of play fit into the stories through which a culture produces meaning? This course explores these questions in the context of Japanese cultural history from the 1990s to the present. Our aim is simple: to learn to interpret games. Our approach is to furnish the historical and conceptual contexts necessary to make interpretation possible. We focus on a series of dominant narrative paradigms and subcultural tropes—apocalyptic fantasy, world-type, survival, etc.—and ask how these are rendered in game form. While our focus is ultimately on games as a form of narrative, we aim also to understand how the active and interactive nature of the game medium shapes the meanings that these texts convey. In particular, we ask how video games think about history: what they say about the historical situation faced by Japan between the close of the 20th century and the dawn of the 21st, where they reflect traces of deeper history that persist in that moment or where they efface those traces to present an eternal present of play, whether they contain the possibility of imagining a future.

Teaching Method
Lecture and Discussion

Evaluation Method
Attendance (10%), participation (10%), discussion forum (10%), extension essay (10%), weekly group presentations (10%), final group project (20%), final project proposal (5%), final project (25%)

Course Materials Required
All reading materials will be distributed in PDF form; assigned games will be made available in the Kresge Media and Design Lab.

ASIAN LC 322* – Cyber-Japan

Overview of Course
This course explores the interaction between cybernetic technologies and cultural production in modern Japan. We focus on how visual and literary media have been used to represent such technologies (robotics, cybernetics, and the Internet) as well as how these technologies have shaped Japanese culture in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. The notion of the “cyber” – its origins in cybernetics and ensuing proliferation of meanings – forms the conceptual core of the course. After considering early definitions of this term, we turn to how Japanese manga, animation, film, and cultural theory explore the ways in which cybernetic technologies, like cyborgs and cyberspace, have expanded our understanding of human subjectivity and agency, transformed social relations, and blurred boundaries between the human and the animal, the biological and the artificial, and the physical and non-physical.

Teaching Method
Lecture and Discussion

Evaluation Method
Attendance and Participation Short Writing Assignments Midterm Assessment Final Assessment

Class Materials (Required)
All materials will be available through Canvas

 

 

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Korean Culture

ASIAN LC 240 – Colonial Korean Literature and Culture

Overview of Course
Why is the Korean-Japanese relationship so strained to this day? How might we think about the colonial period (1910-1945) on the Korean peninsula from our present and about intra-Asian colonialism? This introductory course offers students some snapshots of colonial era Korean literature and culture and tackle difficult but rewarding questions about this period. We will read feminist, socialist, and modernist short fictions from prominent authors of the time and discuss visual cultures (illustrations, art, films) surrounding New Woman, Indigeneity, race, and wartime mobilization. The course also invites students to consider the often-forgotten Korean diaspora and migrations created under the vast Japanese empire that exceed the limits of the peninsula: what does it mean to be “Korean” in the shifting identities of the colonized in these different places around the empire? Finally, the course examines more contemporary representations of the colonial period to think about how the colonial period haunts the present as we desire and consume the colonial. No prior knowledge of Korean language or culture is necessary to take this course. Course assignments include two short papers, a group presentation, and a final creative group project. Student participation, discussion, and peer collaboration are important aspects of this course, and all students are encouraged to speak in class.

Learning Objectives
Critical Thinking; Communication; Analysis

Teaching Method
Discussion Based, Mini Lectures

Evaluation Method
Students will be evaluated on two short papers, a group presentation, a final creative group project, and participation.

Class Materials (required)
All materials will be made available through Canvas.

 

ASIAN LC 240 – Contemporary Women Authors of South Korea and Feminist Criticism

Overview of Course
The cultural importance of women writers in South Korea has been ever growing since the 1990s not just due to their increasing number and commercial success, but also because of their distinctive literary achievements and political voices. In this course we will trace this recent development in literary and cultural history against the backdrop of larger socio-political changes in South Korea. In particular, we will study the neo-liberalization of society through the restructuring of the gendered division of labor and the waning hegemony of nationalist realism that once effectively united labor activism and class politics.

Teaching Method
Discussion and lectures

Evaluation Method
1. Regular attendance and preparation of all readings and active participation
2. Short writing assignments
3. Discussion leading
4. Final paper

Course Materials (required)

Gong Ji-young, Human Decency, trans. Bruce and Ju-Chan Fulton (Seoul: ASIA Publishers, 2012)

Han Kang, The Vegetarian: A Novel, trans. Deborah Smith (London: Hogarth, 2015)

Shin Kyung-sook, The Girl Who Wrote Loneliness, trans. Ha-yun Jung (New York: Pegasus Books, 2015)

Bora Chung, Cursed Bunny, trans. Anton Hur (Honford Star, 2021)

All other assigned readings are accessible through Canvas.

ASIAN LC 240 – The End of the World: South Korean Fiction, Films, and Webtoons of Disaster

Overview of course coming soon!

 

ASIAN LC 240 – Transforming Seoul: From Imperial Periphery to Global Smart City

Overview of Course
Metropolitan Seoul, now home to 26 million people from all around the globe, has captivated numerous writers and artists with the dizzying speed of modernization and urbanization in Korea. Seoul has also tantalized many talented urban planners and architects keenly invested in creating a whole new space and modern lifestyle out of the old city’s rich history. This course will trace Seoul’s modern metamorphosis since the early 20th century to examine how the city and its residents transformed themselves and co-evolved throughout the tumult of the 20th and 21st centuries. We will be reading and watching various cultural representations of Seoul in literature, film, and TV shows. Our approach will draw upon critical media studies to question and examine the relationship between humans, environment, and media infrastructure.

Teaching Method
Discussion with lectures

Evaluation Method
Grades will largely be determined by student comprehension of lectures and readings, discussion, group presentation, and a combination of smaller and in-depth writing assignments.

Class materials (required)
All assigned readings are accessible through Canvas.

ASIAN LC 340* – Feminist, Queer, Crip: South Korea and Its Discontents

Overview of Course
This course examines contemporary discussions on the topics of gender, sexuality, and disability in South Korea. The past decade has seen an explosion of popular interest in feminism in South Korea. Along with this were competing debates on social and economic inequalities and legislations, as well as debates on gender identity, everyday experiences of discrimination, and overlooked sites of intersectional violence. As the scholar Alison Kafer has poignantly shown, thinking through the entanglements of feminist, queer, and disability concerns is important to rethinking exclusionary claims and their attendant problems. Students will explore how queer and crip frameworks trouble and deepen feminist debates and situate these frameworks in relation to Korea’s history of militarism, war, and migration. Course materials include scholarship on feminist, queer, and crip theories beyond the Korean context, novel and short stories, TV show, news articles, and films. No prior knowledge of the Korean language or culture is necessary. Course assignments include an individual presentation, a group creative writing project, and a final research paper. Student participation, discussion, and peer collaboration are important aspects of this course, and all students will be encouraged to speak in class.

Learning Objectives
Theorizing; Communication; Korean Context

Teaching Method
Discussion Based

Evaluation Method
Students will be evaluated on an individual presentation, a group creative writing project, a final research paper, and participation.

Class Materials (required)
The Hole: A Novel by Pyun Hye-young. ISBN: 1628727802 Concerning My Daughter by Kim Hye-jin. ISBN: 9781529057676 All remaining materials will be available on Canvas.Class Materials (suggested)

ASIAN LC 340* – Korean Science and Speculative Fiction

Overview of Course coming soon!

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South Asian Culture

ASIAN LC 260 – Kings, Courtesans, and Khan Artists

Overview of Course
India is home to the second largest population of Muslims on earth. It’s also host to the world’s largest film industry, best known as Bollywood. Little wonder, then, that Bollywood films regularly feature Muslim characters, social spaces, and cultural references that are readily marked or coded as “Islamic.” But in spite of a large coterie of Muslims working within the industry – as actors, song writers, or producers – the representation of Muslims in Indian films has consistently raised complex issues around ideas of identity and belonging in a nation where they constitute a clear (and conspicuous) minority. We will read these films against the historical backdrop of the search for national identity in post-colonial India, as well as in the context of the so-called “war on terror.” Students will be given the opportunity not only to learn about Indian (particularly Bombay) cinema, but also to explore how cinematic representations intersect with issues of identity and belonging in the modern nation-state.

Learning Objectives
- Develop a familiarity with cinema traditions in India - Nurture skills in critically analyzing texts - Examine the relationship between art, culture and nationalism - Refine analytical and writing skills

Teaching Method
Seminar-style

Evaluation Method
In-class discussion and short essays

Class Materials (required)
None

ASIAN LC 261 – Living Indian Epics - Ramayana

Overview of  Course
This course will consider one of two fundamental mythological pillars of Indian society – the great Hindu epic, The Ramayana (Story of Rama). Thought to be composed almost three thousand years ago (give or take a few centuries), this epic tale has been re-told and re-imagined in changing social and cultural contexts ever since. This course is dedicated to understanding the nature of this ancient epic as a modern, “living” text in contemporary Indian society. After we develop, as a group, a basic understanding of the major events and characters of the Ramayana, we will explore it in modern contexts of literature, visual art, film, television, and political rhetoric. We will ask whether the resonance of the epic varies in each of these modern contexts, or if its “meanings” are as immortal as the tale itself. In light of several recent controversies resulting from both scholarly and aesthetic approaches to the Ramayana, we will also consider the difficulty of bridging the fraught divides between religion, literature, history, and art. Therefore this course will provide you with an introduction not only to the fascinating stories of the ancient epic literature itself, but also to major issues of religion, gender, popular culture, and social politics in contemporary India. By the end of the course you will be able to understand and explain how the modern and contemporary cultures of India are constructed, in part, through a constant re-evaluation of the Ramayana among other Hindu epic narratives.

Learning Objectives
You will become very familiar with one of the foundation narratives shaping classical and modern Hindu-Indian society.

You will learn how to understand the intersections of religion, literature, art, and politics.

You will think critically about the ways in which classical religious and literary texts can have significant impacts on modern notions of belonging and exclusion.

Teaching Method
Lecture and Discussion

Evaluation Method
discussion, quizzes, midterm and final, short writing assignments.

Course Materials (required)
RK Narayan, The Ramayana: A Shortened Modern Prose Version of the Indian Epic (Penguin Classics, 2006)
ISBN: 978-0-143-03967-9

All other materials will be available on Canvas.

ASIAN LC 261 – The Big B: Amitabh Bachchan and Bollywood Stardom

Overview of Course
The Hindi film industry, often called Bollywood, is famously one of the world’s biggest and most recognizable. Every year, the studios in Mumbai (formerly Bombay) put out hundreds of movies, in addition to hundreds more that are released by India’s other film industries in languages like Tamil, Telugu, and Bengali. Most of these movies are full of songs and dances, and bring action, comedy, tragedy, and romance together into one (often very complex) story. As the subject of our class has said, Hindi cinema “offers poetic justice in three hours. You walk away with a smile on your lips and dried tears on your cheeks.”

Film industries everywhere choose a few actors to elevate above all others. The biggest of these movie stars in India, and perhaps in the world, is Amitabh Bachchan. With his brooding, rebellious charisma, not to mention his ready wit, resonant baritone voice, and enviable dance moves, his “angry young man” persona dominated the films of the 1970s. Today, half a century after his film debut, he is still a major star. His face and voice are instantly recognizable, not only throughout South Asia and its diaspora, but in Africa, the Middle East, and elsewhere. As his characters have aged from youthful rebels to somewhat less youthful rebels to stern patriarchs to goofy old men obsessed with their digestive tracts, he has at times seemed inescapable off the movie screen as well. He has spent time in politics, hosted a wildly successful game show, and starred in children’s comic books; one fan has even built a temple to worship him as a literal idol.

In this course, we will focus on Amitabh Bachchan, not only because he and his films are so interesting, but because he has so much to tell us about how Indian films work and what a star is. Students will have opportunities to think and write, not only about Amitabh and his films, but about film and celebrity more broadly.

Learning Objectives
At the end of this course, students will be able to:
- analyze Hindi films, and other elements of South Asian popular culture, in light of cultural, social, and political considerations;
- critically evaluate scholarly work relating to South Asian history and culture;
- work with classmates to produce knowledge collaboratively;
- make cogent and persuasive arguments, orally and in writing, incorporating careful analysis of primary and secondary materials.

Teaching Method
Seminar

Evaluation Method
papers and presentations

Class Materials (required)
William Elison, Christian Lee Novetzke, and Andy Rotman, Amar Akbar Anthony: Bollywood, Brotherhood, and the Nation (Harvard University Press, 2016, ISBN 9780674504486)

ASIAN LC 360* – Inqilab Zindabad: Progressive and Anticolonial Literature

Overview of Course coming soon!

ASIAN LC 360* – Umrao Jan Ada

Overview of Course coming soon!

ASIAN LC 373* – Fanā: Sufism and Islamic Mysticism in South Asian Art and Literature

Overview of Course

How do you convey an experience of the ineffable? How do you guide others along the path toward the divine presence? For many practitioners of Sufism in South Asia, the answer was and is art: literature, music, and the visual arts. These artistic and literary forms were, and remain, one of the primary means through which people in South Asia encountered and understood Islamic thought. Simultaneously artistic and spiritual, entertaining and didactic, these forms of artistic expression appeal to both Muslims and non-Muslims alike. Today, Sufi literature and arts continue to occupy a central place in the artistic universe of India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. Thirteenth-century devotional appear in synthesized Bollywood love songs meant for popular audiences, pop-anthems quote 16th century savants, while listeners around the world enjoy remixes of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan’s devotional qawwalis. In short, Sufism and the arts are tightly intertwined in South Asia.

This course will offer an introduction to this expansive theological and artistic history, exploring Islamic mysticism as it found expression in the arts and literatures of South Asia, as well as an examination of Sufism’s contribution to the development of South Asian art and popular culture. Our study will range from narrative poems in Braj Bhasha to pop songs in Persian, from erotic couplets in Urdu to esoteric quatrains in Sindhi. We will engage with scholarly approaches to Sufism, but primary sources will be the feature of this course. We will encounter at least one work in each session, analyzing it both as a work of artistic expression in its social and historical setting, and as a vehicle to convey the indescribable experience of divine love. We will also necessarily read Islamic mystical literatures produce outside of South Asia (Rumi, Attar, etc.), for the exchange of religious ideas and spiritual influence have always moved freely across the Islamic world. By the end of this course, students will have a thorough knowledge of the relationships between Islam, Sufism, literature and popular culture in South Asia.

Teaching Method
Seminar

Evaluation Method
Essays

Class Materials (required)
None

 

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