Courses

A reading of the central work of prose fiction in the Japanese classical tradition in its entirety (in English translation) along with some examples of predecessors, parodies, and adaptations (the latter include Noh plays and twentieth-century short stories). Topics of discussion include narrative form, poetics, gendered authorship and readership, and the processes and premises that have given The Tale of Genji its place in world literature. Attention is also given to the text’s special relationship to visual culture.

This course explores the rich intellectual landscape of the Chinese middle ages, introducing students to seminal works of Chinese civilization and to the history of their debate and interpretation in the first millennium. No previous knowledge of China is assumed. This is primarily an undergraduate course; graduate students are provided readings in the original language and meet in an additional session to review translations.

An introduction to modern Chinese literature. Topics include Sinophone studies, East Asian diaspora, theories of comparison, technologies of writing and new literacies, realism, translation, globalization, scientism, and culture.

Japanese literature and art from the 1920s through the 1940s. The avant-garde and mass culture; popular genre fiction; the advent of new media technologies and techniques; effects of Japanese imperialism, militarism, and fascism on cultural production; experimental writers and artists and their resistance to, or complicity with, the state.

This course is an introduction to Japanese literature written in the last fifty years, with a focus on women writers. We read poetry and prose featuring mothers, daughters, and lovers, novels that follow convenience and thrift store workers, and poetry about factory girls. Our reading takes us from the daily grind of contemporary Tokyo to dystopian futures, from 1970s suburbia to surreal dreamscapes. We attend carefully to the ways in which different writers craft their works and, in particular, to their representation of feelings and affects. Whether the dull ache of loneliness, the oppression of boredom, or the heavy weight of fatigue, it is often something about the mood of a work—rather than its narrative—that leaves a distinct impression. We develop the tools to analyze and discuss this sense of distinctness, as well as discover ways to stage connections and comparisons between the works we read. Comparative and creative perspectives are especially welcome, and assignments can accommodate a range of media and presentation formats to suit.

In this course, students read key works of Korean literature in English translation from the early twentieth century to the present day. The specific course topic varies by term. Primary sources include long-form novels, short stories, poetry, and nonfiction writing by representative authors, as well as literary scholarship on themes and historical context relevant to the materials. The readings in this course are arranged in roughly chronological order, requiring us to examine Korea’s colonial modernization process in the first half of the twentieth century, the authoritarian regimes of South Korea from 1948 to 1987, and South Korea’s integration into the neoliberal world order after democratization. 

The development of Japanese cinema after the breakdown of the studio system, through the revival of the late 1990s, to the present.

A research course in Chinese studies, designed for students with background in modern and literary Chinese. Students explore and evaluate the wealth of primary sources and research tools available in China and in the West. For native speakers of Chinese, introduction to the secondary literature in English and instruction in writing professionally in English on topics about China. Topics include Chinese bibliographies; bibliophiles’ notes; specialized dictionaries; maps and geographical gazetteers; textual editions, variations, and reliability of texts; genealogies and biographical sources; archaeological and visual materials; and major Chinese encyclopedias, compendia, and databases.

Readings in ancient and middle-period Chinese poetry, from the beginnings of the tradition through the Song dynasty.

Close reading of classical Chinese texts (wenyan) primarily from late Imperial China. A selection of formal and informal prose, including memoirs, sanwen essays, classical tales, biographies, and autobiographies. Focus on cultural and historical contexts, with attention to reception in China and in some cases in Korea and Japan. Questions concerning readership and governmental censorship, function of literature, history and fictionality, memory and writing, and the aesthetics of qing (emotion).

This course introduces students to the genre often called huaben, or the vernacular short story. These stories are written in a version of spoken Chinese, and for texts dating from the 17th century are quite easy to read, while providing an unparalleled window onto everyday life. We will be reading a wide range of these stories, in significant volume, and the class will culminate in the student’s writing a final paper.

Chinese self-writing has a rich and multifaceted history. Autobiographical texts not only continue to make for fascinating reading, but they have also long been regarded as an important part of the Chinese literary tradition. Our inquiry pursues three goals: (1) To get an understanding of the conventions of self-writing in China, we read and discuss important premodern Chinese autobiographical texts in classical Chinese from a spectrum of genres, including prefaces, letters, and poems. (2) We review traditional and contemporary approaches to the interpretation of these texts, focusing on questions of narrative, the representation of self-hood, and authenticity. (3) To throw the early and medieval Chinese autobiographical tradition into sharper relief, we look beyond ancient China and include selected autobiographical works of other literary traditions (ancient and modern) into our discussions. To complement the literary sphere, we also look into self-representations in other media. Overall, the seminar revolves around what happens when humans put themselves into their writing: Why are we writing about ourselves and what are the rules of this kind of writing? Why are we reading autobiographies and making them part of our canons?