Courses

Preparation of a one-term senior essay under the guidance of a faculty adviser. Students must receive the prior agreement of the director of undergraduate studies and of the faculty member who will serve as the senior essay adviser. Students must arrange to meet with that adviser on a regular basis throughout the term.

Preparation of a one-term senior essay under the guidance of a faculty adviser. Students must receive the prior agreement of the director of undergraduate studies and of the faculty member who will serve as the senior essay adviser. Students must arrange to meet with that adviser on a regular basis throughout the term.

Two-term directed research project under the supervision of a ladder faculty member. Students should write essays using materials in East Asian languages when possible. Essays should be based on primary material, whether in an East Asian language or English. Summary of secondary material is not acceptable.

Two-term directed research project under the supervision of a ladder faculty member. Students should write essays using materials in East Asian languages when possible. Essays should be based on primary material, whether in an East Asian language or English. Summary of secondary material is not acceptable.

While a narrative of technologically driven advancement dominates the digital age, an accompanying cultural subcurrent of “newtro”—of throwbacks, remembrance, and nostalgic repurposing of bygone materials—marks neoliberal time in contemporary South Korea. This course engages with the OSTs (Original Soundtracks) of two K-dramas—Reply 1988 (tvN, 2015) and Reply 1997 (tvN, 2012). We critically examine their featured love songs’ entanglements with modern Korean temporality. In what ways do vocal, instrumental, and environmental timbres invoke nostalgia and historical memory? What global infrastructures form the conditions of possibility for the production and circulation of Korean love songs? How do love songs generate and orient desire? Can nostalgic gestures engender alternative relationships between present, past, and future? And if so, what possibilities and pitfalls emerge? The first and second halves of the course are each centered around a significant juncture in late twentieth-century South Korean history: 1988 and 1997. Reading across fields such as Korean studies, music studies, religious studies, and anthropology, this interdisciplinary graduate seminar interrogates how nostalgic sonic imaginations formulated in K-Dramas might prompt a reconfiguration of modern temporality itself. Juniors and seniors in the college are welcome.

The holdings of the Yale Univerity Library include numerous collections of invaluable pre-modern Japanese documents, including many, such as the “Kyoto Komonjo” collection, which make it possible to delve deep into the history of Tokugawa period (1600–1868) Japan. In the last two years, moreover, the Council on East Asian Studies has been able to acquire a variety of fascinating new collections of Tokugawa period documents to augment the library’s existing holdings. As a result, students at Yale now have the opportunity to use unpublished primary sources to study various aspects of Tokugawa period history in a way that is rarely possible outside of Japan. This course is intended to help graduate students and properly qualified undergraduates build the advanced skills, knowledge, and confidence needed to engage these kinds of materials independently and use them to pursue a variety of historical research topics.

Directed reading and research on a topic approved by the DGS and advised by a faculty member (by arrangement) with expertise or specialized competence in the chosen field. Readings and research are done in preparation for the required master’s thesis.

Directed reading and research on a topic approved by the DGS and advised by a faculty member (by arrangement) with expertise or specialized competence in the chosen field. Readings and research are done in preparation for the required master’s thesis.

By arrangement with faculty and with approval of the DGS.

By arrangement with faculty and with approval of the DGS.

In recent times, world cinema has witnessed the rise of South Korean cinema as an alternative to Hollywood and includes many distinguished directors such as Park Chan-wook, Lee Chang-dong, Kim Ki-duk, and Bong Joon-ho. This course explores the Korean film history and aesthetics from its colonial days (1910-1945) to the hallyu era (2001-present), and also analyzes several key texts that are critical for understanding this field of study. How is Korean cinema shaped by (re)interpretations of history and society? How do we understand Korean cinema vis-à-vis the public memories of the Korean War, industrialization, social movements, economic development, and globalization? And how do aesthetics and storytelling in Korean cinema contribute to its popularity among local spectators and to its globality in shaping the contours of world cinema? By deeply inquiring into such questions, students learn how to critically view, think about, and write about film. 

East Asian digital media culture, ranging from cinema, television, musical video, to online games, has (re)shaped the global and national/regional imaginings of East Asia. The Post-Cold War intensification of intra-Asian interactions has precipitated the rise of a Pan-Asian regional identity wherein the nation-state is not yet obsolete. What role does screen culture play in the border-crossing interplay among languages, ideologies, aesthetics, and affect? How do we understand the storytelling and politics of East Asian screen cultures in relation to its historical and social context? How does screen culture capture local/global desires in a digital time? Within the contemporary media ecologies, how does screen culture create an audiovisual relation that traverses screen and actuality? How do screen culture continue to push forward the history of transformation of sign system from the written words to visual moving images in the contemporary sensory over-loaded world of screens. This course deals with issues of (trans)nationalism, (un)translatability, locality and globality, (post)modernity, virtuality and actuality, and politics of gender. Students learn how to think and write about screen cultures of East Asia in particular and of contemporary screen culture in general.