East Asian Studies Course Listings - Spring 2009

EAS 360WR: Chinese Women in Film and Fiction - Please note time change.
Section 000  Cai   MWF 1:00-2:15 - New time: 2:00-2:50  Limit 5, Rm: REALC 207
CHN 360WR Limit 8
WS 360WR Limit 5

Mandatory film screening, 4 credits

Content: An examination of woman as trope in modern Chinese cinema and literature in the twentieth century. It explores how “the modern woman” became a cultural construct and how that construct has redefined gender role and femininity. Special attention will be paid to such issues as self-identity, love, marriage, family, and social opportunities. All readings are in English translation. Knowledge of Chinese language is not required. Four credit hours.

Texts:
The Three-Inch Golden Lotus, by Feng Jicai
The Butcher's Wife, by Li Ang
I Myself Am a Woman: Selected Writings of Ding Ling , Ed. Barlow & Bjorge
Bamboo Shoots After the Rain: Contemporary Stories by Women Writers of Taiwan, Eds. Ann C. Carver and Sung-sheng Yvonne Chang

Particulars: All readings are in English translation. Course requirements include three short written assignments, a research paper, presentations, and active class participation.

EAS 373SWR: Confucian Classics
Section 000 Faculty TT 11:30-12:45 Limit 5
CHN 373WR Limit 8
REL 373WR Limit 5

Content: For more than two thousand years, a small set of texts associated with Confucius (551-479 BC) and his disciples formed the core of the Chinese educational curriculum. As a store of knowledge shared by all educated men and women, the Confucian Classics shaped Chinese literati culture from late antiquity to the early 20th century. The goal of this survey course is to illustrate the diversity of the literary and cultural practices that evolved around this unique body of writings. The course is roughly divided into two parts. First, we will attempt to establish a framework for understanding the textual history and changing significance of the Classics throughout Chinese history. Drawing on a broad selection of primary sources (to be read in English translation), we will then examine how the canonized ideas were refracted in literary, philosophical, religious and political discourse.

Required Texts: TBA

Particulars: Knowledge of Chinese is NOT required. Grading: class participation, written assignments, exams, paper.

EAS 376WR: Science in China: 1600-1900
Section 001  Faculty  TT 2:30-3:45   Limit 6
CHN 375WR Limit 12
4 credits

Content: This course reconstructs the encounter between Chinese natural studies and European science from the early seventeenth to the late nineteenth century. After a brief survey of the state of natural studies in China circa 1600, we will trace the interactions between Chinese and European learning in a wide array of disciplines, ranging from astronomy, mathematics and medicine to physics and zoology. Situating our explorations in their intellectual, social and cultural contexts, we will try to understand the forces that have shaped the formation of modern science in China and, more generally, the factors influencing the migration of ideas across cultures.

Texts: TBA

Particulars: No knowledge of Chinese required. Evaluation based on class participation, written assignments, research paper, exams.

EAS 361WR: The Genji: Sensuality and Salvation
Section 000 Crowley TT 1:00-2:15 Limit 5
JPN 361WR: Limit 8
ASIA 361WR Limit 2
WS 361WR Limit 3
4 credits

Content:  Murasaki Shikibu's Tale of Genji (Genji monogatari), has been called the world's first psychological novel.  Written by a noblewoman in the 11th century, it provides a sensitive, poetic portrait of life in the imperial court in the Heian period -- Japan's classical age -- and in subsequent generations served as a primary source book for literature and culture in Japan.  The work is central to the genre of "literature in the women's tradition" (joryû bungaku) and as such provides rich ground for investigation of gender issues in Japanese art and life.  This course will use the text of Genji as a center point from which to explore various issues in poetry, aesthetics, the visual arts, and cultural memory in Japan.

Texts:
The Tale of Genji, trans. Edward Seidensticker, Murasaki Shikibu
The Bridge of Dreams: A Poetics of the Tale of Genji, Haruo Shirane
The Splendor of Longing in the Tale of Genji, Norma Field
Murasaki Shikibu, The Tale of Genji, Richard Bowring
The Tale of Genji (videorecording), Asahi Pub. Co., Asahi National Broadcasting Co. Ltd., and Nippon Herald Films, Inc.
The Illustrated Handscroll Tale of Genji (videorecording), Video Champ
Emaki: Narrative Scrolls from Japan, Miyeko Murase

Particulars: No Prerequisite

EAS 362WR: Samurai, Shoguns, and Women Warriors
Section 000  TT  2:30-3:45   Crowley  Limit 8
JPN 362WR  Limit 10

Content: This course will examine the image of the warrior, bushi, in Japan through literature.  The earliest Japanese chronicles and poems recount the stories of the heroic deeds of warrior gods and mortals.  War tales, or gunki monogatari, were a major literary genre in the medieval period, as blind jongleurs called biwa hoshi traveled the countryside, singing of the deeds of heroes of the wars that plagued Japan during the period as a way of comforting their restless, vengeful ghosts.  Warrior plays were a major subgenre of the nô theater.  Stories of samurai valor and self-sacrifice were an important theme in the fiction and drama of the early modern period, and the values and practices of the samurai class were very influential for modern writers as diverse as Natsume Sôseki and Mishima Yukio.  By reading selections of Japanese literature from the Nara period through to the modern era, we will find that the bushidô that has so fascinated people throughout the world is actually not one "Way of the Warrior" but many "Ways" that have shaped the lives of priests, artists, poets, and politicians - commoners as well as members of the samurai class.

EAS 317: East Asian Buddhism
Reinders
MWF 10:40-11:30
REL 307

A survey of Buddhism in China and Japan. We will consider the foundational ideas of Mahayana Buddhism, and the formation of new, “native” or radical forms of Buddhism, especially the Tendai synthesis, Tantric Buddhism, Chan (Zen), and Pure Land. We will try to understand some poems of Chinese Buddhist nuns, as well as the writings of the Japanese Pure Land master Honen.

Required books:
Daigan & Alicia Matsunaga, Foundation of Japanese Buddhism, volume 1.
The Diamond Sutra and the Sutra of Hui-neng, trans. A. F. Price & Wong Moulam.
John R. McRae, Seeing Through Zen: Encounter, Transformation, and Genealogy in Chinese Chan Buddhism.
Bea Grant, Daughters of Emptiness: Poems of Chinese Buddhist Nuns.
Joseph A. Fitzgerald, Honen The Buddhist Saint: Essential Writings and Official Biography.

Assessment will be based on quizzes, a mid-term exam, a research paper, class participation, and a final exam.

EAS 385: History of US-China Relations
Bullock
TT 10:00-11:15
HIST 385

EAS 450SWR Fundamentalism in East Asia
Ravina
HIST 489SWR
Limit: 12 students

Content: In the 19th century, xenophobic, fundamentalist movements swept through East Asia (Japan, China and Korea).  Although different in each country, the movements shared key beliefs: that foreign ideas, especially Christianity, were dangerous; that ancient local culture was sacred; and that society needed a revival of ancient values to combat imperialism.  In this class we will examine how these movements evolved, their relationship with local religions, the impact of American and European imperialism, and the movements' legacies for revolutionary politics and modern nationalism.  

Texts: Cohen, History in Three Keys