Asian Languages and Cultures Classes

Buddhist Literature introduces students to the forms, style, and usages of Buddhist literatures, as well as considerations of their content as well as their histories of creation, commentary, and social use. We will examine the structure of Buddhist canonical literatures but will also be focused on non-canonical literatures such as stories of past-life memories, biographies, and narrative visual and physical arts. Texts from multiple traditions of Buddhism, including Theravāda and Mahāyāna, will be included. This course's primary activities will be reading, discussion, and reflective work.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

An introduction to the study of Asian religious traditions in South and East Asia (India, China and Japan). Open to everyone but especially appropriate for first and second year students.

General Education Requirements:
Internationalism

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

This course examines the art and visual culture of China from the Neolithic era to the twenty-first century. Lectures and readings will teach methods of formal visual analysis as well as provide the opportunity for students to think critically about how scholars write the artistic history of the region. Through this class, students will engage with a broad array of media, from jade carvings, Buddhist cave painting, architecture, calligraphy and monumental landscape paintings to ceramics, imperial palaces, and contemporary installations. While examining the intended meanings and functions of these objects and spaces, we will discuss the varied contexts and value systems that have informed visual production in China.

General Education Requirements:
Internationalism

Distribution Requirements:
Fine arts

Course Materials

This course will introduce some longer works of Japanese literature published since the 2000s. The goal is not to survey the entirety of Japanese literature – that would be impossible! – but to instead grapple with the larger socio-cultural trends reflected in fiction and their relation to the larger global context. Authors studied include Kirino Natsuo (Grotesque), Project Itoh (Harmony), Shun Medoruma (In the Woods of Memory), Motoya Yukiko (The Lonesome Bodybuilder), and Murata Sayaka (Convenience Store Woman). We will learn the basic history of contemporary Japanese literature as well as some approaches to studying it. In the first half of the course we will concentrate on literature engaging with large societal issues and learn how to recognize the way authors draw on the world around them and “translate” it into fiction. In the second half we will shift to less explicitly political pieces. We will continue to pay attention to the political characteristics of the text, but will spend more time thinking about how they relate to contemporary life, especially how they reflect upon, critique, re-imagine, and/or recapitulate aspects of contemporary society. Our discussions will also focus on how literature’s exploration of these issues relates not only to Japan’s particular history and culture but how these trends are shaped by globalization, the internet, and transnational desirability.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA
Internationalism

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

Can popular culture save the world? Can it affect positive change through its ability to imagine more just, inclusive, democratic, and peaceful alternatives? In this course we will grapple with these questions in a profound and personal way by reading, reflecting, discussing, and writing about a variety of East Asian popular culture forms. From rock ‘n’ roll and hip-hop music to TV dramas and film, we will explore how East Asians receive and consume popular culture texts, how the transnational flows of commodities and culture impact local societies and individual identities, and how East Asian popular culture participates in the shifts and turns in global cultural experiences. We will discover how popular culture is more than just leisure and entertainment; it is a vital site where meanings are produced, shared, and contested. It affects how we view ourselves as individuals and in relation to others, simultaneously reflecting and transforming ideologies and values in society. This course welcomes students from all majors, and no prior knowledge of Asia or Asian languages is required.

General Education Requirements:
Internationalism

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

A study of the traditional culture and society of China from earliest times to the eighteenth century, when the impact of the West was strongly felt. The course will be based on detailed study of selected significant themes in Chinese history. Lecture/discussion format.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

A survey of the major political, social, religious, intellectual, economic and artistic developments in Japan from earliest times to the opening of Japan in the 1850s. It also examines Japan's relations with its close neighbors, Korea and China.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

This course aims to investigate the complex relationship between language and identity. Language plays a significant role in conveying one’s identity along with other semiotic means such as clothing. By exploring scholarship that considers language as it relates to identity, students will discover how speakers/writers use their agency in expressing their identity and how identity emerges as a social and cultural phenomenon. They will learn about multiple interrelated factors that affect how speakers/writers view and use language such as race, ethnicity, gender, and multilingualism in Japanese, Asian American, and other communities, and conduct research using authentic linguistic data. No knowledge of Japanese is required.

General Education Requirements:
Internationalism

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

Who am I? How can I live a life of greater purpose and fulfillment? What is my relationship to society? This course explores these complex and timeless human questions by engaging in rigorous reading, reflection, discussion, and writing on fictional works written by canonical, emergent, and marginalized writers from mainland China. We will focus on an eclectic selection of twentieth- and twenty-first century Chinese works that—in one way or another—attempt to come to terms with some of life’s most intriguing and enduring questions. The course will also explore how social, political, and cultural forces influenced the worldview of many modern Chinese authors. This course welcomes students from all majors, and no previous knowledge of China or Chinese is required.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA
Internationalism

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

The course will critically analyze the history and politics of the seven original member states of South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC): India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Maldives, and Bhutan. The course has several broad goals. First, to introduce the history of colonialism and nationalism in South Asia through the eyes of marginalized women, peasants, and workers. Subaltern readings of history will reveal how the colonial experience has shaped political institutions. Second, to analyze social cleavages—ethnicity, religion, caste, language— in relation to ethnic nationalist movements like the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in Sri Lanka, religious extremist groups like Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami in Pakistan and Bangladesh, Maoist movements in Nepal, and separatist movements in India. Third, to understand the rise of populist leaders and parties in the region and its impact on liberal democracy and bilateral relations between countries. We will also examine regional innovations focused on sharing natural resources and common river water, addressing climate change, and regulating migration, and critique SAARC’s potential to help implement these innovations. The course concludes with a discussion of South Asia’s relationships with extra-regional powers like China and the United States.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA
Internationalism

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

This course aims to give students the opportunity to find the joy of analyzing Japanese language by enhancing their understanding of its complex and rich sociocultural meanings. In Japanese language courses, students learn the norms (i.e., what is considered to be correct and proper) regarding honorifics, speech levels, orthography, the so-called gendered language, and other linguistic forms. In this linguistics course, they will find out how actual speakers/writers observe or deviate from the norms to create sociocultural meanings and how the adherence to or subversion from the norm often reflects language ideologies. In the process they will reflect on their own as well as others’ speech and writing, and learn how to critically evaluate and analyze language in the media. In addition to reading and discussing academic articles in English, students will collect and analyze authentic Japanese data such as anime, TV drama, films, manga, novels, and blogs. Japanese Language and Culture majors who are juniors and seniors may count this course as their capstone experience. Prerequisite: JAPA 305 or permission of the instructor.

General Education Requirements:
Internationalism

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

Buddhism is increasingly well-known in the USA, but what is it, and how does Buddhism encourage people to organize and think about their lives? Organized on the basis of the Eightfold Noble Path, with a focus of 'morals, the Buddhist psychology of mind, and meditation,'  this course offers an introduction to the personalities, teachings, and institutions of Buddhism. Beginning in India at the time of the Buddha, this course focuses on Theravada Buddhism, asking students to think historically, philosophically, and anthropologically. Many Friday sessions will be dedicated to an exploration of the variety of Buddhist meditative techniques.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WP
Internationalism

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

This course introduces the cultures and societies of China, Japan and Korea from the earliest times to the present day. Primarily an introductory course for beginners in East Asian civilization, this course considers a variety of significant themes in religious, political, economic, social and cultural developments in the region.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

This course examines the art, architecture, and visual culture of Japan, spanning a broad temporal frame from the ancient Neolithic era to our own contemporary moment.  We will discuss a diverse array of art and architecture from ancient Jomon pottery, Shinto shrines, and print media to Buddhist sculpture, painting practices during World War II, anime (cartoons) and manga (comics). In addition to learning methods of formal visual analysis, students will gain insight into how these works articulated complex artistic, social, economic, political, and religious trends. Through this course, students will develop skills to reflect critically on the production of narratives of Japanese culture, while considering concepts such as tradition, hybridity, value, authority, authenticity, sexuality, commodity flows, nationalism, and militarism.

General Education Requirements:
Internationalism

Distribution Requirements:
Fine arts

Course Materials

This survey course examines aspects of the histories and cultures of Cambodia. Emphasizing an interdisciplinary focus, we will examine aspects of geography, language, art, and religion, moving from the enormous and significant Angkor empire to contemporary Cambodia.

General Education Requirements:

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Course Materials

Did Confucius really say all those things? What does it mean to call something “zen”? The popularity of mindfulness and meditation made “Eastern Philosophy” fashionable, but what exactly does that entail? This class will be an introduction to classical Chinese philosophy, focusing on Confucianism and its rivals (Daoism, Mohism, Buddhism). Many schools of thought in East Asia offered competing views on how to live a good life; we will explore these views and chart how they responded to each other. We’ll also see how Chinese thoughts were received and developed by Korean and Japanese philosophers and assess ongoing influences of these philosophies in East Asia and beyond.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

China is known for its grueling examination culture. How did this culture evolve? This course examines the imperial civil service examination system, the benchmark of social and political success in imperial China. We will read the core texts of the Confucian curriculum - the Four Books and the Five Classics -  to examine the values these texts promoted. We will also study frustrated scholars' fictional accounts of the unfairness of the exam system, Europeans' praise of it as a model meritocracy, and women's struggles to participate in a system that explicitly excluded them. The course invites reflection on contemporary educational practices, and culminates in a recreation of the civil service exam.

General Education Requirements:
Internationalism

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

A study of leading institutions and movements of nineteenth- and twentieth-century China. Major emphases include the impact of Western imperialism, the transformation of peasant society through revolution, the rise of Mao Tse-Tung, and the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. Special attention will be given to U.S.-China relations.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

This course will consider representations of queerness in Japan since the 1980s. The course focuses on literature but also examines media including cinema, poetry, manga, and television. The goal is not to survey the entirety of Japanese queer culture but to look at how queerness has been depicted in recent years by a variety of authors and creators. The course includes five units: Unit One - A Brief Historical Survey; Unit Two - Literature as Pre-AIDS/Post-AIDS; Unit Three - Queerness on the Border and On the Border of Queerness; Unit Four - The Queer Boom of the 1980s; Unit Five - Gay Magazines and the Function of Space. All readings are in English. Some course materials covered include graphic depictions of sex and/or violence

General Education Requirements:
Internationalism

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

Coined in the late 19th century by the German geographer, Ferdinand von Richthoven (1833-1905), the “Silk Road” was neither a singular road nor strictly occupied with silk. Rather, it was a complex web of overland and maritime trade of multifarious luxury goods including jade, porcelain, prints, paintings, metalwork, sculpture, furniture, and (of course) textiles; these goods moved along routes extending geographically from the Far East through Central, North, and South Asia to the Mediterranean. This course examines art and artifacts that moved along these trade routes from around the 2nd c. BCE to the 19th c. CE, inspiring the evolution of culture and taste in many regions, and discusses how religions such as Buddhism and Islam contributed to shifts in material practices. Through a study of the art and treasure associated with the "Silk Road", we will learn about the muddy, complicated, and fascinating nature of ancient, pre-modern, and early modern trade and the formative role it has played in shaping visual cultures we see and understand today.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA
Internationalism

Distribution Requirements:

Course Materials

This course introduces some fundamental political themes among selected East Asian countries (China, South/North Korea, and Japan) and presents explanations for the differences. We will attempt to answer questions from the perspective of comparative politics. For example, why are some Asian countries democracies while others are authoritarian? Does the Western model of democracy work for China? What are some of the important similarities in terms of political processes and outcomes that we find in China and in democratic regimes? What is the historical background for democracies in Japan and in South Korea? At the end of the course, students should be able to analyze political events, drawing on the theoretical explanations provided in the class.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

n 1966, sociologist William Peterson published an article in the New York Times titled, “Success Story, Japanese-American Style,” which praised Japanese Americans, their family structure, and their culture for achieving education and financial success despite having been incarcerated en masse during World War II. This marks the first articulation of model minority myth, which stereotypes Asian American as being successful, hardworking, law-abiding, and dutiful, relative to other minoritized groups. So, how did Japanese Americans go from being perceived as enemy spies to the original “model minority”? This course will examine the history and experience of Japanese Americans from the mid-nineteenth century to the present, with an eye toward Japanese American activism and resistance. Topics will include: U.S. imperialism in Asia; the effects of incarceration during World War II; Japanese Americans in Hawai’i; Japanese American organizing against Islamophobia and the mass incarceration of migrants at the border; and Japanese American solidarity with the civil rights movement and reparations for African Americans.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

Asian Americans are often overlooked in the study of religion in the U.S., and yet the impact of Asian religious practices can be seen at every turn: yoga studios, mindfulness meditation, “zen” aesthetics of minimalism, and so on. What do we make of the gap between how Asian religions are practiced in Asian American communities and how these traditions have been reinterpreted by predominantly white, educated, middle class adherents? How do Asian American Christians negotiate their identities in the context of non-Asian Christian churches or the intergenerational tensions within their own ethnic churches? The approach of this course is interdisciplinary (and sometimes counterdisciplinary); it draws on theoretical and methodological insights from ethnic studies, religious studies, history, and sociology. Topics include: race and the racialization of Asian Americans; the politics of cultural and religious exchange; the commodification of Asian religious practices; and issues of assimilation and hybridity within Asian American Christian traditions.

General Education Requirements:
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

The Critical Hmong Studies course will engage students in a critical analysis of the changing nature of Hmong culture and Hmong identity worldwide. The course traces Hmong origin from China, and historical events to current time, including Hmong involvement in the Vietnam War, Hmong migration throughout the world, and Hmong life in host societies. Students will explore debates surrounding cultural identity, intergenerational conflict, changing traditions and cultural practices in host societies. In addition, students will examine gender issues, acculturation, the portrayal of Hmong in media, Hmong in education, and racism among others.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

In Chinese, writing is synonymous with culture: the graph "wen" connotes not just written language but civilization itself. This course explores the central role of writing – especially the cultural history of Chinese characters – both in and beyond China from ancient times to the present. How did this unique writing system develop? How have the graphs changed over time? What binds these characters to other art forms – like painting, poetry, calligraphy, sculpture, and dance – or to ethical or spiritual self-cultivation? How do characters, incised in stone or brushed onto paper, transmit meaning? And how did they become the predominant writing system used throughout East and Southeast Asia in premodern times? What myths have been told about their origins, how have they been misconstrued, and what accounts for their extraordinary longevity? No knowledge of Chinese is required.

General Education Requirements:
Internationalism

Distribution Requirements:

Course Materials