Asian Languages and Cultures Classes

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 contemplates the definition of Sacred Art and Sacred Space by focusing on religious visual culture in Asia and examining how intangible concepts of the divine have become tangible in art and architecture.  To better understand the multilayered functioning of devotional objects and spaces associated with religious doctrines such as Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Daoism, and Shintoism, the class will explore foundations in iconography and then compare different religious objects and spaces through concepts such as gender, state power, the body, nature, ritual, the grotesque, and death.  To account for the shifting meaning of religious icons over time, the class also reflects on how the significance of religious objects changes in the space of a museum.  Ultimately, this course allows us to contemplate the multifaceted ways religious beliefs have been visualized and how these manifestations exemplify systems of cultural exchange in Asia.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA
Internationalism

Distribution Requirements:
Fine arts

Course Materials

From notions of the "pure self" to teenage ganguro ("face-blackening"), Japanese culture is rife with instances of ideology and performance that reflect a deep complexity in its engagement with issues of identity and foreignness. This course traces the roots of this complexity back to Japan's beginnings as a modern nation and examines its cultural development into the present day. Works of fiction will be paired with readings in history and criticism to explore the meanings of identity, race, and ethnicity as they are expressed and contested in Japanese culture. The course will cover the literature of Korea and Taiwan, the experience of domestic minorities, and the contemporary cultures of cos-play ("costume-play") and hip-hop. No prior knowledge of Japanese required.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA
Internationalism

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

This course's main goal is to introduce evidence of the major crimes and atrocities during World War II in East Asia such as the Nanjing Massacre, biochemical warfare (Unit 731), the military sexual slavery ("comfort women") system, the forced labor system, and inhumane treatment of POWs. The course will also help students understand the contemporary geo-political and socio-economic forces that affect how East Asians and Westerners collectively remember and reconstruct World War II.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

This course is to develop a critical awareness of the practice of Chinese-English translation as a cross-cultural dialogue. It will critically examine major concepts and issues such as translatability, equivalence, faithfulness and standard of good translation, etc. Students will learn to apply theories and skills to translating different genres and texts. Prerequisite: three years of Chinese.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

The culture concept is the most important item in anthropology's theoretical tool kit; it is the organizing concept underlying the discipline's holistic approach, which seeks to understand the human condition in the broadest possible context. As a discipline, anthropology seeks to document and explain the innumerable ways in which it is possible to be human, and by to understanding other cultural logics to hold up a critical mirror to our own assumptions, beliefs and ways of acting. This course introduces students to Cultural Anthropology through a comparative study of Asian societies and cultures, with a particular emphasis on the three main regions of Asia that are currently taught at Macalester: India, China, and Japan. It also serves to introduce students to the study of Asia by grounding them in the essential features of Asian societies, cultures, and religions.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WP
Internationalism

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

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. This is a stand-alone course which does ot require ASIA 170 - Art of the East I: China as a prerequisite.

General Education Requirements:
Internationalism

Distribution Requirements:
Fine arts

Course Materials

How do representations of bodies influence our perceptions of ourselves? How have bodies been represented in Japanese culture over the past thousand years? How does the “Japanese body” impact perceptions of Japan and Japanese people? These questions will become the guideposts for the course as we travel through a thousand years of representations and think through the work these representations do. In particular, we will examine how the body becomes a battleground subject to multiple and changing norms and ideals. Each new representation teaches viewers how we should interact with other bodies and how we should view our own bodies. Topics to be studied include: Sexuality and the Body; the Environment and the Body; Death, Dying, and the Body; and Technologies of the Body. No prior knowledge of Japanese required.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:

Course Materials

Japan's rapid industrialization in the latter part of the nineteenth century, and its phenomenal rise as the number two economic power in the world after the devastation wrought by World War II, have led many scholars to declare Japan a model worthy of emulation by all "developing" nations. After an examination of feudal Japan, this course probes the nature and course of Japan's "amazing transformation" and analyzes the consequences of its strengths as a nation-state. Considerable study of Japanese art, literature, and religion will be undertaken and American attitudes toward the Japanese and their history will also be examined.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

This discussion-based course is entirely focused on Bruce Lee, the actor and leading martial arts icon of the 20th century. Using American Studies and Critical Race Studies frames to examine the construction of racialized and gendered bodies, we will discuss Bruce Lee in terms of his biography, identities, politics, philosophy, and filmography. We will take time to appreciate the entertainment value and athleticism that Bruce Lee brought to his work, but we will also learn to distinguish the commercialized, commodified Bruce Lee (from t-shirts to posters to action figures) from the serious historical figure who symbolized the spirit of cultural independence and political sovereignty around the world. Among the required books and movies: The Tao of Jeet Kune Do, and "Way of the Dragon" (1972).

General Education Requirements:
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

The modern Chinese experience has been marked and marred by warfare, violent revolution, and death on an unimaginable scale. For many, how to come to terms with the ubiquity of death and how to find meaning in the untold carnage and bloodshed were among the most excruciating and important questions. In this course, we will explore the manifold ways Chinese writers have confronted—and continue to confront—the trauma, violence, and death of China’s modern experience. We will examine fictional works written by canonical and emergent authors whose writings span a variety of genres. Through discussions and abbreviated lectures, we will analyze the texts themselves, situate them within their socio-cultural context, and connect their depictions of violence and death to notions of (post)modernity, self, gender, sexuality, history, and the nation.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA
Internationalism

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

Since the last century, Asia has experienced rapid urbanization. It is now home to over half of the world's most populated cities. By 2010, the urban population in the Asia-Pacific region has surpassed the population of the United States and the European Union combined. In this course, we will focus on cities in East, Southeast and South Asia. We will first contextualize the rapid urbanization in the region's changing political economy, and identify urban issues that are unique to this region. We will further explore different theoretical approaches to understand Asian cities; several of them challenge mainstream urban theories rooted in the experiences of West European and North American cities. Upon the completion of this course, students will acquire substantive knowledge on contemporary trends of urban development in Asia, and develop familiarity with related ongoing theoretical debates. In addition, students will conduct individual research projects to develop deeper and more concrete understanding of the contemporary urbanization processes in Asia.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA
Internationalism

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

This workshop for advanced students of Japanese explores the craft and cultural implications of Japanese-to-English literary translation. It aims to give students not only a facility and sophistication in translating Japanese, but also a closer familiarity with the Japanese language itself. Through weekly translation assignments, we will examine the expressive qualities of the Japanese language, tracing major developments of prose style in the modern period and studying the socio-historical context manifested in those linguistic innovations. Our work will be informed and enhanced by engagements with theories of translation as well as essays on Japanese-to-English translation specifically. We will cover a broad range of genres, including essays, poetry, manga, and film (subtitles). The course will culminate in an original project translating a Japanese work of one's choice. Prerequisite(s): JAPA 305 - Third Year Japanese I or higher.

General Education Requirements:

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:
Writing WP
Internationalism

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials