Courses for Spring 2024

  • Beyond Orientalism: Understanding “East Asia”

    This course explores the cultural and ideological foundations of the region we call “East Asia,” from prehistoric times to the present day. After interrogating the colonial origins of the Euro-American concept of “East Asia,” we will examine the historical distinctions, interactions, and mutual influences that shaped the regions and peoples now associated with the countries of China, Japan, and Korea. In addition to systems of status and political power, the course will expose students to the rich religious, literary, and artistic traditions developed within and across the East Asian region.
    EAST 0010 S01
    Primary Instructor
    Bossler

  • China Through the Lens: History, Cinema, and Critical Discourse

    This is a critical introduction to the history of mainland Chinese film. It focuses on three dimensions of cinematic practice: the historical context of film productions, the specific context/form of each film, and the critical reception of Chinese films in film studies. Important themes such as nation, visual modernity, cinematic narrative, and commercialism will be studied across the three dimensions.
    EAST 0307 S01
    Primary Instructor
    Wang

  • Off the Beaten Path: The Diversity of Modern Japanese Literature (COLT 0711O)

    EAST 0412 S01

  • Two Koreas

    This course aims to look beyond larger regional politics and the security issues to the “invisible” North Korea – its culture, everyday life, films, and literature, within the general parameters of peninsular Korean history. We will begin with a detailed look into the formation of the North and South Korean states, and will continue on, focusing on the cultural and political history of North Korea. Most effort will be given, however, to dismantling conventional media coverage and representations, and to understanding how symbols, propaganda and media have affected the lives of millions of North Koreans in their everyday lived experiences.
    EAST 1505 S01
    Primary Instructor
    Choi

  • Chinese: A History of the Language

    This course traces the historical evolution of modern Chinese, commonly known as Mandarin. We will examine the uniqueness of Chinese characters, and explore their relationship to other features of the language, including word formation, phonology, grammar, and dialects. The goal will be to understand the manner by which the written script has become so central to the development of Chinese civilization.
    EAST 1510 S01

  • Pacific Indigeneities: From Māori Mythology to James Cameron’s Avatar

    What is indigeneity? The answer is all but straightforward, especially in the context of the Western Pacific. We will examine a deeply eclectic mix of sources of Pacific indigeneity – from Māori Mythology, the Kuroshio Current, and Okinawan cuisine to Southeast Asian revolutionary thought, Oceanian cosmology, and James Cameron’s Avatar. In doing so, we will lay bare the intricacies of the concept of indigeneity as they relate to one of the world’s hotbeds of bio- and linguistic diversity. Paying close attention to forms of knowledge production both within and beyond the academy, this course explores Pacific manifestations of the global indigenous movement.
    EAST 1702 S01
    Primary Instructor
    Dotulong

  • Brush Talk: Reading/Writing Across “Sinographic” East Asia

    Chinese logographic (or “sinographic”) writing underpins literary and intellectual cultures across East Asia. From antiquity until well into the twentieth century and even today, this “scripta franca” served as a medium that facilitated communication among speakers of unrelated languages and as a conduit for information, values, concepts, and tropes. Stretching from Vietnam to Korea and from Japan to Inner Asia, the so-called “sinographic sphere” has been vaunted as a “literary cosmopolis” and a “world without translation,” yet it is also an uneven terrain of imbalanced flows and a site out of which local literacies and eventual national languages carved their autonomy. In this seminar we will attend to watershed moments from a wider East Asian history of literacy and inscription—as well as to recent attempts to theorize and critique an ecumene of Chinese letters.
    EAST 1703 S01
    Primary Instructor
    Niedermaier

  • Independent Study

    Sections numbers vary by instructor. Please check Banner for the correct section number and CRN to use when registering for this course.
    EAST 1910 S01
    Primary Instructor
    Bossler
    Schedule Code
    I: Independent Study/Research
    EAST 1910 S02
    Primary Instructor
    Brokaw
    Schedule Code
    I: Independent Study/Research
    EAST 1910 S03
    Primary Instructor
    Chen
    Schedule Code
    I: Independent Study/Research
    EAST 1910 S04
    Primary Instructor
    Nedostup
    Schedule Code
    I: Independent Study/Research
    EAST 1910 S05
    Primary Instructor
    Niedermaier
    Schedule Code
    I: Independent Study/Research
    EAST 1910 S06
    Primary Instructor
    Perry
    Schedule Code
    I: Independent Study/Research
    EAST 1910 S07
    Primary Instructor
    Sawada
    Schedule Code
    I: Independent Study/Research
    EAST 1910 S08
    Primary Instructor
    Smith
    Schedule Code
    I: Independent Study/Research
    EAST 1910 S09
    Primary Instructor
    Wang
    Schedule Code
    I: Independent Study/Research
    EAST 1910 S10
    Primary Instructor
    Wang
    Schedule Code
    I: Independent Study/Research
    EAST 1910 S11
    Primary Instructor
    Yamashita
    Schedule Code
    I: Independent Study/Research
    EAST 1910 S12
    Schedule Code
    I: Independent Study/Research
    EAST 1910 S13
    Primary Instructor
    Chin
    Schedule Code
    I: Independent Study/Research
    EAST 1910 S14
    Primary Instructor
    Chen
    Schedule Code
    I: Independent Study/Research
    EAST 1910 S15
    Primary Instructor
    Hu
    Schedule Code
    I: Independent Study/Research
    EAST 1910 S16
    Primary Instructor
    Jiao
    Schedule Code
    I: Independent Study/Research
    EAST 1910 S17
    Primary Instructor
    McPherson
    Schedule Code
    I: Independent Study/Research
    EAST 1910 S18
    Primary Instructor
    Su
    Schedule Code
    I: Independent Study/Research
    EAST 1910 S19
    Primary Instructor
    Borgmann
    Schedule Code
    I: Independent Study/Research
    EAST 1910 S20
    Primary Instructor
    Wang
    Schedule Code
    I: Independent Study/Research
    EAST 1910 S21
    Primary Instructor
    Jung
    Schedule Code
    I: Independent Study/Research
    EAST 1910 S22
    Primary Instructor
    Moon
    Schedule Code
    I: Independent Study/Research

  • Senior Reading and Research: Selected Topics

    Section numbers vary by instructor. Please check Banner for the correct section number and CRN to use when registering for this course.
    EAST 1920 S01
    Primary Instructor
    Bossler
    Schedule Code
    I: Independent Study/Research
    EAST 1920 S02
    Primary Instructor
    Brokaw
    Schedule Code
    I: Independent Study/Research
    EAST 1920 S03
    Primary Instructor
    Chen
    Schedule Code
    I: Independent Study/Research
    EAST 1920 S04
    Primary Instructor
    Chin
    Schedule Code
    I: Independent Study/Research
    EAST 1920 S05
    Schedule Code
    I: Independent Study/Research
    EAST 1920 S06
    Primary Instructor
    Nedostup
    Schedule Code
    I: Independent Study/Research
    EAST 1920 S07
    Primary Instructor
    Niedermaier
    Schedule Code
    I: Independent Study/Research
    EAST 1920 S08
    Primary Instructor
    Perry
    Schedule Code
    I: Independent Study/Research
    EAST 1920 S09
    Primary Instructor
    Sawada
    Schedule Code
    I: Independent Study/Research
    EAST 1920 S10
    Primary Instructor
    Smith
    Schedule Code
    I: Independent Study/Research
    EAST 1920 S11
    Primary Instructor
    Wang
    Schedule Code
    I: Independent Study/Research
    EAST 1920 S12
    Primary Instructor
    Wang
    Schedule Code
    I: Independent Study/Research
    EAST 1920 S13
    Primary Instructor
    Yamashita
    Schedule Code
    I: Independent Study/Research
    EAST 1920 S14
    Primary Instructor
    Bossler
    Schedule Code
    I: Independent Study/Research

  • Memory and Justice in East Asia

    How does history affect the present, the political, the social, and the personal around East Asia? What are the social mechanisms and frameworks of affect and knowledge that have shaped historical memories of humiliation, violence, trauma, and culpability? This seminar focuses on several key topics to explore modern modes of remembering and justice seeking including: mapping memory; imperialism and the museum; wartime conduct and war crimes trials; political violence and transitional justice; and grassroots organizing, community justice, ritual actions, and other non-state memory work. Final projects can be web portfolios or podcasts on an event or phenomenon of your choice.
    EAST 1936 S01
    Primary Instructor
    Nedostup

  • Reading and Writing of the Honors Thesis

    Prior admission to honors candidacy required. Section numbers vary by instructor. Please check Banner for the correct section number and CRN to use when registering for this course.
    EAST 1981 S01
    Primary Instructor
    Bossler
    Schedule Code
    I: Independent Study/Research
    EAST 1981 S02
    Primary Instructor
    Brokaw
    Schedule Code
    I: Independent Study/Research
    EAST 1981 S03
    Primary Instructor
    Chen
    Schedule Code
    I: Independent Study/Research
    EAST 1981 S04
    Primary Instructor
    Chin
    Schedule Code
    I: Independent Study/Research
    EAST 1981 S05
    Schedule Code
    I: Independent Study/Research
    EAST 1981 S06
    Primary Instructor
    Nedostup
    Schedule Code
    I: Independent Study/Research
    EAST 1981 S07
    Primary Instructor
    Niedermaier
    Schedule Code
    I: Independent Study/Research
    EAST 1981 S08
    Primary Instructor
    Perry
    Schedule Code
    I: Independent Study/Research
    EAST 1981 S09
    Primary Instructor
    Sawada
    Schedule Code
    I: Independent Study/Research
    EAST 1981 S10
    Primary Instructor
    Smith
    Schedule Code
    I: Independent Study/Research
    EAST 1981 S11
    Primary Instructor
    Wang
    Schedule Code
    I: Independent Study/Research
    EAST 1981 S12
    Primary Instructor
    Wang
    Schedule Code
    I: Independent Study/Research
    EAST 1981 S13
    Primary Instructor
    Yamashita
    Schedule Code
    I: Independent Study/Research

  • Courses of Interest to Concentrators

    East Asian Studies is a highly interdisciplinary concentration. The following courses in other departments can be taken for concentration credit. Please check the listing of the appropriate department for the time and location of each course.

    Comparative Literature
    COLT 0711O Off the Beaten Path: Fiction in Modern Japan Literature
    EAST XLIST 0