This course examines the history of Buddhism by tracing the development of its various schools, doctrines, and religious practices in Asia and beyond. We will explore the historical background against which it arose in India, and study traditional views of the life of the Buddha, the early teachings, and the structure of the Buddhist community of monastics and laypeople. We will examine the growth of Buddhism in India, the development of Theravāda Buddhism and its spread into South East Asia. The emergence of Mahāyāna Buddhism in India and its spread into Central Asia and East Asia will be covered as well as the development of Vajrayāna Buddhism in Tibet. We will then examine the 19^th century movement of Buddhist modernism in Sri Lanka and its relations to the Western world. This will be the basis for eventually exploring the various ways Buddhismcame to Europe and America and examining the new forms and ideas it developed here.

This course provides an introduction to the religion of Islam. It is designed for students with a general interest in the Islamic world, in religion, or in History. We will examine the theology, history, and main social and legal institutions of Islam. Islam, as a major system of belief in the world, is experienced by Muslims and non-Muslims alike. Consequently, besides studying the basic tenets and texts of the religion, this course will focus on the variety of ways in which Muslims and non-Muslims have understood and interpreted Islam. We will review the debates surrounding the life of the prophet of Islam, Islamic pre-modern and modern history, the Islamic concept of God and society, the role of women, and finally, Islamic government and movements. The course is designed for students with a general interest in the Islamic world, religions, or history. No prior knowledge of Islam or Islamic history is necessary.

This course surveys the central beliefs and patterns of life of living religious traditions of Asia. It will focus particularly on the basic texts or narratives of these traditions; on their classical expressions and essential histories; and on the concepts of humanity, the world, and the divine that are distinctive of each. In addition, the course will explore not only what people believe religiously but also what they do religiously. Part of the course, therefore, will consider the ways of life and rituals of the different communities. Not all Asian traditions can be covered in a one-semester survey. The traditions chosen originated in Asia, have large numbers of adherents, possess particular historical significance, and represent different cultural areas. The religions studied in the course will include: Hinduism, Buddhism, South Asian Islam, Confucianism, Daoism, and Shinto.

Readings:

The principal required texts are W. Oxtoby, R. Amore, and A. Hussain, World Religions: Eastern Traditions (4th or 5th edition); R.K. Narayan, The Rāmāyaṇa; Ashvaghosha, The Buddhacarita: The Life of the Buddha (available on Canvas); B. Watson, Zhuangzi: Basic Writings; Basho, The Narrow Road to the Deep North (also on Canvas). Additional readings will also be posted on Canvas.

Grading:

The major written assignments will be four short essays on assigned reading and two exams.

This course introduces the study of Chinese history, society, and culture through an examination of the cultural unities and diversities, continuities and discontinuities that comprise the historical development of Chinese civilization. Topics include philosophy and religion; population and economy; power and authority; gender, ethnicity, and cultural identity.  This course provides a foundation for continued study of Chinese history and society for students who plan to go on to more specialized, upper-division courses including Chinese anthropology, history, psychology, sociology, economics, law, policy, international business, art history, architecture, environmental science, and philosophy.

This course is an introduction to South Asian cultures and histories, especially to areas of study pursued in the Department of Asian Studies and at UT-Austin. Students will be introduced to major thinkers, ideas, histories, issues, and movements of South Asia. While a clear set of factual information will be integral to the course, the equally important goal of the course is to learn how to engage South Asia on terms similar to other courses in the liberal arts. Stated plainly, we want to do more than learn about South Asia; we want to learn from it as well.  The institutional and traditional obstacle to this approach stems from the simple fact that most American students, whatever their ethnic origins, are taught that “our” intellectual heritage begins with the Greeks and ends with contemporary European and American thinkers. Who “we” are and what makes us a “we,” however, is not as clear as it seems. Most of us are simply not taught how and why to understand South Asian (or other area) literatures, art, religion, law, or other cultural expressions as sources for our own humanistic and ethical development. Thus, the primary goal of this course is to train students in how to “read” South Asia in such a way that it can mean something to them, rather than merely being what other people do—not to make South Asia “ours,” but to take the ideas, history, and people of South Asia seriously.

This course surveys the long history of the Indian subcontinent. It has two goals. The first is to provide you with an outline of the major phases of South Asian history from the rise of its first civilization five thousand years ago, up to the development of modern self-governing states after the end of the British empire. The second is to enable you to think about how humans organize themselves to live in the mega-societies that occupy the world today. India created one of the earliest such societies on the planet. Since the course surveys five thousand years, it will be directed to identifying lasting patterns and institutions rather than individuals and events. But class discussions will especially focus on key personalities and important texts that have left historic legacies or offer insight into their times. The format will be a mix of lectures with discussion, as well as discussion meetings devoted to specific readings.

The course is designed to accommodate students with no previous knowledge of Asia. It does require students to attend regularly, contribute to a collective learning process, keep up with weekly readings and participate constructively in discussions. Discussions will usually focus on primary sources. A primary source is something that historians use as a valid record of the past. All good historical narrative is constructed on the basis of evidence from primary sources. Reading and discussing these will enable you reason from evidence, just as historians do

Texts:

Thomas R. Trautmann India: Brief History of a Civilization

Second Edition Publication Date - January 2015

ISBN: 9780190202491

All other readings will be available on the course website or free download.

Grading: 4 best reading responses/geographical understanding tests 20%; one 1000-1200 word book report – 20%; mid-term and final in-class exams – total 25 + 25%; attendance 10%.

Regular attendance is expected. A student may only be absent or late three times without penalty. Make-up for missing a quiz/test/exam will only be permitted if a documented and satisfactory explanation is provided.

Grades will be assigned as follows:

A+ = 97-100                 A=93-96           A- = 90-93

B+ = 86-89                   B= 82-85          B-= 78-81

C+ = 74-77                   C=70-73           C-=66-69

D+ = 62-65                   D= 58-61          D-=57-53

52 and lower are F.

“It is hard to have patience with people who say, ‘There is no death’ or ‘Death doesn’t matter.’ There is

death. And whatever is matters. And whatever happens has consequences, and it and they are irrevocable and irreversible.” (C.S. Lewis 1996 [1961]: 15) Subscribing to these short but powerful statements, this course explores the various beliefs, practices, attitudes, and understandings of the dying experience, death, and the afterlife across South Asian cultural areas. During the course of the semester, we will be looking at the philosophical, ethical, and legal issues of death from a variety of perspectives. We will explore in detail how South Asian religious traditions have been approaching the problem of death within their broader cultural, historical, and social contexts. We will focus on various religious traditions, among others Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism. Central themes will include the changing meaning of death, the contemporary issue of the medicalization of death, and the funeral service industry. Discussions will center on the questions of ‘What is a good death?’, ‘What does the end of life mean for oneself and for others?’ and most basically but importantly ‘What is life?’ and ‘How is it envisioned after death?’ We will work with religious and philosophical treatises on death, as well as with different types of literary forms, ethnographies, documentaries, and feature-length films.

Grading Policy

Attendance and Participation (15 %)

Reading Responses and Documentary/Film reviews (25 %)

Midterm (25%)

Final (25%)

Oral Presentation (10 %)

Same as Asian Studies 341K. This course focuses on Japan over roughly 150 years, from the 1850s to the early 21st century.  Topics include a brief survey of traditional Japanese society and politics; the fall of the shogunate and the Meiji Restoration of 1868; industrialization and economic development; the rise of consumer culture and mass politics in the 1910s and 1920s; 1930s militarism and World War II; the American occupation and postwar recovery; the rise of Japan Inc. and the long postwar economic boom of the 1960s and 1970s, the “bubble economy” of the 1980s and Japan’s “lost decade(s)” since the 1990s. Although the emphasis will be on major political events and institutional developments, we will trace social and cultural currents through literature, including dramas, novels, and movies.
Required texts:
·      Andrew Gordon, A Modern History of Japan: From Tokugawa Times to the Present, ISBN-13: 978-0199930159
·      Tanizaki Junichirō, Naomi, ISBN-13: 978-0375724749
·      Cook and Cook ed, Japan at War: An Oral History, ISBN-13: 978-1565840393
·      Handouts, reserves, and on-line readings.
Course requirements and grading:
·      two in-class midterm exams (20% each)
·      two take-home mid-term exams (20% each)
·      active in-class discussion work (10%)
·      short final essay (film or novel response) (10%)

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This is a course about contemporary social and political life in urban South Korea—to use a complex and problematic concept, about Korean modernity.  It focuses on present conditions and their historical background: on capitalism and development from the colonial era (1910-1945) to the present, on the perspectives of workers, white-collar employees, and students over time, on the lifestyles of the new middle class, and on the struggle for democracy and its aftermath.  We will read ethnographies of corporations, factory work, consumption, and activism, as well as accounts of popular culture and changing gender systems and roles.  We will also watch several recent films and examine other visual materials.

This class explores various interpretations, methods, and policies of development mainly focusing on the cases of East and Southeast Asia. We will trace the history of development as a post-war international project that emerged in the context of decolonization since the 1940s. Particular attentions will be given to the state-driven developmentalism in East and Southeast Asia, intertwined with the Cold War geopolitics, decolonization, post-colonial desires, economic development, and the US-led neocolonizing capitalist incorporation of the greater Asia region. Then we will move to practices of development/counter-development/post-development in the era of globalization and neoliberalism. Topics included land, labor and livelihood struggles; race, gender, power; activism and social movements; transnational development and the reinterpretation of foreign aid; and civil society and the future of the state.

Students must have taken a foundational course in government or Asian studies. The course also assumes basic knowledge of world history.

Course Description

This course is primarily about ethnic politics in Taiwan. We begin with a study of different theories of ethnic politics. Then we will draw on these theories to understand how the Taiwanese state transitioned from being an authoritarian regime – where an ethnic minority repressed the majority – to one that is democratic and accommodating of even the most marginalized minorities. We will conclude by situating the Taiwanese experience against those of its neighbors.

Grading Criteria

25%     Weekly Quiz

25%     Midterm Examination

25%     Final Examination

25%     Data-Based Paper

This course explores the vital role of commodities in Asian history with a particular focus on East and Southeast Asia.  It examines a range of key commodities from silver to deerskins to soybeans that were exchanged across Asia and which came to transform the political, economic and social contours of the region while underpinning the construction of empire.  The focus is on how the spread of commodities created a global economy while reshaping both sites of production and consumption.  By weaving together the stories of different commodities, this course aims to present a different way to understand the history of early modern and modern Asia and the development of global capitalism.

Pomeranz, Kenneth, and Steven Topik. The World That Trade Created: Society, Culture, and the World Economy, 1400 to the Present (Armonk, NY and London: M. E. Sharpe, 1999)

Rose, Sarah. For All the Tea in China: How England Stole the World's Favorite Drink and Changed History (Penguin Books, 2011)

Weekly Readings

Flynn, Dennis. O and Arturo Giraldez. “Born with a ‘Silver Spoon’: The Origin of World Trade in 1571.” Journal of World History 6.2 (1995): 201-21.

Flynn, Dennis O., and Arturo Giráldez. 1994a. “China and the Manila Galleons.” In Japanese Industrialization and the Asian Economy, ed. A. J. H. Latham and H. Kawakatsu. London.

Excerpts from Von Glahn, Richard. Fountain of Fortune: Money and Monetary Policy in China, 1000–1700 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996)

Flynn, Dennis O., and Arturo Giráldez, “Cycles of Silver: Global Economic Unity through the Mid- Eighteenth Century,” Journal of World History 13.2 (2002): 391-427.

Hochstrasser, Julie Berger, “The Conquest of Spice and the Dutch Colonial Imaginary. Seen and Unseen in the Visual Culture of Trade,” pp. 169-186, in Schiebinger, Londa and Claudia Swan (eds.), Colonial Botany: Science, Commerce, and Politics (Pennsylvania University Press, 2005)

1. L. van Zanden, The Rise and Decline of Holland's Economy. Merchant. Capitalism and the Labor Market (Manchester: Manchester University. Press, 1993), 67-81

Excerpts from Adam Clulow, Amboina, 1623: Conspiracy and Fear on the Edge of Empire (Columbia University Press, 2019)

Koo, Hui-wen, “Deer Hunting and Preserving the Commons in Dutch Colonial Taiwan,” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 42.2 (2011): 185-203.

Laver, Michael, “Skins in the Game: The Dutch East India Company, Deerskins, and the Japan Trade,” World History Bulletin 28:2. Fall (2012): 13-16.


Walker, Brett, The Conquest of Ainu Lands: Ecology and Culture in Japanese Expansion, 1590-1800 (Berkeley and London: University of California Press, 2001).

Gerritsen, Anne. “Fragments of a Global Past: Ceramics Manufacture in Song-Yuan- Ming Jingdezhen,” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, 52 (2009), pp. 117-152.

Gerritsen, Anne and Stephen McDowall, 'Material Culture and the Other: European Encounters with Chinese Porcelain 1650-1800', Journal of World History, 23, 2012, pp. 87-113.

Gerritsen, Anne ‘Chinese Porcelain Local and Global Context: the Imperial Connection’, Luxury in Global Perspective: Commodities and Practices, c. 1600-2000, Bernd-Stefan Grewe (Universität Konstanz) and Karin Hofmeester (IISH Amsterdam), eds. (Cambridge University Press, 2017).

Dillon, Michael, Transport and Marketing in the Development of the Jingdezhen Porcelain Industry During the Ming and Qing Dynasties,” Journal of the Social and Economic History of the Orient 35 (1992), 278-90.

Carol Benedict, “Between State Power and Popular desire: tobacco in Pre-Conquest Manchuria, 1600–1644.” Late Imperial China 32 (1):13–48.

Mathee, Rudi, “Exotic Substances: The Introduction and Global Spread of Tobacco, Coffee, Cocoa, Tea, and Distilled Liquor, Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries,” in Roy Porter and Mikulás Teich, eds. Drugs and Narcotics in History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995).

Screech, Timon. “Tobacco in Edo Period Japan.” In Smoke: A Global History of

Smoking, eds. Sander L. Gilman and Zhou Xun, 92–99 (London: Reaktion Books, 2004)

Excerpts from Shelagh Vainker, Chinese Silk: A Cultural History (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2004)

Excerpts from Xing Hang, Conflict and Commerce in Maritime East Asia: The Zheng Family and the Shaping of the Modern World, c. 1620-1720 (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2016).

Chan Ying-Kit, “The Founding of Singapore and the Chinese Kongsis of West Borneo,”

Journal of Cultural Interaction in East Asia, 7 (2016),  99-121

Tagliacozzo, Eric.  “A Necklace of Fins: Marine Goods Trading in Maritime Southeast Asia, 1780–1860.” International Journal of Asian Studies 1, no. 1 (2004), 23–48.

Tagliacozzo, Eric. 2011. “A Sino-Southeast Asian Circuit: Ethnohistories of the

Marine Goods Trade.” In Chinese Circulations: Capital, Commodities, and

Networks in Southeast Asia, edited by Eric Tagliacozzo and Wen-Chin Chang,

454. 432-454. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

Excerpts from Trocki, Carl A. Opium, empire and the global political economy: A study of the Asian opium trade, 1750 –1950, Asia’s transformations (London and New York: Routledge, 1999)

Carl A. Trocki. Opium as a Commodity in the Chinese Nanyang Trade, in Chinese Circulations: Capital, Commodities, and Networks in Southeast Asia, Edited by  Eric Tagliacozzo and Wen-chin Chang (Duke University Press, 2011)

James Hevia, “Opium, Empire, and Modern History”. China Review International  10.2 (2003): 307–326

Excerpts from Eric Jay Dolin, Leviathan: The History of Whaling in America. (New York: W. W. Norton, 2007)

Wiley, Peter Booth. Yankees in the Land of the Gods: Commodore Perry and the Opening of Japan (New York: Viking Penguin, 1990)

1. H. Drabble, Rubber in Malaya 1876–1922: The Genesis of the Industry (Oxford University Press, Kuala Lumpur and Singapore, 1973)

Hagan, J. & Wells, A. D. 'The British and rubber in Malaya, c1890-1940', in G. Patmore, J. Shields & N. Balnave (eds), The Past is Before Us: Proceedings of the Ninth National Labour History Conference, ASSLH, Business & Labour History Group, University of Sydney, Australia (2005), pp. 143-150.

Excerpts from Louise Young. Japan’s Total Empire: Manchuria and the Culture of Wartime Imperialism (University of California Press, 1998)

Ines Prodöhl, "A Miracle Bean". How Soy Conquered the West, 1909-1950 · Bulletin of the GHI Washington, Issue 45 (Fall 2009)

Grading:

Attendance, Preparation and Participation- 10%

Assignment 1: Amboina Trial Group Exercise - 15%

Assignment 2: Commodity History Book Review - 20%

Assignment 3: Commodity Portfolio, poster presentation and reflective

paper – 30%

Final Exam: 25%

Please check back for updates.

This undergraduate seminar focuses on South Asia during the era of the Mughal empire. Much of the Indian subcontinent came under the control of the Mughal dynasty, ushering in a period of peace and prosperity during which long-lasting economic and cultural linkages were formed between the various regions of the subcontinent. Aside from its cultural splendor, political might, and booming economy, Mughal India is also important for the many ways in which it shaped South Asia's development in subsequent centuries. We will therefore look not only at Mughal India at the height of imperial power between approximately 1550 to 1750, but also at the continuing legacies and symbolic relevance of the Mughal dynasty in British India and in India today. 

The basic political history of the period will be covered in the course, through occasional lectures by the instructor and readings drawn from recent secondary scholarship on the Mughal empire. However, the emphasis will be on exposing students first-hand to original sources from the Mughal period such as court chronicles and European travel accounts, as well as material from more recent eras such as films and historical novels. Considerable class time will also be spent on the painting and architecture of the era, as well as on the religious patronage and social composition of the court elites. By the end of the semester, students should be familiar with the main developments of the Mughal era and have a sense of how the Mughal dynasty has been remembered by later generations.

Texts:

1) Catherine B. Asher & Cynthia Talbot, India Before Europe

2) Andre Wink, Akbar (Makers of the Muslim World series)

3) Audrey Truschke, Aurangzeb

4) numerous other excerpts from primary sources (on Canvas)

Gradings:

5 reading responses (400-500 words each)                               25%

comparing emperors paper, 2 drafts (1500 words)                   25%

primary source analysis paper (2500 words)                              30%

performance as discussion leader                                      5%

attendance & participation                                                 20%

Description

This course will explore the political economy of South Korean development during the postwar period. The purpose of this course is to develop critical understanding of history, society, and culture of South Korea. By reading texts about compressed modernity, developmental state, social movements, gender politics, financial crisis and its aftermath, this course will address the tensions between industrialization, nationalism, authoritarianism, and democracy in South Korea. At the same time, we will contemplate contemporary South Korea in the global context by exploring such topics as Cold War geopolitics, transnational migration, transnational adoption, the globalization of Korean popular culture, and K-pop tourism. It is a reading- and discussion-extensive course.

Grading 

Class Participation: 20%
Reading Responses: 20%
Midterm Exam: 20%
Final Paper: 40%

*Cross-listed with LIN 350

Carries Global Cultures Flag

This course will provide an introduction to the history of the evolution of the Chinese writing system and language. This course is open to all students and while recommended, no background in Chinese language, culture or linguistics is required. Course emphasis will be given to the study of the writing system and the cultural contexts that have preserved such a unique orthography from ancient to modern times. In this context, the course will include some discussion of the history of the Chinese language, including Chinese dialects. Lectures and discussions will focus on the cultural, historical, social, and political background against which Chinese writing and language have evolved.

            Introduction – Chinese Language and Writing; What is writing?  What is an alphabet?

1. The Beginnings – Ancient Writing Systems (Mesopotamia, Egypt), Proto-Writing, the Shang Bronze Age
2. The Han Dynasty Milestone – Old Text/New Text Debates, Invention of Paper, “radicals” and the influential role of the Shuowen jiezi
3. The Song Dynasty Milestone – Calligraphy, Painting, Invention of Printing, and “handwriting”
4. The Modern Milestone – Language Reform, Script transformation, Japanese/Western influence
5. Contemporary Times – Chinese writing in the cyber age, influence of the English language/alphabet

World War I has been described as a “total war,” one in which civilian as well as military populations were expected to participate. However, the war was not just between European nation-states, but also between imperial powers, who drew on the natural and human resources of their colonial holdings for the war effort. British Egypt, Ottoman Syria, and German East and Southwest Africa saw military action in their own territories, while Indians and Indochinese were utilized as sources of both laborers for the front and fighting men by Britain and France in both colony and metropole.

This course will examine the impact of the total war on the colonies and colonial subjects. From the ways that resource provisioning triggered starvation and famine in the countries of the Mediterranean, the recruiting methods used by imperial powers to rally support for the war cause in the colonies, to the challenges of colonial concepts of race posed by Vietnamese soldiers in the streets of Paris, we’ll explore the global nature of World War I in North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa, the Eastern Mediterranean, South Asia, Southeast Asia, and East Asia.

We’ll end with a discussion of the so-called “Wilsonian moment,” and the tensions that resulted when promised nationalist aspirations were dashed at Versailles in 1919—tensions that would remain unresolved until after the Second World War and the beginning of decolonization. What had these nations-in-waiting expected to happen at Versailles, and why?

This class is appropriate for upper division undergraduates in history, area studies, and related fields; graduate students seeking to do a "bump-up" are welcome.

Individual instruction for Asian studies majors and nonmajors. Discussion, research, and the writing of papers about various general and specialized Asian subjects.  Prerequisite: Six semester hours of coursework in Asian studies and
written consent of instructor on form obtained from the undergraduate adviser.

Please check back for updates.

In this course, we will endeavor to navigate some of the extensive anthropological literature that has been written on Japanese conceptualizations of self and body and explore how these concepts intersect with ideas about religion and morality.  The "self" has been one of the central themes in ethnographic writing about Japan since Ruth Benedict's work The Chrysanthemum and the Sword was published in the 1940's.  We will consider how Japanese educational approaches contribute to the formation of paritcular forms of behavior; how selves change over the life course; Japanese conceptualizations of the body and person; and how Japanese ideas about self and body are expressed in medical practices.  The course is discussion-based and will incorporate films in addition to ethnographic writings.  Grading will be based upon five response papers and mid-term take-home and final take-home exams.

This course examines a wide variety of Japanese popular media within the historical context during which

these unique cultural forms developed. Our focus will be on the popular manga and anime Japan has

exported since becoming an economic superpower in the 1980s. We will explore utopian/ dystopian

expression in the Japanese sci-fi narratives of tis era, and the complex interplay of genre and technology

in the new posthuman societies this narratives envision. We will also consider the significance of global

fandom as we chart the rise of the transnational otaku, and its relevance to Japan’s exercise of soft

power.

This seminar examines autobiographies written by prominent figures in Japan from the tenth century to the present and considers how they negotiated their lives and their legacies through the act of self-portraiture. We will look at how these works are informed by both the historical and cultural contexts in which they were written and by the genre itself. Examples include works by highborn ladies-in-waiting and imperial consorts in the premodern era; samurai men who found their class on the verge of extinction in the mid-19th century; and avant-garde artists and filmmakers in the 20th and 21st centuries. In order to consider in depth how the form or medium guides the content of these self-portraits, our objects of study will encompass a wide variety of mediums that go beyond the traditional book form to include paintings, poems, songs, films, and manga.
 
This is a Writing Flag and Global Cultures Flag course. In this class, you can expect to write and revise regularly during the semester, complete substantial writing projects, and receive feedback from your instructor and your peers to help you improve your academic writing. You should expect a substantial portion of your grade to come from your written work. It is also designed to increase your familiarity with practices, beliefs, and histories of at least one non-U.S. cultural group, past or present.

The Cultural Outsider: Memoirs and Travelogues of East Asia*

*cross-listed with HIS 340U

Course carries Global Cultures and Writing Flags

The focus of the capstone seminar is on the cultural outsider’s perceptions of East Asia as addressed in greater literature originally written in English (with a few exceptions), in the genres of memoirs and travelogues dating from as early as the writings of Marco Polo up to works published in contemporary America. Works selected for the seminar are to be read and discussed within the broad context of “travel literature” by visitors to greater East Asia: China (including Hong Kong and Tibet), Taiwan, Japan, and Korea. These travelers include missionaries, colonizers, journalists, POW’s, scholars, students, and tourists. Through a sampling of these selected works, a main focus will be on the approach to the concept of “Asianness” in the distant and recent past as treated from the perspective of a cultural outsider.

Some major concepts and themes that emerge from these works concern Asian stereotypes, self-discovery and cultural identity formation, and exoticization of Asia and all things Asian (or “Oriental”). We will pose open-ended questions about these perceptions of Asia not as literary critics, but rather more as readers, or as fellow travelers to Asia. Thus, the course focus will be on primary, rather than secondary, sources and materials. Students will choose from the selected works below for oral panel presentations, leading class discussion, which in turn will form a focus for essays.

This course will examine the production, distribution, and consumption of East Asian popular culture. Specific topics include Hong Kong cinema, Japanese animation, Japanese trendy dramas, Korean television dramas, and K-po music. Noting the “globalization” phenomenon, this course will address what has caused the increasing visibility of East Asian Cultural products outside of the region. The growing recognition of East Asian pop culture around the globe, however, has also accompanied by more vibrant circulations of the cultural products and interactions among recipients within the region. Therefore, this course will take the globalization of popular culture as an analytical lens through which to reflect modernity, tensions of (trans)nationalism, urbanization gender politics, and identity formations in East Asia.

Class Participation; 20%

Reading Responses: 20%

Student Presentation: 20%

Midterm and Final Paper: 40%

Study of various aspects and periods of Chinese culture and society.  Specific offerings are listed in the Course Schedule.  Prerequisite: Graduate standing; additional prerequisites vary with the topic and are given in the Course Schedule.

What is infrastructure? What does studying infrastructure tell us about colonial and postcolonial states and societies of the MENA region and beyond? What is the relationship between infrastructure and categories such as class, race, gender, and citizenship? This course introduces graduate students to recent scholarship on infrastructure, with an emphasis on historical studies about the Middle East, North Africa, and South Asia. Defining infrastructures broadly as “matter than enable the movement of other matter” (Larkin, 2013), the course pays particular attention to the production of mobilities/immobilities through infrastructure such as transport systems (railroads, roads, ports, airports etc.), energy systems (dams, pipelines etc.), and other systems like sewage systems and garbage collection systems.

This thematic graduate seminar explores the multiple facets of asceticism. Based on concrete cases from South Asia and Mediterranean late antiquity (and other areas, depending on the interest of participants), we will discuss the variety of ascetic bodily practices; ascetic ideology; relations between norms and practices; functions of asceticism within society; gender aspects; asceticism and politics; critics of asceticism; and more. The case studies also provide the material basis for more theoretical questions about the definition and delineation of the scholarly term ‘asceticism’; the role of asceticism in general theories of culture and evolution; and the risks and benefits of a cross-cultural, comparative approach.

All readings will be available in PDF format on Canvas. Some general works are:

Wimbush/Valantasis, Asceticism (2005)
Haripada Chakraborti, Asceticism in ancient India (1973)
Peter Brown, The Body and Society (1988)
Creel/ Narayan (eds.), Monastic Life in the Christian and Hindu Traditions (1990)

In this class, we will analyze classic texts of modern Japanese literature and film alongside the classic secondary scholarship that has arisen about these works to consider key debates about the place of art in Japanese society in the 20th and 21st centuries. These debates center around artistic and political issues, such as competing gendered and national identities and subjectivities; censorship and the state; western versus Japanese poetics and narrative conventions; and the evolution of film and literary languages. Reading works of criticism written by both Japanese and Western scholars will enable us also to examine how Japanese literary and film theory converges or diverges from Western theoretical models.

The focus of the course will be to improve literary and film interpretive and analytical skills, and to get a sense of how literary and film theorists and critics in both Japan and the West analyze these texts. We will also work to situate the authors and works in their socio-historical context to consider how it informs both primary and secondary works.

Reading List to be determined based on the interests/research focus of class members. 

This graduate seminar is designed to familiarize students with recent literature discussing transnational Asia and the Asian diaspora.  Students will be expected to be researching related material and the research interests of the students will in part shape the course context.  The class will consider topics including the role of diasporas in shaping national imaginaries, the popularity and transformation of Asian medias and the importance of off-shored manufacturing and knowledge work.

The concept of sovereignty intersects religion and politics—sacredness and power—and is crucial to definitions of community and agency. We will examine scholarship on pre-modern and modern eras to understand the theoretical (doctrinal and cosmological) and practical (ritual and performative) basis of sovereignty in Muslim cultures in different world regions. Students will be introduced to a range of perspectives that draw upon history, religion, law, art, and architecture. The final part of the course consists of a research and tutorial phase in which students will work on a research project related to the themes of the seminar. In the final paper, students are welcome to explore comparisons between different parts of the Islamic world, between Muslim and other cultures, or between pre-modern and contemporary developments.