Most accounts of China’s past have been dominated by men. But women also played an important role in deciding the course of China’s history, contributing in powerful ways to the development of China’s various cultural traditions. Chinese women brought their influence to bear in the domestic sphere as wives, daughters, and mothers, but they were also rulers and generals, ghosts and goddesses, novelists and poets, warriors and revolutionaries. In this course, we will study key texts in the Chinese historical and cultural tradition by, for, and about women, exploring the many different ways that women have articulated their own visions of politics, society, and culture. In the process, we will see how women struggled to carve out a space for themselves in a male-dominated cultural and political landscape, as well as the ways that men adopted and coopted the female voice as a means for expressing their own anxieties and experiences.

Grading

• Attendance – 10%
• Weekly posts – 10%
• Test 1 – 15%
• Test 2 – 15%
• Test 3 – 15%
• Final exam – 35%

Please check back for updates.

This class examines expressions of popular culture in modern Japan. Over the course of the semester, we will consider pieces of literature, film, music, and visual culture in a range of historical contexts: our course materials will take us from the realm of 18th century urban life in Edo to the violent age of wartime and empire in the early 20th century, and finally bring our discussions to our own era of globalization today. Ranging over this vast and various territory, we will develop an understanding of how the history of modern media has shaped the pop culture imagination in Japan.

Grading:

Student performance is graded on a scale of 0-100 points. Assignments are worth the following number of points:

• Discussion Board Postings (3x5 points) 15
• One-Page Response Papers (2x15 points ea.): 30
• Exam 1 (covering the first half of the course): 20
• Exam 2 (covering the second half of the course): 20
• Final Reflection (One-Page Paper): 15

This course offers a survey of the major religious traditions of Asia (Hinduism, Buddhism in South and East Asia, Confucianism, Daoism, and Shinto). It focuses on the historical development of their beliefs, practices, rituals, and customs in social context. The course will combine lectures with class discussions on readings.

Grading:

• Attendance/participation: 20%
• Two quizzes: 20% (10% each)
• Two short essays: 20% (10% each)
• Midterm exam: 20%
• Final exam: 20%

This course will provide an introduction to major concepts and ideas from Chinese cultural traditions to construct a course inquiry into understanding Chinese culture and society. A guiding principle in this course inquiry will be to investigate the past to help inform the present. The overall course inquiry: How is the present informed by an understanding of the past? How has the past shaped the present geopolitics?

Grading:

• 10% Class and online discussion, participation and “preparedness” (unannounced reading quizzes, discussion/participation exercises)
• 60% THREE Section Quizzes (Take-home Essay and Video Comment Responses to Discussion and Reading Questions, based on Lectures, Readings, Class/Online Discussion)
• 15% ONE Written Response (2 pages) on Ten Lessons in Modern Chinese History [+5% for attendance/participation in discussion of selected chapters for Focused Discussion sessions in Weeks 11 and 13]
• 10% Contemporary Geo-politics Responses (Video Comments, Final Written Commentary)

This course is designed as an introductory overview of Korean history, culture, and society from the early modern era to the present. It aims to encourage students to locate their knowledge about Korea in relation to perspectives from other disciplines, while thinking critically about how history, culture, and society are understood. Class lectures will be supplemented with films, slides, and other audio-visual materials. This class has no prerequisites.

Grading:

• Class attendance and Participation (20%). Class attendance is mandatory and will be checked regularly including the add/drop period. Students are allowed one absence. For each unexcused absence after that, your final grade will be lowered by 2 points, up to a maximum of 20 points.
• In-class midterm exam (20%).
• Reaction papers (30%). Students are expected to write TWO essays (3 single-space pages) about a given topic (15% each). 
• Take-home final exam (30%). Essay questions based on class lectures, readings and films. 

This course is an introduction to South Asian cultures and histories. 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 to understand South Asian 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.

Grading:

• Attendance and Participation (20%)
• Reading responses and Documentary and Film Review (25%)
• Three in class written quizzes (30%)
• Book Review (10%)
• Final Presentation (15%)

This course will provide a historical and cross-cultural overview of the relationship between feminine and religious cultural expressions through comparative examinations and analyses of various goddess figures in world religions. We will begin our study in Asia; specifically in India, where goddess worship is a vital part of contemporary Hinduism in all parts of the subcontinent. From the goddesses of the Hindu tradition (Kālī and Lakṣmī, for example), we will move on to female figures in the Jain and Buddhist Mahāyāna pantheons (such as Kuan-Yin, popular in China, Korea, and Japan), and then on to some of the goddesses of western antiquity (Inanna, Isis, Athena, and Aphrodite), including a brief consideration of Mary in her various goddess aspects. We will end the course with a brief study of “neo-pagan” goddess worship in America. Issues relating to gender, sexuality, power, and violence (domestic and political) will be emphasized as themes throughout the course.

Description: The Indian Subcontinent can teach us a great deal about diversity in the cultures of the past. It also teaches us about the conditions under which such diversity can be lost. For these reasons, we need to understand the carving out of the Indian subcontinent into separate political units called India and Pakistan respectively (in 1947-50). The course begins with ‘caste’ and ‘religion’ in the subcontinent, moves to the gradual consolidation of British colonialism, the redrawing of social, economic, religious, political boundaries and identities and ends with the growth of modern political forms such as political parties, and end with the cataclysms of Partition in 1947.
 
Aims: 1) to acquaint students with basic concepts and a simplified chronology of events, people, and processes.
2) teach students the importance of ‘primary’ and ‘secondary’ sources in the understanding of any past
3) encourage students to think critically by exposing them to a variety of perspectives on the past, including some key controversies around each of the themes of the course.

Requirements. On days marked ‘Read’ in the syllabus, students are required to read a compulsory number of pages in a given text in each topic before they come to class. They will be required to purchase/borrow/ rent the following
1 Barbara and Thomas Metcalf, A Concise History of India, (3rd edition) Cambridge University Press, (2012 paperback), ISBN-13 978-1-107-67218-5
 
All other readings are on Canvas OR on recommended websites for particular days.
 
Grading is based on posting daily comments on Discussion Board in Canvas (40 points), In-class mid-terms (20), In-Class Finals (20 points), One Self-Assessment/ Reflection Essay (10). Letter grades of A, B, C, D and F will be assigned on the basis of the performance.

This class explores alternative research methods and spatialities, in an attempt to produce new understandings of how people live in an increasingly mobile world. While mobility is a desire for many, it is also restricted and dangerous for others. This class will take movement as an object of study, rather than a particular space or identity. An introduction to the developing field of mobilities research will begin the class, including key thinkers like John Urry, Pal Nyiri, Tim Cresswell and Noel Salazar. The central portion of the course will examine how this new approach to movement allows scholars to rethink simplistic ideas of migration and to see process of circular and impermanent movement. In particular, we will be looking at the gendered character of movement, forms of transportation, how infrastructure shapes where people go and labor and movement. Cases will be drawn from movements within Asia, those between Asia and elsewhere, and those with an Asian imaginary.

Grading:

• Participation/Attendance 10%
• Module Discussion 15%
• Quick Quizzes 15%
• Student Presentations 10%
• Reading Reflection 15%
• Presentation of Final Project 5%
• Final Project 30% 

Please check back for updates.

Please check back for updates.

This writing-intensive course will provide the student with a comprehensive overview of literature produced in the languages of South India (Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, and Kannada). We will begin with a study of the Tolkāppiyam, the earliest extant Tamil text on phonetics, grammar, and poetry, paying special attention to the sections on poetic convention and generic taxonomies. This will give us the means to study poetry produced in the classsical caṅkam period. We will read a wide variety of poems from the eight anthologies of classical Tamil that treat akam (romantic/erotic) and puram (heroic/ethical) themes. We will then move on to the two twin Tamil epics, the Cilappatikāram and Maṇimēkalai, followed by a thorough exploration of South Indian religious literature originally composed in Tamil, Kannada, and Telugu. To make these classical texts more relevant, we will also read recent anthropological studies that demonstrate how certain Tamil literary paradigms have deep cultural significance in contemporary South Indian society. During the last few weeks of the course, we will read samples from contemporary fiction and poetry originally written in Tamil, Malayalam, and Kannada.

Grading:

• 2 short interpretive essays (3-5 pages): 25%
• 1 research paper (15-20 pages): 25%
• 2 take-home essay exams (midterm and final): 50%

This course seeks to answer a simple question. What did it mean to live a meaningful life according to the classical Hindu texts? The classical Hindu tradition identified three –later four –goals of human life: pleasure (kāma), power (artha), duty (dharma), and liberation(mukti). Part of our goal will be to read the foundational texts that theorized that, and how, humans should pursue each of these goals. We will read texts (in translation) across a variety of genres –theoretical treatises, plays, narratives, poetry –to try and understand how the classical Sanskrit tradition derived norms to comprehend the varieties of human experience. This course will impel us to think with these texts and against them. These texts will present us with an opportunity to raise large questions –where do norms come from? Who is subject to a set of norms? What distinguishes religious conduct from non-religious conduct? How do these texts conceive of and theorize different categories of being –human, man, woman, animal, god? How do these texts articulate the difference between nature and culture? Above all, this course is designed to teach students to raise productive questions to put to texts and traditions.

Grade Breakdown

Reading Responses:50%

In-class Presentation/Participation25%

Final Exam/Paper25%

Please check back for updates.

This course is organized in three parts: the first two span the period between the third century BCE and the late eighteenth century, the third covers indenture and abolition during the nineteenth-twentieth centuries. Students will learn about a range of practices that bonded destitute people, orphans, debtors and criminals to lay and sacred complexes in the subcontinent. These institutions lost their eminence with the growth of European colonial economics in the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. 

1) Arthashastra Book III, Chapter XIII, Rules Regarding Slaves and Laborers, on www.mssu.edu/projectsouthasia/history/primarydocs/
2) Amitava Ghosh, ‘The Slave of Ms. H6’, from Subaltern Studies, Vol. 5.
3) Sunil Kumar, ‘When Slaves Were Nobles’, Indian Economic and Social History Review , 1998.
4) Pushpa Prasad, ‘Female Slavery in Thirteenth Century Documents’, Indian Historical Quarterly, 1985.
5) Excerpts from Ex-Slave’s Memoir, Tahmasnama: The Autobiography of a Slave (Bombay 1967).
6) Legal Documents : Lariviere ed. Contested Ownership of a Slave; Mr. Hunter Stands Trial for Injuring his Slave Documents, Criminal Judicial Consultations of 1799 from the British Library and the U.N. Report 7) Marina Carter, ‘Slavery and Unfree labor in the Indian Ocean’ and ‘Indian Slaves in Mauritius’

Course Work: 1) Posing Daily Question/Comment on Discussion Board (Canvas): (60%)
2) Home-Written 5-page essay comparing historical readings with interpretation made in film (20%)
3) Home-Written 10-15 page discussion on a single theme (20%).

Letter grades of A, B, C, D and F will be assigned accordingly.

Urbanization in East Asia has taken place in rapid, massive, and turbulent ways. The purpose of this class lies in employing urbanization as an analytical category through which we can examine development, modernization, the politics of accumulation and distribution, state-society relations, urban struggles, and activism in East Asia. The class lectures are organized, therefore, around topics rather than by country and/or city. For more critical examinations, we will also learn and discuss key concepts in geography and urban studies, such as commodification of urban space, spectacles and place-making, gentrification, uneven development, media and place, tourism, and the creation of peripheries.

Grading:

• Participation (10%)
• Reading Response (45%)
• Group Project I (15%)
• Group Project II (15%)
• Take-home final exam (15%)

What makes histories “big”? The focus of this course is on world histories centrally involving Asia from the medieval period to the present. It examines ways in which Asia and other areas of the globe have had connected intellectual, artistic, and social developments, and how Asia figured in the “rise of the West” to industrial and imperial dominance by the end of the nineteenth century…as well as the potential “decline of the world” with climate change. It looks also at global histories of political forms, dynamics, and spaces. Finally, it looks at Asian(-American) histories of violence and its aftermath as a way of considering a broader politics of memory and apology. Throughout the course, historiographical issues are paramount: How does one conceive of and write “connected histories”?

Grading:

• Attendance/participation: (10%)
• A and B class presentation (2.5% each, 5% total)
• First and second tests (15% each, 30% total)
• Discussion papers/blog entries (10% total)
• Exploration papers (5% each, 20% total)
• Abstract, outline, and tentative bibliography for final research paper (5%)
• Final research paper (20%)

The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (commonly called North Korea) is often described as closed or unknowable, and simultaneously characterized in much U.S. public discussion as alternatively threatening, crazy/irrational, or simply pathetic. It is very rare to hear something about North Korea other than nuclear weapons, famine, or human rights/refugees; it is sometimes hard to imagine that there is an actual society there. Yet in recent years, there has emerged a growing scholarly literature precisely concerned with understanding North Korea’s historical development and its current workings as a social, cultural, and political/ideological system. Self and Culture in North Korea is focused on the questions this literature raises.

Grading:

• A and B class presentations (5% each, 10% total)
• Short assignments (5 x 5%=25% total)
• Papers (10% + 15%=25% total)
• Take-home, open-book midterm exam (15%)
• Take-home, open-book final exam (15%)
• General class participation and discussion (10%)

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.

This course surveys the history of South Asia during the era prior to British colonial rule.  It begins ca. 1200 with the establishment of Muslim political power in North India and ends ca. 1750 with the emergence of British dominance in East India.  The large states which emerged in this period – the Delhi Sultanate, the Vijayanagara kingdom of South India, and the Mughal empire – incorporated  regions of South Asia that had previously been politically divided and stimulated the circulation of ideas, peoples, and goods throughout the subcontinent and beyond.  The increased scale of these political networks led to greater uniformity and communication in the society and economy of South Asia, as well as the growth of a pan-Indian elite culture.  At the same time, the diversity of South Asian culture and society increased during the timespan from 1200 to 1750, due to the influx of peoples and religions of foreign origin coming overland from Afghanistan and Persia and also overseas from Europe and elsewhere.   The roots of contemporary South Asia -– an area that is distinctly different from other parts of the world yet is also very diverse internally – thus lie in the precolonial era.

1) C. Asher & C. Talbot, India before Europe
2) Banarsidas, Ardhakathanak: A Half Story, trans. Rohini Chowdhury
3) excerpts from The Rehla of Ibn Battuta, Hasan Sizji's Morals of the Heart, 
    Baburnama, Humayunnama, Michael Fisher's Visions of Mughal India etc.

2 papers (4-6 pps each)= 40%
2 exams (ID & essay))= 50%
1 set of discussion questions=   5%
attendance & participation=   5%

Fall 2021 Topic: Landscape Poetry and Painting

This course will provide an introduction to the classical Chinese poetic tradition and is open to all students. No previous background in Chinese language, culture or literature is required. Readings in English translation will encompass a selective sampling of poetry from as early as the seventh century B.C.E. through the 9th century. Lectures and discussions will focus on the literary, cultural, historical, social, political, philosophical, and religious background against which these representative works in poetry arose. While background reading will be assigned, the focus of lectures and discussion will be on the primary works of poetry, and on the relationship of poetry and painting in the Chinese tradition. 

Grading:

• Discussion (20%)
• Writing and Oral Presentation (75%)
• Creative Writing (5%)

This course looks at literature written by key Japanese authors in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. We will learn to read, think, discuss, and write about Japanese literature critically and analytically with attention to a work’s content, style, and form. Equally importantly, we will think about our own individual tastes in literature - why we read fiction and how. We'll also consider the socio-historical context of the production and reception of literature and how it deals with themes like the breakdown of tradition and the crisis of individualism; nostalgia and nationalism; war memory and cultural amnesia; “women’s literature”; sexuality, gender, and power; and the dynamics of crosscultural influence. This is a small discussion-based class that requires the active and engaged participation of all class members to ensure its success.

This undergraduate seminar focuses on India's classical epics, the Mahabharata and the Ramayana.  Although they originated in ancient times, these two captivating narratives have been retold in different languages and formats over the centuries, including most recently in the form of TV serials and graphic novels.  Among the topics to be explored are the martial ethos of ancient India, the complexities of dharma, the ideology of kingship, traditional gender norms, the recent politicization of the Ramayana, and the use of the epics to counter social and gender hierarchy.  Students will read abbreviated versions of the epics along with excerpts from various translations of the complete narratives; they will also be exposed to other primary sources including paintings, traditional theatrical performances, and modern films and TV shows.

Texts:
1) Chakravarthi V. Narasimhan, The Mahabharata
2) Gurcharan Das, The Difficulty of Being Good
3) R. K. Narayan, The Ramayana
4) Numerous articles and essays provided on Canvas.

Grading:
reading responses (6 x 5% each) = 30%; analytical essays (2 x 25% each) = 50 %; film review = 5%; attendance & participation = 15%

This course takes up the fraught and entangled histories of modern Japan and Korea depicted in literature and film to consider experiences of imperialism, rapid modernization, war, decolonization, and trauma. We will consider how these forces shaped the development of the modern subject, the development of the nation-state, and how memories of these experiences continue to shape the relations of the larger region. By taking the texts we read and the films we watch not as historical documents but as that which can represent some kind of truthfulness of experience, we will examine what can and cannot be said or represented about different kinds of systemic and personal violence, traumatic experience, and war. We will address issues relating to memory, responsibility, and history, and question the dichotomy of victim and perpetrator. We will also question the ethics of comparison, and in particular examine what comparison may reveal or obscure within the nexus of these issues. 

Grading Breakdown

Participation: 20% One page intake paper: 5%

Weekly reflections and in-class writing: 25%

Close reading paper: 10%

Analytic paper: 15%

Final research paper/project: 25%

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.

Study of various aspects and periods of South Asian 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.

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

Study of various Asian studies-related topics that do not focus on any single geographic region.  Specific offerings are listed in the Course Schedule.  Prerequisite: Graduate standing; additional prerequisites vary with the topic and are given in the Course Schedule.

This course intended for students who want to engage with diverse approaches to environmental politics and justice. While Asia-focused, the course is premised on Asia’s historical engagement with other parts of the world and with the global environment. The course will have both research and reading tracks. Students taking the research track will select their area in the third week of the semester and write a source-based 18-20 page essay. Students opting for the writing track will write a historiographic essay of the same length. 

Assessment will be based on

 (a) Final paper (including drafts and presentations toward it), 50% 

(b) Weekly response papers 30% 

(c) preparation for and participation in class 20% 

This course will use +/- grades. 

Core Readings and Methods in Asian Studies. Various theories and methods used in the field of Asian studies, including disciplinary history, controversies, and the diversity of approaches within the field.