chinese

 

SPRING 2023

Additional Course Offerings: See Core Curriculum


 

GRADUATE Courses

HAN WEI & SIX DYNASTIES POETRY (CR. 3)
16:217:527:01:11832
W 12:10-3:10PM, SC-232
WENDY SWARTZ

This course introduces the major poetic genres and works of the Han, Wei and Six Dynasties, the formative period for classical poetry. It will focus primarily on the art of reading poetry, with attention to relevant historical, biographical and literary-historical contexts. Emphasis will thus be placed on 1) learning the conventions of particular genres and subgenres, 2) assessing the qualities of individual poets and poems through an examination of their manipulation of these conventions, and a comparison with other voices in the tradition, and 3) recognizing the larger stylistic shifts and literary concerns that developed over the course of early medieval China. Readings from a selection of modern criticism will be helpful for understanding individual poets, issues and themes. Primary texts and commentaries are in Chinese.


SPECIAL TOPICS: EAST ASIAN LANGUAGES AND CULTURES (CR. 3)
16:217:599:01:11835
M 2:15-5:00PM
ONLINE
INSTRUCTOR TBA

In this graduate seminar, students will read The Plum in the Golden Vase (金瓶梅) and The Life of an Amorous Man (好色一代男), two masterpieces of erotic fiction in China and Japan. Published in the seventeenth century, both novels depict characters’ erotic adventures against the backdrop of commercial culture, significantly revealing major social changes of the time. A closing reading of the two works invites us to raise the following questions: What is the correlation between eroticism and the rise of the merchant class in Ming China and Edo Japan? What are the thematic connections between the two novels? And how are power, gender dynamics, emotion, and the body imagined in these narratives? To answer these questions, the course will guide students to seminal scholarship in the fields of literature, history, religion, and visual & material culture. All readings are in English.


UNDERGRADUATE Courses

ADVANCED CHINESE CONVERSATION AND COMPOSITION (CR. 3)
01:165:402:01:04427
TTH 5:40-7:00PM, SC-203

XIAOJUN CAO

This advanced level course on Modern Mandarin Chinese further develops all four language proficiency skills (speaking, listening, reading and writing) by focusing on vocabulary expansion, conversation in formal contexts and essay writing. Through a variety of coursework, students will be able to present their ideas both orally and in writing at the multi-paragraph level. The course is conducted in Chinese. By the end of the course, students will have acquired the linguistic tools to converse and write in Chinese comfortably on most informal topics and engage in discussions in some formal topics.

 

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