East Asian Studies
- ART 218/EAS 238: Ten Essential Topics in Chinese Art and CultureWhat was the role of women in Chinese art? How did Chinese people think about this life and the afterlife? Why and how is calligraphy considered an art form in China? These are but three of the questions this course asks and endeavors to explore. Focusing on ten important and provocative topics, this course aims to provide a comprehensive but spotlighted picture of Chinese art and culture. Together the ten point to the interrelated nature of the visual and Chinese philosophical thought, aesthetic values, religious beliefs, social life, political expression and commercial practices.
- ART 425/EAS 425: The Japanese PrintART 425 examines Japanese woodblock prints from the 17th - 19th century. We will consider the following: formal and technical aspects of prints; varied subject matter, including the "floating world" of the brothel districts and theatre; Japanese landscape and urban centers; and links between literature and prints, especially the re-working of classical literary themes in popular prints. The seminar will emphasize the study of prints in the university's Art Museum. If travel restrictions and pandemic conditions allow students will research Japanese prints at an art gallery in New York and recommend one for purchase for the Museum's collection.
- ART 568/EAS 570: Art Production, Consumption, and Collection in Ming-Qing SuzhouSuzhou as a cultural site is the key to many broad and complicated issues regarding how art was produced and practiced in Ming-Qing China. These complexities include artistic regionalism and cosmopolitanism, the codification and edification of literati culture, the urbanization and commoditization of art, and the interrelationship of the global and the local. This seminar aims to examine Suzhou as the nexus that interweaves all of these essential threads of the Ming-Qing artworld and as the lens through which we understand this artworld as multi-faceted and multi-layered.
- CHI 411/EAS 411: Readings in Modern Chinese Intellectual HistoryThis course is designed for students who have had advanced training in modern Chinese. The focus of readings is modern Chinese intellectual history. Topics that will be discussed include language reform, women's emancipation, the encounter of western civilization, the rise of communism, etc.
- COM 540/EAS 528: Ocean Media: Islanding, Space, ModernityThis seminar explores the oceanic imaginary of space and the spatial technologies of islanding in the modern world-including the emergence of mega-ports, artificial islands, and the creation of political and economic zones of exception and military bases, with an emphasis on East and Southeast Asia. Posing islanding in the verb form, the readings deconstruct "island" as a natural geographic setting and probe its role in mediating the relations between individual and totality, insularity and world, mainland and periphery, land and sea, etc. We explore different mediations of oceanic imaginary and work toward theories of resistance.
- EAS 105: Intermediate Vietnamese IIntermediate Vietnamese I will expand your structures and knowledge of the Vietnamese language and multifaceted culture through idioms, proverbs, dialogues, and stories. Classroom activities and practices will help you communicate effectively and absorb meaning through speaking, listening, reading, and writing.
- EAS 206/HIS 206/MED 206: Medieval Asian Worlds: Korea, Japan, China, Inner and South Asia 300 CE-1700 CEThis course explores the Middle Ages (300-1700) of the East Asian world (China, Japan, and Korea) as well as the varying links between these polities and Inner and South Asia. Particular focus will be devoted to the rise of Buddhist notions of kingship in South Asia and their transmission to the major states of Inner and East Asia, as well as the rise of notions of ethnicity, and the creation of distinct states and cultures of China, Korea and Japan. Topics will be chronological, emphasizing the movements of ideas and peoples, with a framework centered on influential figures who propagated the spread of goods and ideas across borders.
- EAS 216: Writing and Culture of Premodern KoreaThis course is an introductory survey of the cultural history of premodern Korea-from early times until the turn of the twentieth century-focused on the primary sources. We will read various original materials (in English translation): myths, state histories, diaries, travelogues, and works of fiction, among others. Topics covered in this course include the imagination of the origins in myth, the idea of Confucian governance, everyday life and entertainment in Choson (1392-1910), and Korea's opening to the west in the late nineteenth century.
- EAS 225/ANT 323: Japanese Society and CultureJapan became the first non-Western nation to industrialize and modernize in the late 19th century, determined to fend off foreign invasion. Decades later, Japan challenged Americans to imagine alternative futures through its economic success and later its "soft power." The course will consider change and continuity in Japan and how Japan's current status as a stable, slowly growing economy informs our views of capitalism and society in the current era. Topics include gender, labor, and corporate welfare; youth socialization; marriage and divorce; race, "Japaneseness" and citizenship; diasporic identities; sub-cultures and popular culture.
- EAS 236/COM 228: Chinese CinemasThis course is an introduction to contemporary Chinese cinemas in China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. From postwar musicals and pan-Asian blockbusters, to new wave avant-garde films and experimental documentaries, the diversity of Chinese cinemas reflects cinema's relations to global capitalism, Asia's democratization movements, financial crises, and the arrival of (post)socialism. Creating urban nomads, songstresses, daydreamers, travelers, and terrorists, Chinese cinemas put on full display the forces of globalization in shaping the aesthetics and politics of film. Selections broadly include popular commercial films to rare art house productions.
- EAS 260: Japan's Media Mix: Anime/Cinema/GamingThis course surveys Japan's vibrant media mix cultures spanning the histories of anime, cinema and gaming through the intersections of film and media studies. Charting the emergence of media mix cultures and "new" media technologies from silent film to augmented reality in Japan, this course introduces students to major works of anime (animated feature films, television series, and other formats), cinema, and video games. We will examine the changing contours of work and play, sentiment and sensation, thought and materiality, and the forms of mediation and social relation that defined Japan's modern media mix ecologies and platforms.
- EAS 300: Junior SeminarThis seminar teaches the research and writing skills needed to produce a thesis as an East Asian studies major. Through mini-projects and guest lectures, the class introduces the various disciplines and methodologies used to study East Asia, including history, anthropology, political science, history, literature, and media studies. In addition, the class teaches techniques of research and writing: how to formulate a research question, find and use appropriate sources, write a research proposal, craft a compelling introduction and convincing conclusion.
- EAS 303: Japanese Film & Media StudiesStudy of contemporary Japan through major works of film, photography, and visual culture. The course will explore defining transformations in urban and media ecologies, experiences of development and disaster, and the contentious environmental histories that inform contemporary Japan. The course will foster critical skills in interdisciplinary methods and transnational approaches to the study of film and visual media from Japan in regional and global contexts.
- EAS 344/COM 344: Postwar Japanese Narrative: Modern to PostmodernThis course examines postwar Japanese experience through major literary, cinematic, and intellectual achievements. The objective is first to analyze a multitude of struggles in the aftermath of the Asia-Pacific War, and then to inquire into the nature of post-industrial prosperity in capitalist consumerism and the emergence of postmodernism. The course will cover representative postwar figures such as, Oe Kenzaburo, Dazai Osamu, Mishima Yukio, as well as contemporary writers such as Murakami Haruki. Topics include the rise of democratic ideas, unsolved issues of war memories, and the tension between serious and "popular" fiction writing.
- EAS 372/COM 319: Strange Korean FamiliesUsing family as a lens and a theme that brings together an array of vastly different literary, filmic, and theoretical works, this class will examine key moments in the history of Korea from 2019 to old times. We will look into disenchanted families, violent families, cyborg families, mixed race families, immigrant families, South and North Korean families, royal families, and more. Maintaining the longue-duree historical perspective, we will ponder on the ethical and aesthetic premises of kinship and family as modes of configuring human reciprocity and ways to imagine and live life.
- EAS 409/HIS 309: The Warrior Culture of JapanThis course explores the 'rise' of the warrior culture of Japan. In addition to providing a better understanding of the judicial and military underpinnings of Japan's military 'rule' and the nature of medieval warfare, this course shows how warriors have been perceived as a dominant force in Japanese history, and will explore how the samurai myth was created in more recent times. This course culminates in an extended research paper. The goals of this course are to examine the role of warriors in Japanese history, to introduce historical debates concerning this topic, and to explore the use of primary sources in translation.
- EAS 503: Early China: The Anhui University Shijing ManuscriptIn this seminar, we read selected poems from the Anhui University Shijing bamboo manuscript from ca. 300 BCE that was published in 2019 and includes 57 poems known from the ancient Classic of Poetry. In closely comparing these poems to those in the received Shijing as well as to other manuscript evidence, we analyze the manuscript text in detail from the perspectives of paleography, historical phonology, and codicology. Thus, the seminar introduces students to the principal technical disciplines in reading an ancient Chinese manuscript while at the same time exploring the formation of early Chinese poetry and of the Shijing anthology.
- EAS 524: Literature in Medieval ZenOver the 14th-16th centuries, Zen monasteries were the most prolific centers of learning in Japan, patronized by the warrior elite as pundits of continental high culture. However, much of their vast written output has fallen between the cracks of modern academic disciplines. This course introduces the major literary genres associated with this milieu: verse (including gatha and painting inscriptions), tracts, shomono (vernacular commentaries), and formal epistles. Particular attention is devoted to continuities and differences with continental precedent, and to the interaction between aesthetic, devotional, and pedagogic frames of meaning.
- EAS 525: Sources in Ancient and Medieval Japanese HistoryThis course provides an introduction to the written sources of Japanese history from 800-1600. Instruction focuses on reading and translating a variety of documentary genres, although court chronicles and some visual sources are introduced in class as well. Each week entails the translation of several short documents. Some research resources are also introduced. Weekly assignments include documents which are published on Princeton's komonjo website. In a presentation of the final translation project and analysis is required during the final class and a 12-15 page paper is due on Dean's Day.
- EAS 533: Readings in Chinese Literature: Poetry of the Northern SongThis course surveys Northern Song poetry, focusing on new styles and genres appearing in the 11th century. Genres include: regulated verse; song lyrics; remarks on poetry (shihua); yuefu and other musical texts. Authors include Ouyang Xiu, Mei Yaochen, Su Shi, Huang Tingjian, Yan Shu, Liu Yong, Wang Anshi, Sima Guang. Secondary scholarship in Chinese, Japanese, and English focus on genres and writers. We consider Song poetry in the framework of Chinese literary history, aesthetics of song lyrics, and new poetic styles.
- EAS 534: Readings in Chinese Literature: Chinese Theater, 900-1900An introduction to Chinese opera from the Song until the Republican period. Opera texts are read in conjunction with issues pertinent to cultural history: the architectural history of the stage, the urban and rural environment of opera, the global circulation of opera, the relationship between religious ritual and literary performance, as well as issues of physicality, sexuality, gender, patronage, and class. Primary texts include the Yuan opera Zhao shi gu er (and the Voltaire play Orphelin de la Chine), Tang Xianzu's Mudan ting, Li Yu's Qingzhong pu, Kong Shangren's Taohua shan, and Chen Sen's novel Pinhua baojian.
- EAS 542: Modern Japanese ProseA study of selected major authors and literary trends in modern Japan, with an emphasis on the Meiji and Taisho periods.
- EAS 545: Readings in KanbunThis course focuses on various types of Japanese kanbun, including waka kanbun (Japanese vernacular kanbun) from Nara to Meiji era. Basic knowledge of classical Japanese grammar and kanbun kundoku reading is required.
- EAS 563: Readings in Japanese Academic StyleThe two-semester course is designed for students in Chinese studies, who already possess reading fluency in Chinese. Its goal is to train these students in reading the particular style of Japanese academic writing; at the end of the year, students will be able to independently read modern Japanese scholarship on China. Students take this course after at least one year of modern Japanese (JPN 101/102). The course does not train all four skills of reading, writing, speaking, and listening; instead it is devoted entirely to rapidly develop the necessary reading skills in Japanese academic style. The course is conducted in English.
- EAS 576: Critical Trespasses: Theorizing Political and Intellectual BordersThis seminar structures an encounter with theoretical writings about nation, subjectivity, power and culture, which are assembled for their relevance to "East Asia." The collection is not meant to be comprehensive, but rather intended to facilitate discussion of work that has shaped and revised active intellectual traditions. It starts with reflection on "area studies" as an academic discipline and moves to considerations of national identity and nationalism. It proceeds to reflections on politics and aesthetics and finally turns to practices - writing, media, technology - that embody and inflect these conceptual formations.
- GER 403/EAS 403: Studies in Comparative SurveillanceSurveillance has long provoked a wide range of social responses, from the embrace of promises of security to a rejection of a threat to civil liberties. Why can some countries impose such social control while others cannot? Does this dynamic change when the monitoring is instead trans-national, be it in the form of more systemic logics of "surveillance capitalism" or of the new global tracking imperatives provoked by the current pandemic? This team-taught seminar in comparative surveillance studies will examine the complex cultural, political and techno-historical dimensions of new forms of social control in the Americas, Europe and Asia.
- HIS 439/EAS 439: China's FrontiersThis seminar will examine how the territorial footprint of the People's Republic of China was created, by exploring the history of its frontier regions. Through units on Tibet, Xinjiang, Taiwan, Manchuria, and the Southwest, we will interrogate concepts of ethnic identity, nationalism, culture, and religion, as well as contested historical claims over territory and sovereignty. Some basic knowledge of modern Chinese history is helpful but not required.
- HIS 472/EAS 472: Medicine and Society in China: Past and PresentThis seminar provides a unique angle of studying Chinese history from antiquity to our present moment through the lens of medicine. Using China as method, it also aims at cultivating a pluralistic and historically informed understanding of medicine as evolving science, cultural system, socio-economic enterprises, and increasingly in the modern world a vital component of domestic and global governance. Through thematically and chronologically organized readings, students hone skills in historical analysis and engage in critical understanding of cultural differences as seen through medicine and health.
- HIS 530/EAS 520: Modern ChinaThis seminar introduces students to major historiographical issues and methodological issues in China's twentieth-century history. The content is divided evenly between the Republic period and PRC history, with occasional forays back to the Qing dynasty. Topics reflect theoretical debates and empirical questions, including: nationalism, civil society, urban life, gender and sexuality, war and revolution, science, law.
- HUM 233/EAS 233/COM 233: East Asian Humanities I: The Classical FoundationsAn introduction to the literature, art, religion and philosophy of China, Japan and Korea from antiquity to ca. 1400. Readings focus on primary texts in translation and are complemented by museum visits and supplementary materials on the course website. The course aims to allow students to explore the unique aspects of East Asian civilizations and the connections between them through an interactive web-based platform, in which assignments are integrated with the texts and media on the website. No prior knowledge of East Asia or experience working with digital media is required.
- HUM 335/EAS 376/HIS 334: A Global History of MonstersThis class analyzes how different cultures imagine monsters and how these representations changed over time to perform different social functions. As negative objectifications of fundamental social structures and conceptions, monsters help us understand the culture that engendered them and the ways in which a society constructs the Other, the deviant, the enemy, the minorities, and the repressed. This course has three goals: it familiarizes students with the semiotics of monsters worldwide; it teaches analytical techniques exportable to other topics and fields; it proposes interpretive strategies of reading culture comparatively.
- JPN 401/EAS 401: Readings in Modern Japanese IThis course is targeted to students whose Japanese proficiency is at an advanced or superior level. Students will (1) discuss various issues using dramas, short novels and editorials, and (2) learn business Japanese. Through these activities, students will develop critical thinking skills as well as Japanese language skills.