Global Arc

The seminar will encourage students to think critically about the documentary as artistic medium and as socio-political practice. Some important questions will focus on the form itself: who has produced and watched these films and through what sorts of technologies? What are the codes through which documentaries make sense of their subjects and how do these change? Other questions will have wider scope: how can filmmaking impact politics and culture? How does it deal with the gap between reality and representation? What are the ethical issues of such work? What, if anything, is distinct about the life of documentary films in East Asia?

The course purports to introduce students to various topics in the history of ideas in Japan between 1600 and 1945 as well as to the social and political influence that these ideas had in the three centuries and a half of revolutionary changes from premodernity to the end of the Second World War. It introduces first the language and worldviews of various schools of thought that flourished between 1600 and 1868; it then surveys the main ideas that accompanied Japanese modernization and scientific developments in the late nineteenth century and the birth of modern Japanese philosophy in the twentieth century.

This course will examine modern Japanese fiction and film that engaged with Japan's shift from "empire" to "nation" (roughly from 1930s to 1960s) with a specific focus on identity formation via race, ethnicity, and nationalism.

The seminar will examine key concepts of the mind, the body, and the nature-culture distinction. We will study these issues in the context of Japanese beliefs about the good society, making connections between "lay culture," Japanese notions of social democracy, and "science culture." Topics include: styles of care for the mentally ill, the politics of disability, notions of human life and death, responses to bio-technology, the management of human materials (such as organs), cultural definitions of addiction and "co-dependency," and the ethics of human enhancement.

The history of Japan from the origins of the Japanese people to the establishment of Tokugawa rule in 1600, using the epic war tale The Tale of the Heike as a lens. Particular emphasis will be placed on institutional and cultural history. One three-hour seminar.

The history of Japan during the period of Samurai rule. Distinctive features of Tokugawa society and culture from the foundation of the regime in 1600 to its decline in the 19th century, the opening of Japan to Western contact, the course of economic development, and the consolidation of the Meiji State. Two lectures, one preceptorial.

Close reading of classical Chinese poetry through transliteration, word-to-word explication, notes on allusions and background, and literal translation. Discussion of Chinese theories of poetry and the comparison between Chinese and Western poetic traditions. Knowledge of the Chinese language is not required or expected. One three-hour seminar.

Analysis through selected literary and cinematic works of authors' ideas, hopes, and worries about the fate of modern China. Consideration of literary and cinematic technique as well as the larger historical context. Readings in English.

An introduction to major literary works in the early modern period when Japanese literature was attempting to re-establish itself through Western influences. Readings in English translation include works by Ogai, Soseki, Ichiyo, Toson, and Shiga. Topics include the evolution of modern Japanese fiction vis-a-vis the modernization of Japan, representations of self, individualism, and nationalism.

A critical survey of important literary, critical, and popular texts in postwar Japan. Readings and discussion of translated texts by writers and thinkers such as Kawabata, Oe, Maruyama, and Abe as well as by lesser-known women writers, avant-garde poets, and comic writers. Topics include the impact of war and urbanization, existentialism, ethnicity, postmodernism, and feminism. One three-hour seminar.