Global Arc

North Korea is the subject of an array of often contradictory political and aesthetic representations, each of which make claims to truth. This course sets out to scrutinize these very real and productive imaginaries. Primary engagements will include official speeches and documents, artistic productions and defector testimonies from North Korea, as well as historical research, policy analysis, journalism, and non-state activities from outside the nation's borders. The task of understanding this most troubled of states will be challenged by visits from journalists, former intelligence or policy consultants, defectors, and religious groups.

This is a broad historical examination of Korean cinema from both sides of the DMZ. We start with some rare surviving colonial period films and work our way to the very recent films of the "Korean wave" era. Our thematic focus will be post-coloniality, ideological division, war, national reconstruction, democratization, and intensified global capitalism; our critical focus will be on problems of nation, class, and gender. At the heart of work for the course will be attention to the films themselves, where we will try to account critically for shifts in style and form.

Whether we look at its speed, connectivity and convergence, the geographic reach of its exports, or the contradictions that characterize its relationship to social reality, contemporary Korean media poses provocative questions about conditions of life in Korea and the mechanisms of communications and cultural technologies globally. Through examination of a range of practices across the mediascape (TV dramas, music, webtoons, films, advertisements, etc.) and phenomenon that have arisen from them (the Korean Wave, the rise of national sports heroes, etc.) the class will consider the force of contemporary media in shaping the very idea of Korea.

Knowledge about the world has assumed a variety of forms over history. This course, centered on travel writings by Koreans and about Korea, pursues two interrelated goals. First of all, we will look into the epistemic coordinates that structure travelogue as a genre of perception. Secondly, we will learn about the changing political and cultural contexts around ¿Korea,¿ which defined the modes of mobility and experience of travel in different historical periods. This, in turn, provides us with a concrete historical location, from which we can look out onto the structures of the larger world.

The seminar explores conversion in media discourses and practices of the Cold War, with a focus on Asia. Conversion is approached as a protean figure spanning religious doctrine, forces of economic mobility, cross-cultural encounters, and states of political subjectivity. Its media forms include portrayals of brainwashing, control of networks and content, and ideas about media's hypnotic power. The seminar inquires into how conversion attained heightened conceptual force during the Cold War and will examine quasi-scientific notions of brainwashing, the proliferation of religious cults, and the hardening of ideological binarism.

Using 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-durée 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.

This 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.

Considers the developing repertoire of ideas in China to the end of the Chin period, with key philosophical, political, ethical, and scientific concepts treated in terms of their social context and subsequent influence. One three-hour seminar. A prior course in East Asian studies is desirable but not required.

The main facets and changes in the outlook of the intellectual elite in society and politics from the establishment of the literati in the 11th century to their survival under the Manchu conquest and incursions from Western powers. The focus is on the preservation of cultural integrity in the face of internal and external political and ideological challenges. One three-hour seminar. A prior course in East Asian studies is desirable but not required.

The course considers ethnographies from postwar to present that attempt to make sense of Japanese society through specific theoretical prisms and historical moments. The course also considers Japan as a site to study pressing social issues of global relevance: including foodways and food culture; aging and longevity; public health, work/life balance, and community environments; and global capital.