East Asian Languages and Cultures

University of California, Berkeley

This is an archived copy of the 2014-15 guide. To access the most recent version of the guide, please visit http://guide.berkeley.edu/.

Overview

The Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures (EALC) was one of the first academic departments devoted to the study of Asia established in the United States. Its history dates back to 1872 when one of the founders of the University of California, Edward Tompkins—convinced that the future of the state and its citizens lay not in the Atlantic 'old world' but in the Pacific—presented the then four-year old institution with its first endowed chair, the Agassiz Professorship of Oriental Languages and Literature. More than a century later, the Department continues to build upon its distinguished tradition of scholarship and service as an innovative and vibrant center for the teaching and research of East Asian languages, literatures, and cultures.

In 1901, the Department began to develop a curriculum in Japanese to complement its initial strengths in Chinese, and in 1942 became the first department in the country to offer instruction in Korean. By the 1960s—in the wake of an unprecedented expansion in the postwar era of Area Studies programs in the American academy—UC Berkeley and the department cemented its national preeminence in the study of East Asia, and played host to many of the most renowned modern scholars of Chinese and Japanese linguistics, literature, and cultural history.

Today, the department offers a comprehensive curriculum in the East Asian humanities for both undergraduate and graduate students that encompasses modern and classical languages, literatures, philosophies, and cultures. Faculty research and teaching interests are diverse and interdisciplinary, running the gamut from premodern literary and artistic expression to contemporary writing and popular cultures.

EALC is also at the center of a lively campus-wide community devoted to the study of East Asia, and EALC students benefit immensely from the expertise of over fifty Berkeley faculty members conducting research on China, Japan, and Korea in disciplines such as Anthropology, Architecture, Art History, Comparative Literature, Economics, Film, Geography, History, Journalism, Music, Political Science, and Sociology.

Language Exams

The department offers two types of language exams: placement and proficiency. Placement exams are for those students who plan to enroll in one of our language courses. Proficiency exams are for students who wish to waive a college major or foreign language requirement without taking a course.

Undergraduate Programs

Chinese Language : BA
Japanese Language : BA
Chinese Language : Minor
Japanese Language : Minor
Korean Language : Minor

Graduate Programs

Chinese Language : PhD
Japanese Language : PhD

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Courses

Select a subject to view courses

Chinese

CHINESE 1 Intensive Elementary Chinese 10 Units

This course is the equivalent of CHINESE 1A and CHINESE 1B offered in the regular academic year.

CHINESE 1A Elementary Chinese 5 Units

The course is designed for students who are of non-Chinese origin and were not raised in a Chinese-speaking environment; or who are of Chinese origin but do not speak Chinese and whose parents do not speak Chinese. The course develops beginning learners’ functional language ability—the ability to use Mandarin Chinese in linguistically and culturally appropriate ways at the beginning level. It helps students acquire communicative competence in Chinese while sensitizing them to the links between language and culture.

CHINESE 1B Elementary Chinese 5 Units

The course is designed for students who are of non-Chinese origin and were not raised in a Chinese-speaking environment, or who are of Chinese origin but do not speak Chinese and whose parents do not speak Chinese. The course continues to focus on training students in the four language skills--speaking, listening, reading, and writing with a gradually increasing emphasis on basic cultural readings and developing intercultural competence.

CHINESE 1X Elementary Chinese for Mandarin Speakers 4 Units

This course is designed specifically for heritage Chinese students who possess speaking skill but little or no reading and writing skills in Chinese. The course utilizes students’ prior knowledge of listening and speaking skills to advance them to the intermediate Chinese proficiency level in one semester. Close attention is paid to meeting heritage students’ literacy needs in meaningful contexts while introducing a functional vocabulary and a systematic review of structures through culturally related topics. The Hanyu Pinyin (a Chinese Romanization system) and traditional/simplified characters are introduced.

CHINESE 1Y Elementary Chinese for Dialect Speakers 5 Units

The course is designed for students who have had exposure to a non-Mandarin Chinese dialect but cannot speak Mandarin and possess little or no reading and writing skills in Chinese. The course helps students gain a fundamental knowledge about Mandarin Chinese and explore their Chinese heritage culture through language. Students learn ways and discourse strategies to express themselves and develop their linguistic and cultural awareness in order to function appropriately in Mandarin-speaking environments.

CHINESE 7A Introduction to Premodern Chinese Literature and Culture 4 Units

The first in a two-semester sequence, introducing students to Chinese literature in translation. In addition to literary sources, a wide range of philosophical and historical texts will be covered, as well as aspects of visual and material culture. 7A covers early China through late medieval China, up to and including the Yuan Dynasty (14th century); the course will also focus on the development of sound writing.

CHINESE 7B Introduction to Modern Chinese Literature and Culture 4 Units

The second of a two-semester sequence introducing students to Chinese literature in translation. In addition to literary sources, a wide range of philosophical and historical texts will be covered, as well as aspects of visual and material culture. 7B focuses on late imperial, modern, and contemporary China. The course will focus on the development of sound writing skills.

CHINESE 10 Intensive Intermediate Chinese 10 Units

This course is equivalent to CHINESE 10A and CHINESE 10B offered in the regular academic year.

CHINESE 10A Intermediate Chinese 5 Units

The course is designed for students who are of non-Chinese origin and were not raised in a Chinese-speaking environment, or who are of Chinese origin but do not speak Chinese and whose parents do not speak Chinese. The course deals with lengthy conversations as well as narrative and descriptive texts in both simplified and traditional characters. It helps students to express themselves in speaking and writing on a range of topics and raises their awareness of the connection between language and culture to foster the development of communicative competence.

CHINESE 10B Intermediate Chinese 5 Units

The course further develops students’ linguistic and cultural competence. In dealing with texts, students are guided to interpret, narrate, describe, and discuss topics ranging from real-life experience and personal memoire to historic events. Intercultural competence is promoted through linguistic and cultural awareness and language use in culturally appropriate contexts.

CHINESE 10X Intermediate Chinese for Mandarin Speakers 4 Units

The course continues to develop students’ literacy and communicative competence through vocabulary and structure expansion dealing with topics related to Chinese heritage students’ personal experiences. Students are guided to express themselves on complex issues and to connect their language knowledge with real world experiences.

CHINESE 10Y Intermediate Chinese for Dialect Speakers 5 Units

The course helps students further develop their linguistic and cultural competence in Mandarin Chinese. It trains students to use Mandarin more appropriately and confidently in speaking, reading, and writing. With the expanded repertoire of Chinese language use and the increased awareness of the differences between cultures and subcultures, students are equipped to negotiate their way in an intercultural environment.

CHINESE 51 Chinese Thought in the Han Dynasty 4 Units

This course examines the complex worldviews of China’s Han period, the centuries that follow its unification and the establishment of its empire. The momentous changes of this period shaped traditional and contemporary views of history and society, philosophy, and religion, and as a result are still relevant today. This course will look at Han “thought,” a word chosen for its range, including religion, state ritual, social conventions, moral philosophy, and thinking about the natural world. It covers both elite and popular culture, and pays particular attention to two works of the second century B.C.E.: the Shiji (i.e., Records of the Historian) or the Huainanzi.

CHINESE 98 Directed Group Study for Lower Division Students 1 - 4 Units

Small group instruction in topics not covered by regularly scheduled courses.

CHINESE 99 Independent Study for Lower Division Students 1 - 4 Units

Independent study in topics not covered by regularly scheduled courses.

CHINESE 100A Advanced Chinese 5 Units

The course takes students to a higher level of competence in Chinese language and culture and develops students’ critical linguistic and cultural awareness. It surveys social issues and values on more abstract topics in a changing China. Through the development of discourse and cultural knowledge in spoken and written Chinese, students learn to interpret subtle textual meanings in texts and contexts as well as reflect on the world and themselves and express themselves using a variety of genres.

CHINESE 100B Advanced Chinese 5 Units

The course continues the development of critical awareness by emphasizing the link between socio-cultural literacy and a higher level of language competence. While continuing to expand their critical literacy skills, students interpret texts related to Chinese popular culture, social change, cultural traditions, politics and history. Through linguistic and cultural comparisons, students understand more about people in the target society and themselves as well as about the power of language in language use to enhance their competence in operating between languages and associated cultures.

CHINESE 100XA Advanced Chinese for Mandarin Speakers 4 Units

The course advances students’ linguistic and cultural competence through the development of critical literacy skills. It guides students to become more sophisticated language users equipped with linguistic, pragmatic, and textual knowledge in discussions, reading, writing, and translation. Students reflect on the world and themselves through the lens of the target language and culture and become more competent in operating between English and Chinese and between American culture and Chinese culture.

CHINESE 100XB Advanced Chinese for Mandarin Speakers 4 Units

The course continues to develop students’ critical literacy skills in interpreting texts and writing in different genres and styles. It engages students to use their linguistic knowledge and skills to survey portions of Chinese history and society and comprehend Chinese cultural heritage in contemporary and historic economic, social, and political contexts. Students are guided to explore how language constructs subjective realities and contrast their own meanings in language production. The development of critical literacy and an understanding of the power of language in language use enables students to enhance their competence in operating between languages and associated cultures.

CHINESE 100YA Advanced Chinese for Dialect Speakers 4 Units

This course helps Chinese heritage language learners with a dialect background to further develop their Chinese language competence. More sophisticated linguistic forms are used with various socio-cultural topics. Close reading knowledge and skills, formal and informal registers, discourses in speaking and writing, and different genres of Chinese reading and writing are introduced and practiced. Students learn to recognize a second version of Chinese characters.

CHINESE 100YB Advanced Chinese for Dialect Speakers 4 Units

This course is for students who have taken CHINESE 100YA or an equivalent course. It further develops their Chinese language competence. It guides students to investigate, explain, and reflect on the nature of language used in the texts and on the cultural perspective embedded in the language. Close reading knowledge and skills, formal and informal registers, discourses in speaking and writing, and different genres of Chinese reading and writing are practiced and used by students. They also are required to read texts in two versions of Chinese characters.

CHINESE 101 Fourth-Year Chinese Readings: Literature 4 Units

The course is designed to assist students to reach the advanced-mid level on language skills and to enhance their intercultural competence. Students read the works of famous Chinese writers. Movie adaptations of these writings are also used. In addition to reading and seeking out information, students experience readings by interpreting and constructing meanings and evaluate the effect of the language form choice.

CHINESE 102 Fourth-Year Chinese Readings: Social Sciences and History 4 Units

The course is designed to further develop students’ advanced-mid level language proficiency and intercultural competence. It uses authentic readings on Chinese social, political, and journalistic issues, supplemented by newspaper articles. To develop students’ self-learning abilities and help them to link the target language to their real world experience, students’ agency in learning is promoted through critical reading and rewriting and through comparing linguistic and cultural differences.

CHINESE 105 Business Chinese 6 Units

Daily topics of instruction include media Chinese, reading business Chinese, and oral training. This course covers intensive instruction in third-year Chinese with an emphasis on business terminology and introduction to cultural knowledge specific to conducting business in the Chinese environment. Two afternoons per week are devoted to field trips related to the topics of study including visits to banks and businesses, government units, museums, and guided tours of the city.

CHINESE 110 Introduction to Literary Chinese 8 Units

This ten-week course is an introduction to the core vocabulary and basic grammar of literary Chinese and is designed to provide students with the skills necessary for advanced reading in the various genres of literary Chinese. We will focus on reading skills through the introduction of basic grammatical features of the language and through the intensive study of actual texts. This course is the equivalent of CHINESE 110A-110B offered in the regular academic year.

CHINESE 110A Introduction to Literary Chinese 4 Units

The first half of a one-year introductory course in literary Chinese, introducing key features of grammar, syntax, and usage, along with the intensive study of a set of readings in the language. Readings are drawn from a variety of pre-Han and Han-Dynasty sources.

CHINESE 110B Introduction to Literary Chinese 4 Units

The second half of a one-year introductory course in literary Chinese, continuing the topics from the first semester, and giving basic coverage of relevant issues in the history of the language and writing system. The use of basic reference sources is introduced.

CHINESE 111 Fifth-Year Readings: Reading and Analysis of Advanced Chinese Texts 4 Units

This fast-paced course improves students’ abilities to use advanced language forms to read and discuss a wide range of abstract subjects and issues. This includes literature, philosophy, law, economics, history, cross-Strait relations, geography, and movie criticism. The course also develops students’ ability to read articles that contain both formal and informal and modern and classic Chinese usages. Students learn to identify and explain the classical Chinese allusions used in the articles and compare them to their modern counterparts. Students use the Chinese language in their fields of study and are directed to write a professional paper in their academic field.

CHINESE 112 Fifth-Year Readings: Chinese for Research and Professional Use 4 Units

This fast-paced course is designed to help the student reach an advanced-high competence level in all aspects of modern Chinese. It prepares students for research or employment in a variety of China-related fields. Materials are drawn from native-speaker target publications, including modern Chinese literature, film, intellectual history, and readings on contemporary issues. Texts are selected according to the students’ interests. Under the instructor’s guidance, students conduct their own research projects based on specialized readings in their own fields of study. Research projects are presented both orally and in written form.

CHINESE C116 Buddhism in China 4 Units

This course is an introduction to the history of Buddhism in China from its beginnings in the early centuries CE to the present day. Through engagement with historical scholarship, primary sources in translation, and Chinese Buddhist art, we will explore the intellectual history and cultural impact of Buddhism in China. Students will also be introduced to major issues in the institutional history of Buddhism, the interactions between Buddhism and indigenous Chinese religions, and the relationship between Buddhism and the state. Previous study of Buddhism is helpful but not required.

CHINESE 120 Ancient Chinese Prose 4 Units

Readings in historical, religious, and philosophical texts of the Zhou, Han, and later periods from both printed and manuscript sources.

CHINESE 122 Ancient Chinese Poetry 4 Units

Readings from the Shijing (book of Odes), the Chuci (song of Chu), and selections from other early compilations of poetry.

CHINESE 130 Topics in Daoism 4 Units

Readings in printed and manuscript sources that relate to early Chinese popular religion, the Celestial Masters tradition, medieval Daoist revelations (e.g., Shangqing and Lingbao texts), Daoism and the state, interactions with other traditions, liturgy, alchemy, drama, and modern Daoist practices in China and the diaspora.

CHINESE 134 Readings in Classical Chinese Poetry 4 Units

Introduction to the forms and subtypes of classical poetry, focusing on both learning to read poems in the original as well as developing the critical and analytical tools to discuss and respond to them in an informed way.

CHINESE 136 Readings in Medieval Prose 4 Units

Thematic focus and range of readings will vary. The course will deal with readings from one or more genres of classical Chinese prose, such as essays, epigraphical materials, historical works, classical tales, administrative documents, scholars' notes, geographical treatises, or travel diaries.

CHINESE C140 Readings in Chinese Buddhist Texts 4 Units

This course is an introduction to the study of medieval Buddhist literature written in classical Chinese. We will read samples from a variety of genres, including early Chinese translations of Sanskrit and Central Asian Buddhist scriptures, indigenous Chinese commentaries, philosophical treatises, and sectarian works, including Chan (Zen koans). The course will also serve as an introduction to resource materials used in the study of Chinese Buddhist texts, and students will be expected to make use of a variety of reference tools in preparation for class. Readings in Chinese will be supplemented by a range of secondary readings in English on Mahayana doctrine and Chinese Buddhist history.

CHINESE 153 Reading Taiwan 4 Units

This course is an intensive introduction to Taiwanese literature and media culture.

CHINESE 155 Readings in Vernacular Chinese Literature 4 Units

A critical study of pre-modern Chinese fiction.

CHINESE 156 Modern Chinese Literature 4 Units

This course will introduce students to selected works of modern Chinese literature produced in the first half of the 20th century, as well as their cultural and historical context. How did writers such as Lu Xun, Shen Congwen, Eileen Chang, and others attempt to make themselves "at home" in a world profoundly dislocated by the forces of colonialism, war, and revolution? We will examine the politics of literary style, questions of nationalism, representations of gender, and the problem of colonial modernity in these texts. All primary texts are presented in the original Chinese, supplemented by critical and biographical articles in English.

CHINESE 157 Contemporary Chinese Literature 4 Units

This course explores popular, realist, and avant-garde literature from mainland China and Taiwan since 1949. We will consider how writers have engaged with the cultural dislocations of modernity by exploring questions such as the presentation of cultural and gender identities and the politics of memory and place. Central to our discussion will be the problem of how literature not only reflects but also critically engages with historical and cultural experience through a variety of genres. A crucial aspect of this course will be the development of skills in close, critical, and historically contextualized reading.

CHINESE 158 Reading Chinese Cities 4 Units

Chinese cities are the sites of complicated global/local interconnections as the nation is increasingly incorporated into the world system. Understanding Chinese cities is the key to analyzing the dramatic transformation of Chinese society and culture. This course is designed to teach students to think about Chinese cities in more textured ways. How are urban forms and urban spaces produced through processes of social, political, and ideological conflict? How are cities represented in literary, cinematic, and various popular cultures? How has our imagination of the city been shaped and how are these spatial discourses influencing the making of the cities of tomorrow?

CHINESE 159 Cities and the Country 4 Units

This course explores one of the most central and potent areas of cultural politics in modern China: the city and its relations to the countryside. We will explore how urban space and native soil became central places of imagination and desire in modernity; how Beijing and Shanghai become mediums of imagining differing meanings of "modernity" and "tradition," "Chinese" and "Western," and cultural authenticity; the repeated reformist and revolutionary desire to return from the city back to the countryside; as well as more recent mass migrations from the countryside during a time of (and as part of) drastic urban destruction and "renewal."

CHINESE 161 Structure of the Chinese Language 4 Units

Chinese dialects, Mandarin phonology, and Mandarin grammar.

CHINESE 165 History of the Chinese Language 4 Units

Writing system, early dictionaries, historical phonology, and classical grammar.

CHINESE 172 Contemporary Chinese Language Cinema 4 Units

This course introduces Chinese language cinema since the late 1970s. Depending on the semester, the class will either focus on the distinct new waves in the three regions of Mainland, Taiwan, or Hong Kong, or cover all three regions to examine to what extent these “New Cinemas” share similar concerns on questions of gender, politics, remembrance, and urbanization.

CHINESE 176 Bad Emperors: Fantasies of Sovereignty and Transgression in the Chinese Tradition 4 Units

Ideals of good governance are a core concern of many brands of traditional Chinese thought. The image of the ruler whose authority is exercised in harmony with the desires and interests of the society at large plays a key role not only in theories of governance but also in thought about ethics and psychology. There is also a fascination with the bad ruler. In addition to serving as negative examples just as good rulers serve as positive examples, bad rulers also provide an imaginative space for thinking about extremes of human will, offering an outlet for fantasy and vicarious gratification of desires that normally remain taboo.

CHINESE 178 Traditional Chinese Drama 4 Units

This course introduces the history of traditional Chinese drama from the thirteenth to seventeenth centuries, covering important works from a wide range of genres (farcical, religious, detective, martial arts, historical, and romantic). We study Chinese theater in the context of pleasure precincts, ad hoc markets, ritual parades, and printed matter. The underlying questions we ask are: how did different kinds of spatial structure historically define performance? And how did these varied spatial configurations orient the relationship of the audience to the performance differently? And what general implications did the theatrical space have for the constitution of the self and for social formation in medieval and early modern China?

CHINESE 179 Exploring Premodern Chinese Novels 4 Units

Vernacular fiction in late imperial China emerged at the margins of official historiography, traveled through oral storytelling, and reached sophistication in the hands of literati. Covering the major genres and masterpieces of traditional Chinese novels including military, martial arts, libertine, and romantic stories, this course investigates how shifting boundaries brought about significant transformations of Chinese narrative at the levels of both form and content.

CHINESE 180 The Story of the Stone 4 Units

This course centers around intensive reading and analysis of Cao Xueqin’s 18th-century masterpiece of Chinese fiction (also known as the Dream of the Red Chamber). Students will be introduced to the literary, cultural, philosophical, and material world from which this work emerged, as well as various approaches to the world within the text.

CHINESE C184 Sonic Culture in China 4 Units

This course explores the aesthetics and politics of sound - both musical and otherwise - in Chinese cultures. Through musical discourse and literary discourses on music, we trace the ways in which sound has been produced, heard, understood, and debated in both pre-modern and modern China. Topics include Confucian musical theory, Daoist hermeneutics, music, and poetry; the impact of recording technology and Western music; urban popular musics, sound and cinema, and contemporary soundscapes.

CHINESE 186 Confucius and His Interpreters 4 Units

This course examines the development of Confucianism in pre-modern China using a dialogical model that emphasizes its interactions with competing viewpoints. Particular attention will be paid to ritual, conceptions of human nature, ethics, and to the way that varieties of Confucianism were rooted in more general theories of value.

CHINESE 187 Literature and Media Culture in Taiwan 4 Units

This course is an intensive introduction in English translation to the history, literature, and media culture of Taiwan.

CHINESE 188 Popular Culture in 20th-Century China 4 Units

This course is an introduction to media culture in 20th-century China, with an emphasis on photography, cinema, and popular music. The course places these productions in historical and cultural context, examining the complex intertwinement of culture, technology, and politics in China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan from the turn of the last century to the beginning of the 21st. Students will also be introduced to a number of approaches to thinking about and analyzing popular cultural phenomena.

CHINESE 189 Chinese Landscapes: Space, Place, and Travel 4 Units

What do landscapes "do"? How do landscape images and travel narratives mediate experiences of land, nature, and other peoples? How do landscapes map one's place in the world, shaping both cultural identities and real geographic spaces? Can landscapes travel? This course explores such questions by examining one of the world's longest-running traditions of landscape representation. We will consider such landscape genres as poetry, prose description, fiction, travel narrative, maps, painting, and photography, and consider their work across China's long history of imperial expansion, colonization, and globalization. We will also consider China's places in thinking about landscape and travel in the West.

CHINESE H195A Honors Course 2 - 5 Units

Directed independent study and preparation of senior honors thesis. Limited to senior honors candidates in East Asian Languages (for description of Honors Program, see Index).

CHINESE H195B Honors Course 2 - 5 Units

Directed independent study and preparation of senior honors thesis. Limited to senior honors candidates in East Asian Languages (for description of Honors Program, see Index).

CHINESE 198 Directed Group Study 1 - 4 Units

Small group instruction in topics not covered by regularly scheduled courses.

CHINESE 199 Independent Study 1 - 4 Units

Independent study in topics not covered by regularly scheduled courses.

East Asian Languages

EA LANG 24 Freshman Seminar 1 Unit

The Freshman Seminar Program has been designed to provide new students with the opportunity to explore an intellectual topic with a faculty member in a small seminar setting. Freshman seminars are offered in all campus departments and topics vary from department to department and semester to semester. Enrollment limited to fifteen freshmen.

EA LANG C50 Introduction to the Study of Buddhism 4 Units

This introduction to the study of Buddhism will consider materials drawn from various Buddhist traditions of Asia, from ancient times down to the present day. However, the course is not intended to be a comprehensive or systematic survey; rather than aiming at breadth, the course is designed around key themes such as ritual, image veneration, mysticism, meditation, and death. The overarching emphasis throughout the course will be on the hermeneutic difficulties attendant upon the study of religion in general, and Buddhism in particular.

EA LANG 84 Sophomore Seminar 1 or 2 Units

Sophomore seminars are small interactive courses offered by faculty members in departments all across the campus. Sophomore seminars offer opportunity for close, regular intellectual contact between faculty members and students in the crucial second year. The topics vary from department to department and semester to semester. Enrollment limited to 15 sophomores.

EA LANG 101 Catastrophe, Memory, and Narrative: Comparative Responses to Atrocity in the Twentieth Century 4 Units

This course will examine comparative responses to and representations of violent conflict. We will pay attention to how catastrophic events are productive of new forms of expression--oral, written, and visual--as well as destructive of familiar ones. We will examine the ways in which experience and its representation interact during and in the aftermath of extreme violence. Our empirical cases will be drawn from our research on responses to WWII atrocities, and on the post-Cold War civil wars in Africa.

EA LANG 103 Writing, Visuality, and the Powers of Images 4 Units

This course examines how fictional and historical texts from Asia and the West explore beliefs in the powers of images and their implication in questions of knowledge and power, the borders of life and death, and the politics of gender, history, memory, and culture. We'll track how such beliefs change, persist, and are re-appropriated across historical time and cultural space, and consider the critical light "premodern" texts from our "modern" world of images project upon each other.

EA LANG 105 Dynamics of Romantic Core Values in East Asian Premodern Literature and Contemporary Film 4 Units

This course explores representation of romantic love in East Asian cultures in premodern and post-modern contexts. Students develop a better understanding of the similarities and differences in traditional values in three East Asian cultures by comparing how canonical texts of premodern China, Japan and Korea represent romantic relationship. This is followed by the study of several contemporary East Asian films, giving the student the opportunity to explore how traditional values persist, change, or become nexus points of resistance.

EA LANG 106 Expressing the Ineffable in China and Beyond: The Making of Meaning in Poetic Writing 4 Units

This course will explore how the Chinese and English-language literary traditions (broadly defined) delineate the realm of the ineffable, and how cultural notions of the inexpressible shape the writing and reading of poems, songs, and a selection of prose pieces, from the uses of figurative language and prosody to genre and canon formation. In addition, in order to deepen our understanding of how writing achieves its aims, some attention will be given to nonverbal modes of expression, including calligraphy and painting--and attempts to render them in writing. Over this course of study, students will not only refine their sensitivity to the power of artistic modes of indirection, but will also hone their skills in close reading, analytical writing, and oral expression. All readings will be in English.

EA LANG 107 War, Empire, and Literature in East Asia 4 Units

This course will examine war, empire, and the writing and memorialization of history through an eclectic group of literary, graphic, and cinematic texts from China, Japan, Europe, and the U.S.

EA LANG 108 Revising the Classics: Chinese and Greek Poetry in Translation 4 Units

This course will explore poetic translation, across languages, across cultures, and across historical ages, not merely from the perspective of the "accuracy" with which a classic text is represented in the translation, but as a window into the nature of poetic tradition and poetic writing itself. Works will be primarily drawn from the Chinese tradition, but in the interest of allowing a comparative discussion of the course's central themes, a significant amount of reading from ancient and modern Greek poetry will be included as well. The goal of the class is not simply to gain familiarity with Chinese poetry and poets, but more fundamentally to gain skill and sophistication in reading, responding to, and thinking about poetry.

EA LANG 109 History of the Culture of Tea in China and Japan 4 Units

In this course we compare the cultural traditions of tea in China and Japan. In addition, using tea as the case study, we analyze the mechanics of the flow of culture across both national boundaries and social practices (such as between poetry and the tea ceremony). Understanding the tea culture of these countries informs students of important and enduring aspects of both cultures, provides an opportunity to discuss the role of religion and art in social practice, provides a forum for cultural comparison, and provides as well an example of the relationship between the two countries and Japanese methods of importing and naturalizing another country's social practice. Korean tea traditions are also briefly considered.

EA LANG 110 Bio-Ethical Issues in East Asian Thought 4 Units

This course will explore some of the most difficult bioethical issues confronting the world today from the perspective of traditional values embedded in the cultural history of India, China, and Japan as evidenced in their religions, legal codes, and political history. Possible topics include population control, abortion, sex-selection, euthanasia, suicide, genetic manipulation, brain-death, and organ transplants.

EA LANG 112 The East Asian Sixties 4 Units

The 1960s were a time of historical transformation and upheaval in East Asia. It saw the overthrow of political regimes, the consolidation of communism, unprecedented capitalist expansion, and the emergence of new technologies that affected aesthetic production and consumption. This course explores the multiple aspects of culture, aesthetics, and politics that defined this moment. It asks how and why we can define the 1960s as a period, while considering the significance of defining East Asia (a term which denotes an imagined space of relations) as a particular region at this time.

EA LANG 118 Sex and Gender in Premodern Chinese Culture 4 Units

This course explores Chinese cultures of sex and gender from antiquity to the seventeenth century. We concentrate on three interconnected issues: women’s status, homoeroticism, and the human body. Our discussion will be informed by cross-cultural comparisons with ancient Greece, Renaissance England, and Contemporary America. In contrast to our modern regime of sexuality, which collapses all the three aforementioned issues into the issues of desire and identity intrinsic to the body, we will see how the early Chinese regime of sexual act evolved into the early modern regime of emotion that concerned less inherent identities than a media culture of life-style performance.

EA LANG C120 Buddhism on the Silk Road 4 Units

This course will discuss the social, economic, and cultural aspects of Buddhism as it moved along the ancient Eurasian trading network referred to as the “Silk Road”. Instead of relying solely on textual sources, the course will focus on material culture as it offers evidence concerning the spread of Buddhism. Through an examination of the Buddhist archaeological remains of the Silk Road, the course will address specific topics, such as the symbiotic relationship between Buddhism and commerce; doctrinal divergence; ideological shifts in the iconography of the Buddha; patronage (royal, religious and lay); Buddhism and political power; and art and conversion. All readings will be in English.

EA LANG C126 Buddhism and the Environment 4 Units

A thematic course on Buddhist perspectives on nature and Buddhist responses to environmental issues. The first half of the course focuses on East Asian Buddhist cosmological and doctrinal perspectives on the place of the human in nature and the relationship between the salvific goals of Buddhism and nature. The second half of the course examines Buddhist ethics, economics, and activism in relation to environmental issues in contemporary Southeast Asia, East Asia, and America.

EA LANG C128 Buddhism in Contemporary Society 4 Units

A study of the Buddhist tradition as it is found today in Asia. The course will focus on specific living traditions of East, South, and/or Southeast Asia. Themes to be addressed may include contemporary Buddhist ritual practices; funerary and mortuary customs; the relationship between Buddhism and other local religious traditions; the relationship between Buddhist institutions and the state; Buddhist monasticism and its relationship to the laity; Buddhist ethics; Buddhist "modernism," and so on.

EA LANG C130 Zen Buddhism 4 Units

This course will introduce students to the Zen Buddhist traditions of China and Japan, drawing on a variety of disciplinary perspectives (history, anthropology, philosophy, and so on). The course will also explore a range of hermeneutic problems (problems involved in interpretation) entailed in understanding a sophisticated religious tradition that emerged in a time and culture very different from our own.

EA LANG C132 Pure Land Buddhism 4 Units

This course will discuss the historical development of the Pure Land school of East Asian Buddhism, the largest form of Buddhism practiced today in China and Japan. The curriculum is divided into India, China, and Japan sections, with the second half of the course focusing exclusively on Japan where this form of religious culture blossomed most dramatically, covering the ancient, medieval, and modern periods. The curriculum will begin with a reading of the core scriptures that form the basis of the belief system and then move into areas of cultural expression. The course will follow two basic trajectories over the centuries: doctrine/philosophy and culture/society.

EA LANG C135 Tantric Traditions of Asia 4 Units

The emergence of the tantras in seventh and eighth-century India marked a watershed for religious practice throughout Asia. These esoteric scriptures introduced complex new ritual technologies that transformed the religious traditions of India, from Brahmanism to Jainism and Buddhism, as well as those of Southeast Asia, Tibet, Mongolia, China, Korea, and Japan. This course provides an overview of tantric religion across these regions.

EA LANG C175 Archaeology of East Asia 4 Units

Prehistoric and protohistoric archaeology in China, Japan, and Korea.

EA LANG 180 East Asian Film: Directors and their Contexts 4 Units

A close analysis of the oeuvre of an East Asian director in its aesthetic, cultural, and political contexts.

EA LANG 181 East Asian Film: Special Topics in Genre 4 Units

The study of East Asian films as categorized either by industry-identified genres (westerns, horror films, musicals, film noir, etc.) or broader interpretive modes (melodrama, realism, fantasy, etc).

EA LANG 191 Tools and Methods in the Study of East Asian Philosophy and Religion 4 Units

This course is a capstone experience that centers on the philosophies and religions of East Asia examined from multiple theoretical perspectives. It comprises several thematic units within which a short set of readings about theory are followed by chronologically arranged readings about East Asia. Themes will alternate from year to year but may include: ritual and performance studies; religion and evolution; definitions of religion and theories of its origins; and the role of sacrifice.

EA LANG H195A Honors Course 2 - 5 Units

Directed independent study and preparation of senior honors thesis. Limited to senior honors candidates in the East Asian Religion, Thought, and Culture major (for description of Honors Program, see Index).

EA LANG H195B Honors Course 2 - 5 Units

Directed independent study and preparation of senior honors thesis. Limited to senior honors candidates in the East Asian Religion, Thought, and Culture major (for description of Honors Program, see Index).

EA LANG 198 Directed Group Study 1 - 4 Units

Small group instruction in topics not covered by regularly scheduled courses.

EA LANG 199 Independent Study 1 - 4 Units

Independent study in topics not covered by regularly scheduled courses.

Japanese

JAPAN 1 Intensive Elementary Japanese 10 Units

This course is the equivalent of Japan 1A and Japan 1B offered in the regular academic year.

JAPAN 1A Elementary Japanese 5 Units

Japanese 1A is designed to develop basic Japanese language skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing. Students will learn the Japanese writing system: hiragana, katakana and approximately 150 kanji. At the end of the course, students should be able to greet, invite, compare, and describe persons and things, activities, intensions, ability, experience, purposes, reasons, and wishes. Grades will be determined on the basis of attendance, quiz scores, homework and class participation.

JAPAN 1AL Supplementary Work in Listening-Elementary 1 Unit

Designed to supplement JAPAN 1A in order to facilitate students' listening proficiency. JAPAN 1AL will cover a variety of listening strategies.

JAPAN 1AS Supplementary Work in Kanji 1 Unit

This course designed to be taken concurrently with Japan 1A to help students improve overall kanji performance. The course will make the kanji learning process easier by providing exercises and background information about the relationships between characters and how they function.

JAPAN 1B Elementary Japanese 5 Units

Japanese 1B is designed to develop basic skills acquired in Japanese 1A further. Students will learn approximately 150 new kanji. At the end of the course students should be able to express regret, positive and negative requirements, chronological order of events, conditions, giving and receiving of objects and favors, and to ask and give advice. Grades will be determined on the basis of attendance, quiz scores, homework and class participation.

JAPAN 1BL Supplementary Work in Listening-Elementary 1 Unit

Designed to supplement JAPAN 1B in order to facilitate students' listening proficiency. Students will apply the strategies learned in Japan 1AL in listening activities.

JAPAN 1BS Supplementary Work in Kanji 1 Unit

This course designed to be taken concurrently with Japan 1B to help students improve overall kanji performance. The course will make the kanji learning process easier by providing exercises and background information about the relationships between characters and how they function.

JAPAN 7A Introduction to Premodern Japanese Literature and Culture 4 Units

This course is an overview of Japanese literature and culture, 7th- through 18th-centuries. 7A begins with Japan's early myth-history and its first poetry anthology, which show the transition from a preliterate, communal society to a courtly culture. Noblewomen's diaries, poetry anthologies, and selections from the Tale of Genji offer a window into that culture. We examine how oral culture and high literary art mix in Kamakura period tales and explore representations of heroism in military chronicles and medieval Noh drama. After considering the linked verse of late medieval times, we read vernacular literature from the urban culture of the Edo period. No previous course work in Japanese literature, history, or language is expected.

JAPAN 7B Introduction to Modern Japanese Literature and Culture 4 Units

An introduction to Japanese literature in translation in a two-semester sequence. 7B provides a survey of important works of 19th- and 20th-century Japanese fiction, poetry, and cultural criticism. The course will explore the manner in which writers responded to the challenges of industrialization, internationalization, and war. Topics include the shifting notions of tradition and modernity, the impact of Westernization on the constructions of the self and gender, writers and the wartime state, literature of the atomic bomb, and postmodern fantasies and aesthetics. All readings are in English translation. Techniques of critical reading and writing will be introduced as an integral part of the course.

JAPAN 10 Intensive Intermediate Japanese 10 Units

This course is the equivalent of Japan 10A and Japan 10B offered in the regular academic year.

JAPAN 10A Intermediate Japanese 5 Units

The goal of this course is for the students to understand the language and culture required to communicate effectively in Japanese. Some of the cultural aspects covered are; geography, speech style, technology, sports, food, and religion. Through the final project, students will learn how to discuss social issues and their potential solutions. In order to achieve these goals, students will learn how to integrate the basic linguistics knowledge they acquired in J1, as well as study new structures and vocabulary. An increasing amount of reading and writing, including approximately 200 new kanji, will also be required.

JAPAN 10AG Supplementary Work in Grammar - Intermediate 1 Unit

This supplementary course is designed for students who are concurrently enrolled in Japan 10A to enable their acquisition of a better understanding of Japanese grammar in general and clause linkage in particular.

JAPAN 10AS Supplementary Work in Kanji - Intermediate 1 Unit

This supplementary course is designed for students who are concurrently enrolled in Japan 10A to acquire a better understanding of kanji writing system and to improve overall kanji performance.

JAPAN 10B Intermediate Japanese 5 Units

The goal of this course is for the students to understand the more advanced language and culture required to communicate effectively in Japanese. Some of the cultural aspects covered are; pop-culture, traditional arts, education, convenient stores, haiku, and history. Through the final project, students will learn how to introduce their own cultures and their influences. In order to achieve these goals, students will learn how to integrate the basic structures and vocabulary they acquired in the previous semesters, as well as study new linguistic expressions. An increasing amount of more advanced reading and writing, including approximately 200 new kanji, will also be required.

JAPAN 10BG Supplementary Work in Grammar - Intermediate 1 Unit

This supplementary course is designed for students who are concurrently enrolled in Japan 10B to enable their acquisition of a better understanding of Japanese grammar in general and clause linkage in particular.

JAPAN 10BS Supplementary Work in Kanji-Intermediate 1 Unit

This supplementary course is designed for students who are concurrently enrolled in Japan 10B to acquire a better understanding of kanji writing system and to improve overall kanji performance.

JAPAN 10X Intermediate Japanese for Heritage Learners 5 Units

This course is designed specifically for heritage learners who possess high fluency in casual spoken Japanese but little reading and writing abilities. It introduces formal speech styles, reinforces grammatical accuracy, and improves reading and writing competencies through materials derived from various textual genres. Students will acquire the amounts of vocabulary, grammar, and kanji equivalent to those of Japan 10A and Japan 10B.

JAPAN 24 Freshman Seminar 1 Unit

The Freshman Seminar Program has been designed to provide new students with the opportunity to explore an intellectual topic with a faculty member in a small-seminar setting. Freshman seminars are offered in all campus departments, and topics vary from department to department and semester to semester.

JAPAN 84 Sophomore Seminar 1 or 2 Units

Sophomore seminars are small interactive courses offered by faculty members in departments all across the campus. Sophomore seminars offer opportunity for close, regular intellectual contact between faculty members and students in the crucial second year. The topics vary from department to department and semester to semester. Enrollment limited to 15 sophomores.

JAPAN 98 Directed Group Study for Lower Division Students 1 - 4 Units

Small group instruction in topics not covered by regularly scheduled courses.

JAPAN 99 Independent Study for Lower Division Students 1 - 4 Units

Independent study in topics not covered by regularly scheduled courses.

JAPAN 100 Intensive Advanced Japanese 10 Units

This course is the equivalent of Japan 100A and Japan 100B offered in the regular academic year.

JAPAN 100A Advanced Japanese 5 Units

This course will develop further context-specific skills in speaking, listening, reading and writing. It concentrates on students using acquired grammar and vocabulary with more confidence in order to express functional meanings, while increasing overall linguistic competence. Students will learn approximately 200 new Kanji. There will be a group or individual project. Course materials include the textbook supplemented by newspapers, magazine articles, short stories, and video clips which will provide insight into Japanese culture and society.

JAPAN 100B Advanced Japanese 5 Units

This course aims to develop further context-specific skills in speaking, listening, reading and writing. It concentrates on students using acquired grammar and vocabulary with more confidence in order to express functional meanings, while increasing overall linguistic competence. Students will learn approximately 200 new Kanji. There will be a group or individual project. Course materials include the textbook supplemented by newspapers, magazine articles, short stories, essays, and video clips which will provide insight into Japanese culture and society.

JAPAN 100S Japanese for Sinologists 4 Units

Students will be trained to read, analyze, and translate modern Japanese scholarship on Chinese subjects. A major purpose of the course is to prepare students to take reading examinations in Japanese. The areas of scholarship to be covered are: politics, popular culture, religion, sociology and history as well as areas suggested by students who are actively engaged in research projects. Two readings in selected areas will be assigned, one by the instructor and the second by a student participant.

JAPAN 100X Advanced Japanese for Heritage Learners 5 Units

This course helps heritage learners of Japanese who have completed 10X to develop further their linguistic and cultural competencies. More sophisticated linguistic forms are introduced and reinforced while dealing with various socio-cultural topics. Close reading knowledge and skills, formal and informal registers, and different genres of Japanese reading and writing are practiced. The materials covered are equivalent to those of 100A-100B.

JAPAN 101 Fourth-Year Readings: Social Sciences 4 Units

Students develop their reading, writing, speaking, and listening skills further to think critically, to express their points of view, and to understand Japanese culture and society in depth The readings are mainly articles on current social issues from Japanese newspapers, magazines, and professional books as sources of discussions. Students are required to write short essays on topics related to the reading materials.

JAPAN 102 Fourth-Year Readings: Japanese Culture 4 Units

This course provides students an opportunity to develop their reading, writing, speaking, and listening skills in order to express their opinions in argumentative discourse. Students read and discuss a variety of Japanese texts to deepen their understanding of Japanese society and people and to improve their intercultural communicative competence.

JAPAN 103 Fourth-Year Readings: Japanese Literature 4 Units

This course provides students an opportunity to develop their reading, writing, speaking, and listening skills, thereby enabling them to express their points of view and to engage in argumentative discourse. In addition to Japanese literature, readings include academic essays and other texts, which provide a variety of writing styles and serve as sources for classroom discussion. Also, Japanese films are used for various activities in order to broaden students’ cultural awareness and knowledge of Japanese society.

JAPAN 104 Fourth-Year Readings: Japanese History 4 Units

Students develop their reading, writing, speaking, and listening skills further while examining Japanese historical figures, events, background, stories, etc. Students read a variety of texts and watch videos related to Japanese history as sources for discussions to deepen their understanding of Japanese society, culture, and people from historical perspectives. Students conduct individual research on a topic in Japanese history, and write a short research paper.

JAPAN 111 Fifth-Year Readings: Reading and Analysis of Advanced Japanese Texts 4 Units

This course is designed for students who have studied Japanese for at least four years (540 hours). It aims to develop further their reading, writing, speaking, and listening skills enabling them to utilize Japanese materials for research and job-related purposes, to present orally the results of their researches, and/or to pursue college-level courses taught in Japanese. Although much of class time will be devoted to reading- and writing-oriented activities, students are expected to participate actively in oral presentations, discussions, and debates in class.

JAPAN 112 Fifth-Year Readings: Japanese for Research and Professional Use 4 Units

This course is designed for students who have studied Japanese for at least four years (540 hours). It aims to develop further their reading, writing, speaking, and listening skills with special emphasis on essay and research paper writing on topics relevant not only to the student’s interest but also to the student's major or intended career. Part of this written work will become the material on which the student will give an end-of-the-term oral presentation. Students are expected to fully prepare for and dynamically participate in the discussions and debates that occur in class.

JAPAN C115 Japanese Buddhism 4 Units

A critical survey of the main themes in the history of Japanese Buddhism as they are treated in modern scholarship. The course covers the transmission of Buddhism from China and Korea to Japan; the subsequent evolution in Japan of the Tendai, Shingon, Pure Land, Nichiren, and Zen schools of Buddhism; the organization and function of Buddhist institutions (monastic and lay) in Japanese society; the interaction between Buddhism and other modes of religious belief and practice prevalent in Japan, notably those that go under the headings of "Shinto" and "folk religion."

JAPAN 116 Introduction to the Religions of Japan 4 Units

An introductory look at the culture, values, and history of religious traditions in Japan, covering the Japanese sense of the world physically and culturally, its native religious culture called Shinto, the imported continental traditions of Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism, the arrival and impact of Christianity in the 16th century and the New Religions of the 19th and 20th centuries. Focus will be on how the internal structure of Buddhist and Confucian values were negotiated with long-established views of mankind and society in Japan, how Japan has been changed by these foreign notions of the individual’s place in the world, particularly Buddhism, and why many see contemporary Japan as a post-religious society.

JAPAN 120 Introduction to Classical Japanese 4 Units

An introduction to classical Japanese (bungo), the premodern vernacular, which was used as Japan's literary language until well into the 20th century and remains essential for a thorough grounding in Japanese literature and culture.

JAPAN 130 Classical Japanese Poetry 4 Units

An introduction to the critical analysis and translation of traditional Japanese poetry, a genre that reaches from early declarative work redolent of an even earlier oral tradition to medieval and Early Modern verses evoking exquisitely differentiated emotional states via complex rhetoric and literary allusion. Topics may include examples of Japan's earliest poetry in Man'yoshu, Heian courtly verse in Kokinshu, lines from Shinkokinshu with its medieval mystery and depth, linked verse (renga), and the haikai of Basho and his circle.

JAPAN 132 Premodern Japanese Diary (Nikki) Literature 4 Units

The tradition of Japanese self-reflective literature, composed by both men and women, is long and rich. Topics for this course include highly personal memoirs by court women and poetic travel diaries.

JAPAN 140 Heian Prose 4 Units

The course focuses on select masterpieces from the Japanese narrative tradition, including Murasaki Shikibu’s The Tale of Genji (Genji monogatari) and Sei Shonagon’s The Pillow Book (Makura no soshi).

JAPAN C141 Introductory Readings in Japanese Buddhist Texts 4 Units

This course is an introduction to the study of medieval Buddhist literature written in Classical Japanese in its wabun (aka bungo) and kanbun forms (including kakikudashi). The class will read samples from a variety of genres, including material written in China that are read in an idiosyncratic way in Japan. Reading materials will include Chinese translations of Sanskrit and Central Asian Buddhist scriptures, scriptural commentaries written in China and Korea, Japanese subcommentaries on influential Chinese and Korean commentaries, philosophical treatises, hagiography, apologetics, histories, doctrinal letters, preaching texts, and setsuwa literature. This course is intended for students who already have some facility in literary Japanese.

JAPAN 144 Edo Literature 4 Units

Critical reading and translation of important literary texts from the Edo period, including poetic diaries, merchant fiction, and (joruri) drama.

JAPAN 146 Japanese Historical Documents 4 Units

Writings in the Japanese vernacular constitute only one part of the total premodern Japanese written corpus. Until the 20th century, the preferred medium for most historical texts and male diaries was Sino-Japanese (kanbun). Familiarity with the grammar of this extraordinarily rich tradition is therefore essential for all students of premodern Japanese disciplines

JAPAN 155 Modern Japanese Literature 4 Units

This course is an introduction to Japanese modernism through the reading and discussion of representative short stories, poetry, and criticism of the Taisho and early Showa periods. We will examine the aesthetic bases of modernist writing and confront the challenge posed by their use of poetic language. The question of literary form and the relationship between poetry and prose in the works will receive special attention.

JAPAN 159 Contemporary Japanese Literature 4 Units

This course examines the historical production and reception of key Japanese literary and film texts; how issues of gender, ethnicity, social roles, and national identity specific to each text address changing economic and social conditions in postwar Japan.

JAPAN 160 Introduction to Japanese Linguistics: Grammar 4 Units

This course deals with issues of the structure of the Japanese language and how they have been treated in the field of linguistics. It focuses on phonetics/phonology, morphology, writing systems, dialects, lexicon, and syntax/semantics, historical changes, and genetic origins. Students are required to have intermediate knowledge of Japanese. No previous linguistics training is required.

JAPAN 161 Introduction to Japanese Linguistics: Usage 4 Units

This course deals with issues of the usage of the Japanese language and how they have been treated in the field of linguistics. It concentrates on pragmatics, modality/evidentiality, deixis, speech varieties (politeness, gender, written vs. spoken), conversation management, and rhetorical structure. Students are required to have intermediate knowledge of Japanese. No previous linguistics training is required.

JAPAN 163 Translation: Theory and Practice 4 Units

An overview of the concepts of theoretical, contrastive, and practical linguistics which form the basis for work in translation between Japanese and English through hands-on experience. Topics include translatability, various kinds of meaning, analysis of the text, process of translating, translation techniques, and theoretical background.

JAPAN 170 Classical Japanese Literature in Translation 4 Units

This course surveys Japanese poetry and/or prose written predominantly in or before the Heian Period (794-1185). Topics will vary.

JAPAN 173 Modern Japanese Literature in Translation 4 Units

This course surveys modern Japanese fiction and poetry in the first half of the 20th century. Topics will vary.

JAPAN C176 Archaeology and Japanese Identities 4 Units

Course explores stereotypical images of traditional Japanese culture and people through archaeological analysis. Particular emphasis will be placed on changing lifeways of past residents of the Japanese islands, including commoners, samurai, and nobles. Consideration will be given to the implications of these archaeological studies for our understanding of Japanese identities.

JAPAN 177 Urami: Rancor and Revenge in Japanese Literature 4 Units


Urami (rancor, resentment) has an enduring presence in Japanese literature. Figures overburdened with urami become demons, vengeful ghosts, or other transformed, dangerous, scheming characters. They appear in many different genre and eras. The course's topic enables discussion on concepts important for understanding Japanese literary works such as hyper-attentiveness to shifting social status, the role of groupness in targeting victims, the imperatives of shame, secrets, the circumscribed
agency of women, and the reach of Buddhist teachings into behavioral norms. For those interested in comparative literature, the course offers an opportunity to take a measure of what Japanese narratives offer as legitimate causes of rancor and revenge.

JAPAN 180 Ghosts and the Modern Literary Imagination 4 Units

The course examines the complex meanings of the ghost in modern Japanese literature and culture. Tracing the representations of the supernatural in drama, fiction, ethnography, and the visual arts, we explore how ghosts provide the basis for remarkable flights of imaginative speculation and literary experimentation. Topics include: storytelling and the loss of cultural identity, horror and its conversion into aesthetic pleasure, fantasy, and the transformation of the commonplace. We will consider historical, visual, anthropological, and literary approaches to the supernatural and raise cultural and philosophical questions crucial to an understanding of the figure and its role in the greater transformation of modern Japan (18th century to the present).

JAPAN 181 Mediating Disaster: Fukushima, Before and After 4 Units

The course considers the different literary, social and ethical formations that arise or are destroyed in disaster. It explores how Japanese literature and media, before and after 3:11, attempt to translate the un-representable, and in so doing, to create a new type of literacy about 1) trauma and the temporality of disaster, 2) precarity, community and the public sphere and 3) sustainability and ecological scale. The course will pay particular attention to a range of works that explicitly or obliquely reframe iconic or popular representations of disasters in cinema, literature and other media, taking into account of the readiness with which certain cultural forms lend themselves to vistas of disaster.

JAPAN 185 Introduction to Japanese Cinema 4 Units

This course will offer a survey of Japanese cinema from its earliest days to contemporary anime (animated film). Providing the basic tools for analyzing film language, the course begins by analyzing the interactions between early Japanese film and early Hollywood. We then consider the development of Japanese film, discussing style and structures of connotation, figurative meaning and political critique, the uses of the historical past and ideology, and the roles of youth culture and views of the family. We consider the place of important individual directors. We also discuss current critical debates about broader trends in Japanese film and culture, as they illuminate the construction and ruptures in notions of Japanese identity.

JAPAN 188 Japanese Visual Culture: Introduction to Anime 4 Units

This course is an introduction to Japanese animation, or anime, from its earliest forms (in relationship to manga) to recent digital culture, art, and games. We will analyze and study mainly animated feature films and read the critical work they inspired. We will address such issues as cultural memory and apocalyptic imagination, robots and the post-human, cities, nature, and the transnational; gender, shojo, and the aesthetics of "cute," as well as consider specific issues in the theoretical understanding of anime within technology and media theory.

JAPAN 189 Topics in Japanese Film 4 Units

Selected topics in the study of Japanese film.

JAPAN H195A Honors Course 2 - 5 Units

Directed independent study and preparation of senior honors thesis. Limited to senior honors candidates in East Asian Languages (for description of Honors Program, see Index).

JAPAN H195B Honors Course 2 - 5 Units

Directed independent study and preparation of senior honors thesis. Limited to senior honors candidates in East Asian Languages (for description of Honors Program, see Index).

JAPAN 198 Directed Group Study 1 - 4 Units

Small group instruction in topics not covered by regularly scheduled courses.

JAPAN 199 Independent Study 1 - 4 Units

Independent study in topics not covered by regularly scheduled courses.

Korean

KOREAN 1 Intensive Elementary Korean 10 Units

This is the equivalent of 1A-1B offered in the regular academic year.

KOREAN 1A Elementary Korean 5 Units

This course is designed for students who have little or no prior knowledge of the Korean language. Students will learn the Korean alphabet and basic grammar.

KOREAN 1AX Elementary Korean for Heritage Speakers 5 Units

This course is designed for students who already have elementary comprehension and speaking skills in Korean and have minimum exposure to reading and/or writing in Korean.

KOREAN 1B Elementary Korean 5 Units

With an emphasis on speaking, listening, reading and writing, students will learn daily life expressions, common colloquialisms, and speech acts. The course is also intended to introduce certain cultural aspects through media sources and various activities.

KOREAN 1BX Elementary Korean for Heritage Speakers 5 Units

With special emphasis on reading and writing, students will expand common colloquialisms and appropriate speech acts.

KOREAN 7A Introduction to Premodern Korean Literature and Culture 4 Units

A survey of pre-modern Korean literature and culture from the seventh century to the 19th century, focusing on the relation between literary texts and various aspects of performance tradition. Topics include literati culture, gender relations, humor, and material culture. Texts to be examined include ritual songs, sijo, kasa, p'ansori, prose narratives, art, and contemporary media representation of performance traditions. All readings are in English.

KOREAN 7B Introduction to Modern Korean Literature and Culture 4 Units

A survey of modern Korean literature and culture in the 20th century, focusing on the development of nationalist aesthetics in both North and South Korea. Topics include "new woman" narratives, urban culture, colonial modernity, war and trauma, and diaspora. Texts to be examined include works of fiction, poetry, art, and film. All readings are in English.

KOREAN 10 Intensive Intermediate Korean 10 Units

This course is the equivalent of 10A-10B offered in the regular academic year.

KOREAN 10A Intermediate Korean 5 Units

With equal attention given to speaking, listening, reading, writing, and cultural aspects of the language, students will further develop their language skills for handling various everyday situations.

KOREAN 10AX Intermediate Korean for Heritage Speakers 5 Units

This is an intermediate course for students whose Korean proficiency level is higher in speaking than in reading or writing due to Korean-heritage background. Students will elaborate their language skills for handling various everyday situations.

KOREAN 10B Intermediate Korean 5 Units

With equal attention given to speaking, listening, reading, writing, and cultural aspects of the language, students will learn vocabulary, expressions, and varieties of speech styles beyond the basic level.

KOREAN 10BX Intermediate Korean for Heritage Speakers 5 Units

This intermediate course will emphasize reading and writing so that students can reach a comparable proficiency with their already high speaking and listening skills.

KOREAN 24 Freshman Seminar 1 Unit

The Freshman Seminar Program has been designed to provide new students with the opportunity to explore an intellectual topic with a faculty member in a small seminar setting. Freshman seminars are offered in all campus departments and topics vary from department to department and semester to semester. Enrollment limited to fifteen freshmen.

KOREAN 84 Sophomore Seminar 1 Unit

Sophomore seminars are small interactive courses offered by faculty members in departments all across the campus. Sophomore seminars offer opportunity for close, regular intellectual contact between faculty members and students in the crucial second year. The topics vary from department to department and semester to semester. Enrollment limited to 15 sophomores.

KOREAN 98 Directed Group Study for Lower Division Students 1 - 4 Units

Small group instruction in topics not covered by regularly scheduled courses.

KOREAN 99 Independent Study for Lower Division Students 1 - 4 Units

Independent study in topics not covered by regularly scheduled courses.

KOREAN 100A Advanced Korean 5 Units

This is a third-year course in modern Korean with emphasis on acquisition of advanced vocabulary and grammatical structure. Equal attention will be given to all four language skills: speaking, listening, reading, and writing.

KOREAN 100AX Advanced Korean for Heritage Speakers 4 Units

This is a third-year course in modern Korean with emphasis on acquisition of advanced vocabulary and grammatical structure.

KOREAN 100B Advanced Korean 5 Units

Students will learn more advanced expressions and use them in reading and writing. Small group discussions will enhance speaking and listening skills.

KOREAN 100BX Advanced Korean for Heritage Speakers 4 Units

Students will be introduced to advanced-level Korean by reading authentic texts and writing short compositions, summaries, essays, and critical reviews. Students will be encouraged to speak using advanced vocabulary and expressions.

KOREAN 101 Fourth-Year Readings: Korean Literature 4 Units

This is an advanced course of reading and textual literary analysis in Korean. Advanced reading and writing skills and practice in the use of standard reference tools will also be introduced.

KOREAN 102 Fourth-Year Readings: Korean Social Sciences and History 4 Units

This is an advanced course of reading and textual analysis in various areas including politics, economics, society, and history. Both fluency and accuracy will also be emphasized in speaking and writing with the goal of preparing students to conduct independent research in Korean.

KOREAN 111 Fifth-Year Readings: Reading and Analysis of Advanced Korean Texts 4 Units

This course is designed to increase the students' proficiency to advanced-high (or superior for some students) level in all aspects of Korean. Texts and materials are drawn from authentic sources in various genres. Some will be selected according to student interests. Students will write research papers based on specialized topics of their choice and present them orally in class.

KOREAN 112 Fifth-Year Readings: Korean for Research and Professional Use 4 Units

This course aims to prepare students for research or employment in a Korea-related field. Authentic materials will be used to discuss various issues in Korea and some may be selected by students to explore their specific interests/needs. Students will conduct research projects in their own fields of study.

KOREAN 130 Genre and Occasion in Traditional Poetry 4 Units

This course will examine traditional and poetry, and consider the performative and cultural contexts of compositional practice before the 20th century. The course is intended to introduce key verse forms as well as basic reading knowledge of premodern Korean texts. Topics will vary.

KOREAN 140 Narrating Persons and Objects in Traditional Korean Prose 4 Units

This course is a critical exploration of the broad range of prose literature before the 20th century, including vernacular fiction, memoirs, travel accounts, and essays. Particular attention will be given to narrative styles, issues of personal identity, and a link between literary text and material culture in the development of prose literature before the 20th century. The course is intended as a close reading of key prose narrative works, while functioning simultaneously as an introduction to basic reading knowledge of premodern Korean texts. Topics will vary.

KOREAN 150 Modern Korean Poetry 4 Units

This course will examine the works of major poets in the first half of the 20th century and will consider the formation of modern Korean poetry. Particular attention will be given to the ideas of lyricism, modernism, and the identity of a poet in the context of the colonial occupation of Korea.

KOREAN 153 Readings in Modern Korean Literature 4 Units

This course aims to facilitate critical understanding of persistent themes and diverse styles of modern Korean literature through close readings of canonical works from the colonial period (1910-1945). It encourages students to develop broad comprehension of “post-colonial” characteristics of Korean literature. Concurrently, it explores how Korean literature aspired to the expression of the universal aesthetic values and judgment against the particularistic historical condition of colonialism.

KOREAN 155 Modern Korean Fiction 4 Units

This course surveys modern Korean fiction in the first half of the 20th century. Readings include major works of the novel, short fiction, and literary criticism. The course examines the development of modern fiction in the context of nationalist movements, colonialism, and the Korean War.

KOREAN 157 Contemporary Korean Literature 4 Units

This course surveys contemporary Korean literature, focusing on the separate development of language, literary aesthetics, and nationalism in North and South Korea from the end of the Korean War to the present. The course examines an assortment of works of fiction, poetry, literary criticism, and visual media. Emphasis is on close readings of the texts, while considering various issues involving post colonial cultural production: war and trauma, gender and labor, political violence, modernization and dislocation, and diaspora. Topics will vary.

KOREAN 170 Intercultural Encounters in Korean Literature 4 Units

This course will explore the moments of intercultural encounters captured in Korean literature. Encounters with foreign cultures and literary reflections on them have emerged as prominent at critical moments of Korean history, such as periods of great social transition or international conflict. In this course, we will be addressing questions concerning how experiences of the encounters of foreign cultures have been represented in Korean literature from the sixteenth through the twentieth century; what their domestic ramifications were, especially in terms of literary genres; and how the transformation of Korean national identity have been imagined and articulated in literary works.

KOREAN 172 Gender and Korean Literature 4 Units

This course examines Korean literature from the fifteenth through the nineteenth centuries through the perspectives of gender. Although the modern discourse of enlightenment in Korea, beginning in the early twentieth century, has been sharply critical of gender inequality in premodern Korea, the gender relations represented in premodern Korean literature are much more complex and dynamic than we might expect. To revise our understanding of gender in premodern Korea, this course seeks to examine how gender is imagined particularly in terms of the body, bodily practice, and theatrical performance.

KOREAN 174 Modern Korean Fiction in Translation 4 Units

This course surveys modern Korean fiction of the 20th century in literary and visual media. Topics will vary.

KOREAN 180 Critical Approaches to Modern Korean Literature 4 Units

This course introduces various critical approaches to modern Korean literature through a set of texts in English translation. Readings will include an assortment of works of fiction, poetry, literary criticism, and visual media. Emphasis is on close reading of texts and literary approaches to them.

KOREAN 185 Picturing Korea 4 Units

This course explores the role of modern visual media in shaping geopolitical, cultural, and historical imaginations of Korea during the last hundred years. Drawing examples from photographs, films, and literature, produced in and outside Korea, the course aims to consider the idea of "Korea" primarily via images constructed through transnational cultural networks. Consideration will be given to the relationship between visual media and cultural memory. We will think in particular about the ways in which globally accessible visual media such as photography and film narrate the key local sites of contested memories of colonization, war, and political violence.

KOREAN 186 Introduction to Korean Cinema 4 Units

This course offers a historical overview of Korean cinema from its colonial development to its present renaissance. It covers Korean film aesthetics, major directors, film movements, genre, censorship issues, and industrial transformation as well as global circulation and transnational reception. In an effort to read film as sociocultural texts, various topics will be discussed. All readings are in English.

KOREAN 187 History and Memory in Korean Cinema 4 Units

This course examines representations of history and memory in contemporary Korean cinema. Korean films have displayed a thematic preoccupation with the nation's tumultuous past by presenting diverse stories of past events and experiences. The course pays close attention to the ways in which popular narrative films render history and memory meaningful and pertinent to contemporary film viewers. All readings are in English.

KOREAN 188 Cold War Culture in Korea: Literature and Film 4 Units

This course examines the formation and transformation of global Cold War culture in South Korean literature and film of the 20th century. It pays close attention to representations of the Korean War and its aftermath in literature and cinema, but opens up the field of inquiry to encompass larger sociocultural issues related to the Cold War system manifest in literature and cinema. All readings are in English.

KOREAN 189 Korean Film Authors 4 Units

This undergraduate course examines aesthetic features and thematic preoccupation of major Korean film authors. It begins with the brief survey of historical development and theoretical underpinnings of the concept of “auteur” and advances an inquiry into the application of such theoretical tool in the area of film criticism and culture in Korea. In addition to analyzing signature style, generic orientation, and thematic consistency, the course also situates and explores the unique film authorship in relation to larger contexts that constitute the dynamics of Korean cinema: industrial structure, government censorship, social changes and cultural phenomena, intellectual development, technological shifts and discourse of national cinema.

KOREAN 198 Directed Group Study 1 - 4 Units

Small group instruction in topics not covered by regularly scheduled courses.

KOREAN 199 Independent Study 1 - 4 Units

Independent study in topics not covered by regularly scheduled courses.

Tibetan

TIBETAN 1A Elementary Tibetan 5 Units

A beginning Tibetan class developing basic listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills in modern Tibetan (Lhasa dialect). The course also helps students begin to acquire competence in relevant Tibetan cultural issues.

TIBETAN 1B Elementary Tibetan 5 Units

A continuation of TIBETAN 1A, TIBETAN 1B develops further listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills in modern Tibetan (Lhasa dialect), with a gradually increasing emphasis on basic cultural readings and developing intercultural competence.

TIBETAN 10A Intermediate Tibetan 3 Units

This course, a continuation of 1A-1B (elementary Tibetan), is designed to develop the student's skills in modern standard Tibetan. The emphasis is on communication skills in vernacular Tibetan, as well as grammar, reading, writing, and a familiarity with contemporary Tibetan culture more generally.,This course, a continuation of 1A-1B (elementary Tibetan), is designed to further develop the student's skills in modern standard Tibetan. The emphasis is on communication skills in vernacular Tibetan, as well as grammar, reading, and writing.

TIBETAN 10A Intermediate Tibetan 3 Units

This course, a continuation of 1A-1B (elementary Tibetan), is designed to develop the student's skills in modern standard Tibetan. The emphasis is on communication skills in vernacular Tibetan, as well as grammar, reading, writing, and a familiarity with contemporary Tibetan culture more generally.,This course, a continuation of 1A-1B (elementary Tibetan), is designed to further develop the student's skills in modern standard Tibetan. The emphasis is on communication skills in vernacular Tibetan, as well as grammar, reading, and writing.

TIBETAN 10B Intermediate Tibetan 3 Units

This course, a continuation of 10A, is designed to develop further the student's skills in modern standard Tibetan. The emphasis is on communication skills in vernacular Tibetan, as well as grammar, reading, writing, and a familiarity with contemporary Tibetan culture more generally.

TIBETAN 24 Freshman Seminar 1 Unit

The Freshman Seminar Program has been designed to provide new students with the opportunity to explore an intellectual topic with a faculty member in a small seminar setting. Freshman seminars are offered in all campus departments and topics vary from department to department and semester to semester. Enrollment limited to fifteen freshmen.

TIBETAN 84 Sophomore Seminar 1 Unit

Sophomore seminars are small interactive courses offered by faculty members in departments all across the campus. Sophomore seminars offer opportunity for close, regular intellectual contact between faculty members and students in the crucial second year. The topics vary from department to department and semester to semester. Enrollment limited to 15 sophomores.

TIBETAN 100S Advanced Tibetan Conversation 1 Unit

This course is designed for advanced students of Tibetan language. Its goal is to provide an opportunity for advanced students to develop their colloquial Tibetan conversation skills. More sophisticated linguistic forms are used and reinforced while dealing with various socio-cultural topics, with a particular focus on Buddhist-related subjects toward the end of the term. Primary emphasis will be on the Lhasa dialect of Tibetan, though some variant dialects may also be introduced.

TIBETAN 110A Intensive Readings in Tibetan 4 Units

This course is an intensive introduction to reading classical Tibetan literature. Following an introduction to basic grammar, the course moves quickly into selected readings from Buddhist texts in Tibetan. It typically builds on basic skills acquired in 1A-1B (elementary Tibetan), though with consent it may be taken independently.

TIBETAN 110B Intensive Readings in Tibetan 4 Units

A continuation of TIBETAN 110A, this course provides an intensive introduction to a range of classical Tibetan literature. Assuming knowledge of basic classical Tibetan grammar, the course focuses on selected readings from Buddhist texts in Tibetan.

TIBETAN C114 Tibetan Buddhism 4 Units

This course is a broad introduction to the history, doctrine, and culture of the Buddhism of Tibet. We will begin with the introduction of Buddhism to Tibet in the eighth century and move on to the evolution of the major schools of Tibetan Buddhism, Tibetan Buddhist literature, ritual and monastic practice, the place of Buddhism in Tibetan political history, and the contemporary situation of Tibetan Buddhism both inside and outside of Tibet.

TIBETAN 115 Contemporary Tibet 4 Units

This course seeks to develop a critical understanding of contemporary Tibet, characterized as it is by modernity, invasion, Maoism, liberalization, exile, and diaspora. It explores the cultural dynamism of the Tibetans over the last 100 years as expressed in literature, film, music, modern art, and political protest. The core topics include intra-Tibetan arguments regarding the preservation and "modernization" of traditional cultural forms, the development of new aesthetic creations and values, the constraints and opportunities on cultural life under colonialism and in the diaspora, and the religious nationalism of the recent political protests.

TIBETAN 116 Traditional Tibet 4 Units

This class will explore Tibetan civilization throughout the pre-modern period with an emphasis on literature, the visual arts, ethnography, and the history of Tibet's important cultural exchanges on the broader Inner Asian and Himalayan stages. The overall lesson plan will cover a wide range of Tibetan cultural forms and regions, and highlights the many international links that so animated Tibet itself and were crucial to the politics of Asia for many centuries. Furthermore, the theme of "early modernities" will be prominent in the readings in the second half of the course.

TIBETAN C154 Death, Dreams, and Visions in Tibetan Buddhism 4 Units

Tibetan Buddhists view the moment of death as a rare opportunity for transformation. This course examines how Tibetans have used death and dying in the path to enlightenment. Readings will address how Tibetan funerary rituals work to assist the dying toward this end, and how Buddhist practitioners prepare for this crucial moment through tantric meditation, imaginative rehearsals, and explorations of the dream state.

Faculty

Professors

Mark L. Blum, Professor.

Mark Csikszentmihalyi, Professor. Early China, Confucianism, Taoism, Daoism, Comparative Religion.
Research Profile

Yoko Hasegawa, Professor. Pragmatics, syntax, east asian languages and cultures, acoustic phonetics, semantics, sociolinguistics of Japanese, cognitive linguistics.
Research Profile

H. Mack Horton, PhD, Professor. Performativity, east asian languages and cultures, classical poetry, diary literature, cultural context, anthology of vernacular poetry, Man'yôshû, poetry and poetics.
Research Profile

Andrew F. Jones, Professor. East asian languages and cultures, Chinese popular music, sonic culture, media technology, modern Chinese fiction, children's literature, literary translation.
Research Profile

Robert H. Sharf, Professor. East asian languages and cultures, medieval Chinese buddhism, Chan buddhism, Japanese buddhism, Zen buddhism, Tantric buddhism, buddhist art, ritual studies, methodological issues in the study of religion.
Research Profile

Alan Tansman, Professor. Popular culture, film, east asian languages and cultures, Japanese cultural criticism, area studies, Japanese and Jewish responses to atrocity.
Research Profile

Associate Professors

Robert Ashmore, Associate Professor. China, lyric poetry, Chinese literature, Chinese culture, poetic theory.
Research Profile

Jacob Dalton, Associate Professor. Religion, ritual, Tibet, Buddhism, Tantra, Dunhuang.
Research Profile

Daniel C O'Neill, Associate Professor. Critical theory, east asian languages and cultures, Japanese literature, the novel in comparative perspective, representations of gender and sexuality in visual culture, film and digital media.
Research Profile

Paula Varsano, Associate Professor. Phenomenology, translation, comparative literature, aesthetics, epistemology, classical Chinese poetry and poetics (3rd-11th centuries), traditional Chinese literary theory.
Research Profile

Assistant Professors

Jinsoo An, Assistant Professor.

Adjunct Faculty

Lanchih Po, PhD, Adjunct Faculty.

Lecturers

Yasuko Konno Baker, Lecturer.

Kayoko Imagawa, Lecturer.

Wakae Kambara, Lecturer.

Minsook Kim, Lecturer.

Kijoo Ko, Lecturer.

Meehyei Lee, Lecturer.

Soojin C Lee, Lecturer.

I-Hao Li, Lecturer.

Li Liu, Lecturer.

Junghee Park, Lecturer.

Maki Takata, Lecturer.

Noriko Komatsu Wallace, Lecturer.

John R Wallace, Lecturer.

Lihua Zhang, Lecturer.

Contact Information

Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures

3413 Dwinelle Hall

Phone: 510-642-3480

Fax: 510-642-6031

ealang@berkeley.edu

Visit Department Website

Department Chair

Mark Csikszentmihalyi, PhD

3112 Dwinelle Hall

Phone: 510-643-2517

mark.cs@berkeley.edu

Director of Graduate Studies

Paula Varsano, PhD

3325 Dwinelle Hall

pvarsano@berkeley.edu

Student Services Adviser

Jan Johnson

3414 Dwinelle Hall

Phone: 510-642-4497

jmj@berkeley.edu

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