Asian Studies

This course examines religion in contemporary Chinese society, emphasizing its presence and influence in everyday life. It goes beyond religious texts to immerse students in the richness of Chinese spiritual life, demonstrating how religious traditions in China are not merely philosophical concepts, but living practices that shape the everyday experiences of individuals and communities. A special feature of this course is that we will take students on visits to a variety of religious sites in Hong Kong and the Greater Bay Area to experience firsthand the diversity and vibrancy of religious life in China. This includes participating in meditation sessions, attending religious festivals, and learning the intricacies of the tea ceremony in a Buddhist setting. In addition to these immersive activities, the course will discuss the broader role of religion in shaping contemporary Chinese society. We will explore how religious beliefs and practices intersect with important social issues such as economics, the environment, gender, sexuality, and politics. 

This course examines the connection between modern media and Korean dramatic culture. By analyzing literary elements inherent in TV dramas, animation, and popular music, as well as elements of these genres introduced into literary works, students explore interconnectedness between literature and popular culture and gain a deeper understanding of both literature and popular culture.  

The course surveys dramatic literature trends both in relation to the media through which they are broadcast as well as the cultural, social, and historical environments in which dramas and plays are situated.  

This is a historical and critical survey of modern Chinese fiction from 1917 to 1949, with emphasis on the forms of novella and short story. 

This course examines classical Chinese literary tradition in translation by focusing on genres including fiction, poetry, essays, and biographies in relation to three major themes and traditions: 1) the fantastic, the immortal, and the ghostly; 2) the moral, the loyal, and the outlaws; and 3) the romantic, the scholar, and the beauty. Through these themes and traditions, we analyze key issues regarding the formation of literary canon in China and how Han Chinese literati define the relationship between the Han and the non-Han, male and female, lawful subjects and outlaws in the process of literary canonization.

This course examines some of the main themes and issues of Korean history and cultures since the late 1980s. We often use literature and media, including short stories, feature films, documentaries, TV, and popular music, as a vehicle for understanding contemporary Korean history, culture, and society. Among the major issues we are exploring are democratization, the legacy of national division, new generation, culture industries and hallyu, cinematic re-writing of history, IMF crisis and neoliberal culture, family and gender, narratives of women, multiculturalism, and hallyu in the digital, multi-platform era. Topics include Postwar Development of South Korea, Democratization, Minjung and Democratization Movement and New Wave Cinema, New Generation and Individualism, Sunshine Policy, The Development of Culture Industries and the Korean Wave, Discourses on the Korean Wave, Asian Financial Crisis and Its Impact on Korean Society Family and Gender Relations, Gender and Sexuality in Popular Culture, Narratives of Women, Re-writing Colonial History in Film, Multiculturalism, and Hallyu 2.0 and the Korean Wave in a Digital, Multiplatform Era.

This course examines multi-disciplinary perspectives to examine significant and complex issues of Northeast Asia in the past and present. It aims to help students understand how the historical legacy of Northeast Asia is reflected in today’s states and societies of these regions, and how political, economic, social, and cultural characteristics of Northeast Asia continue to evolve in a comprehensive way.

This course examines Korean society and culture through Korean Popular Culture in relation to media and cultural studies scholarship and its socio-cultural contexts. In particular, we will examine the meaning of media and culture and its social changes in contemporary Korea through exploring various emerging trends and cultural studies as methodological tool within modern and contemporary Korean issues. It covers cultural representation, meaning of hegemony, cultural industry/economy and globalism of media, post colonialism, audience of mass media and fandom culture, gender and queer issues, and then further focus on the specific context of Korean popular culture including the pivotal notions of colonial modernity, Japanese imperialism, cultural hegemony in colonial Korea, meaning of Americanization, issues of popular memory and decolonization discourses, nationalism and globalization and Korean Wave, body/gender/sexuality / LGBTQ issue in Korean Media and Popular culture, cyber culture and internet memes, transnationalism and diaspora issues and its aftermath. We actively discuss various audio-visual artifacts including Korean news, music video, films, TV dramas, and pop music in each class in order to understand better the texts and contexts within the historical and sociocultural paradigm of recent sociology, media/communication studies scholarship.

This course examines Chinese film history and criticism via an examination of selected films directed by several of Greater China’s most skilled directors. 

This course examines the history of East Asian civilization from earliest times to 1600, with emphasis on China and Japan, including social, intellectual, and economic developments as well as political history.

This course introduces students to various aspects of the socioeconomic, cultural, and political transformations that Japan has undergone since the end of the AsiaPacific War. It explores the historical trajectories of postwar Japan within the broader context of its transition from an imperial power to a post-imperial nation, as well as its involvement in the regional and global Cold War. Major topics to be discussed include: the Allied Occupation of Japan, political developments and social activism, “high-speed growth” and its shadows, national and transnational memory politics related to the Asia-Pacific War, and the impact and repercussions of “March 11.” While the primary focus of this course is on post-1945 Japan, we will examine how the remnants and aftermath of the Japanese Empire have influenced the complexities of the postwar period. In doing so, this course also considers the interactions between postwar Japan and other Asian countries, providing insights into Japan’s evolving role in East Asia.