Asian Studies

This course outlines the East Asian regional development in terms of the political economy, cultural, demographic, and social aspects. Each week focuses on one of the aforementioned aspects. Relevant readings are assigned for class discussion and students are required to actively participate in the discussion. 

This course examines Korean culture and its current societal issues. It looks at Korea’s path to its recent success and developments from the historical, socioeconomic, and cultural perspectives. Topics covered include the top-down economic development until the 1980s, transfer from authoritarian to democratic governments, post-industrial innovative strategies including technology, entertainment, and tourism, and continuing geopolitical tensions with North Korea and neighbouring superpowers.

The course offers the opportunity to explore traditional Chinese medicine through a survey of Chinese medical culture in its dynamic formation and transformation. The first half of the course provides a historical overview of Chinese medicine shaped by philosophy, natural science, religion, while influenced by political and social forces for 2,000 years. The second half provides a study of the theoretical foundation and practical aspects of Chinese medicine, which is opened to influence from western medicine and impact from modernity. The course examines the globalization of Chinese medicine, focusing on transregional connections and cultural negotiations with the world.

Japan is a very interesting case study in globalization. It is a homogeneous country that has had a history of isolation not only in the Sakoku days of the Tokugawa Period but up until now in some ways. However, it has also realized the need for globalization, and has been trying to do so through various efforts. This course introduces students to the world of Japan and its contact with, and even merging into, the modern world. The problem of globalizing Japan mirrors the nature of globalization itself in the following ways: (1) If Japan is successful in globalization, it must do so in a number of interrelated sectors including politics, economics, education, finance, culture, society, and communication; and, (2) Moving this traditionally isolationist and inward-looking, homogeneous country toward globalization will need a coordinated effort from the top because the Japanese fear what many fear about globalization: loss of identity and what one can call “Native culture.”

Idols and celebrities are an integral, highly visible and pervasive part of contemporary Japanese and Korean culture. As the most prominent characteristic of Japanese and Korean media and cultural industries, idols have also come to saturate the everyday lives of people outside of Japan and Korea, especially in the wake of the Japan mania, Cool Japan campaigns, and the Korean waves. Through an interdisciplinary approach—combining Japanese and Korean studies, cultural studies, media studies, and celebrity studies—this module examines the idol phenomenon in Japan and Korea. Students will be introduced to key concepts in the study of idols and celebrities, and address the production, representation, circulation and consumption of idols and celebrities in contemporary Japan and Korea (and beyond) within their historical, social, political and economic contexts. By the end of the module, students will not only gain a deeper understanding of Japanese and Korean society, they will also gain conceptual and analytical tools for understanding today’s global media landscape.

This course critically engages Korean culture and society and discusses culture in/of Korea from various perspectives.

This course examines contemporary South Korea through cultural production and political change, from a historical perspective. The first half of the course explores the vicissitudes of Korean history and social change with a focus on the critical junctures that laid the groundwork for Korea’s national identity. The second half of the course considers the relationships of power at work between communities around the world that create the new cultural forms and affective identities that constitute global Korean culture and examine the mechanisms that drive popular culture in the 21st century through literature, film, and television. Through this dual approach, students will gain a deeper understanding of contemporary Korean culture and society through global cultural exchange and local political transformations.

Take a cursory glance at recent critical work on Asian American Studies, and you'll notice immediately how often the term “Asian America” appears, as if such a formation actually exists. Less a claim to take actual territory from the United States than a broad appeal to grant Asians a place at the American table of citizenship and national belonging, the literature of Asian Americans can be productively read alongside persistent yet often divergent, even contested, visions of Asian America. This course is designed to trace one such trajectory in the creation and recreation of Asian America through literature. Paying special attention to the political, economic, and social constraints during the time of their production and reception, we will examine how Asian American literary work both reflected and transformed the social protocols of their day, and in doing so helped to reimagine what it means to be “Asian,” or “American,” and everything else in between.