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Modern East Asian Literature


Course Description

Poetry, prose, and drama in China, Japan, Korea, and elsewhere in East Asia from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The works will be in English translation.

Additional Requirements for Graduate Students:
Graduate students will be expected to engage critically with the material on a level that conforms with the standards of scholarship set forth by the Graduate School. For every primary text assigned, graduate students will be required to examine a minimum of two critical articles and demonstrate that they can integrate their knowledge of secondary sources with their own analysis of the primary text. Graduate student papers will be twice the length of undergraduate student papers and involve a substantial research component: they will be asked to incorporate primary evidence (historical, archeological, philological) into an integrated analysis of the text or texts they choose to examine.


Athena Title

Modern East Asian Literature


Semester Course Offered

Offered every year.


Grading System

A - F (Traditional)


Course Objectives

The course objectives are to introduce students to major works of 19th- and 20th- century Chinese and Japanese literature; to situate those works within their cultural, social and historical contexts; to enhance students' critical abilities through the analysis of individual literary works; and to develop students' communication skills through oral presentations and expository writing assignments. Students' performance will be assessed through presentations, tests, papers, and a final examination.


Topical Outline

The course is organized around a series of readings of literary works by 19th- and 20th-century Chinese and Japanese writers. The topics covered are specific to the works under analysis. The works studied vary with the instructor. The following is a sample syllabus of readings for a single semester: Cao Xueqin. The Story of the Stone (volume 1) Shen Fu. Six Records of a Floating Life Liu E. Travels of Lao Can Enchin Fumiko. The Waiting Years Kobo Abe. The Woman in the Dunes Xingjian Gao. The Other Shore Yasunari Kawabata. Snow Country Yukio Mishima. The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea Tsao Yu. Thunderstorm


Syllabus