From World War II to the Korean War to the Cold War, modern East Asian history has been marked by wars. Course compares cinematic and literary representations to examine how the meanings of wars were reinforced and contested. Course considers how militarization shaped notions of East Asian masculinity and femininity.
Additional Requirements for Graduate Students: Research paper.
Athena Title
War in East Asian Film and Lit
Equivalent Courses
Not open to students with credit in CMLT 4640W
Grading System
A - F (Traditional)
Student Learning Outcomes
Students will be able to develop, support, and express ideas in written and oral form using language with clarity and precision in coherent, cohesive essays, and/or oral presentations.
Students will be able to synthesize multiple positions into an original argument supported by textual evidence.
Students will be able to interpret the formal, aesthetic, and creative elements of literary, cinematic, and cultural texts and the social and historical contexts in which they circulate.
Topical Outline
he course will explore themes such as Contested Memories of the Asia-Pacific War, Aesthetics of Aggression, War Films as Mass Enlightenment Spectacles, Multiple Narrations of the Korean War, Cold War Melodramas, and Forgetting the Vietnam War.
The course will examine films ranging from historical films such as Piagol (Yi Kang-chon, 1955) and I Live in Fear (Akira Kurosawa, 1955) to contemporary blockbusters Steel Rain (Yang Woo-suk, 2017), as well as novels and short stories such as Eileen Chang’s Love in a Fallen City (1943), Hwang Sok-yong’s “Pagoda” (1970), Ch’oe Yun's “His Father’s Keeper” (1990), and Nora Okja Keller’s Comfort Woman (1997). The course will equip students with analytical frameworks for understanding cultural representations of war by reading select critical writings on the social power of popular films, war and racism, and gender and memory politics.
Institutional Competencies
Communication
The ability to effectively develop, express, and exchange ideas in written, oral, or visual form.
Critical Thinking
The ability to pursue and comprehensively evaluate information before accepting or establishing a conclusion, decision, or action.
