Course Schedule

CHN 517 – Advanced Modern Chinese

Study of advanced modern (Mandarin) Chinese through readings in modern literature. for non-native speakers. Native speakers may not take this course. Graduate-level requirements include more translations and additional reading.

CHN 565 – Chinese/English Translation: Theory and Practice

Introduction to the theory and practice of English-to-Chinese and Chinese-to-English translations including study of the role of translation in China-West encounters and learning the craft of translation. Graduate-level requirements include much longer and more difficult assignments.

EAS 556 – Humanities and the Global Creative Economy

Cross Listed

The course investigates ways in which humanities engage in the global creative economy. It examines key concepts such as creativity, aesthetics, and contemporaneity in humanities, and examines how they become inseparable to the rise of the global creative economy, whether through culture industries, digital media, creative spaces, artistic activisms, or urban development. It focuses on the connections and intersections between aesthetics and art, knowledge and information, and creative economies around the world. Examples of the creative economy include cities from Asia, America, Europe, and Africa. This course is suitable for students who are interested in humanities, global studies, media arts, e-society, visual culture and media studies, urban planning, economics, business, and even those dealing with intellectual property laws.

Graduate-level requirements include longer papers, additional readings and research, reading reports, additional meetings with instructor, and significant longer presentations in class.

EAS 584 – History of East Asian Buddhism

Buddhism in China, Korea and Japan with emphasis on the relationship between East Asian Buddhist thought and practice and the various historical contexts in which they emerged. Graduate-level requirements include assigned readings in primary Chinese or Japanese sources and in modern Chinese and/or Japanese secondary sources, together with a research paper based in part on such sources.

EAS 587 – Assessment in Second/Foreign Language Learning

Cross Listed

The primary objective of this course is the development of language teachers' assessment literacy, which includes knowledge of key assessment principles and skill in creating or adopting assessment tools and procedures for the language classroom. Participants in this course will develop their knowledge and skills related to assessing all skill areas in the language classroom, including productive skills (writing, speaking), receptive skills (reading, listening), and assessing grammar and vocabulary. Grading and student evaluation will also be important topics of consideration and exploration in this course. Designed specifically for in-service (and pre-service) language teachers, the course combines theory with practice by covering essential principles of effective classroom assessment and the development of effective assessment tools for classroom use. Participants completing this course will become more assessment literate and better able to evaluate student performance in their classrooms fairly and effectively.

EAS 593 – Internship

Specialized work on an individual basis, consisting of training and practice in actual service in a technical, business, or governmental establishment.

EAS 595A – Graduate Colloquium

The exchange of scholarly information and/or secondary research, usually in a small group setting. Instruction often includes lectures by several different persons. Research projects may or may not be required of course registrants.

EAS 596C – Special Topics in East Asian Studies

he development and exchange of scholarly information, usually in a small group setting. The scope of work shall consist of research by course registrants, with the exchange of the results of such research through discussion, reports, and/or papers.

JPN 512 – Advanced Japanese Linguistics

Cross Listed

Advanced readings in Japanese and English on specific topics in Japanese linguistics. Graduate-level requirements include a substantial term paper and a class presentation based on that paper.

JPN 522 – Advanced Practice in Japanese

Reading and discussion in Japanese of a variety of advanced-level materials, including newspaper articles, short stories, and poetry. Graduate-level requirements include extra readings and extra translation project.

JPN 547 – Incorporeal and Ambiguous Bodies: Monstrous and Ghostly Tales in Premodern Japanese Literature

This discussion-centered, research seminar examines strange and ambiguous bodies prominently featured in premodern Japanese literature. Reading literary works in translation from the 8th to the 19th century, we will engage with a variety of rich depictions of ambiguous and mysterious bodies, including mythical creatures, vengeful spirits, shape-shifting foxes, strange apparitions, and incorporeal or invisible figures. Our topics of investigation include how ambiguous bodies challenge and reinforce social boundaries; the significance of gender dynamics in premodern sexuality; how the trauma of war is inscribed onto bodies; political authority over corporeal and incorporeal bodies; and the transformation of sacred spirits into the everyday grotesque. We will read a wide range of primary materials in translation, including mythologies, official historical records, literary tales, Buddhist didactic stories, women's diaries, and war-tales. We will also engage with scholarship on the cultural history of the body, religious beliefs, and theories of the monstrous, in addition to various theoretical frameworks related to post-colonial thought and gender studies.

JPN 562C – The History of Modern Japan, Meiji to the Present

Cross Listed

This course offers students an in-depth look at the history and historiography of Modern Japan (1868-Present), with a special emphasis on the relationship between empire and everyday life in Japan's modern experience. The course is divided into four chronological units spanning the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and students will have the opportunity to crowdsource their reading materials from a list of recommended and representative books within each unit. Class discussions will provide an overview of the latest English-language scholarship on Japan's modernity to familiarize advanced undergraduates and graduate students with the styles of research and interpretation that inform our understanding of history today.

JPN 586 – History of Japanese Religions: Medieval

Cross Listed

Selective survey of the history of religions in Japan from the 11th century through the 16th. Topics covered may include the medieval worldview; apocalyptic thought and related practices; Pure Land Buddhism; Zen; and proselytization and religious competition in medieval Japan. Graduate-level requirements include oral presentations and longer, more in-depth papers.