Course Descriptions

EALC Core Seminars

*ASN 5825r. East Asian Humanities (3). This course in Asian Humanities is designed as a continuous conversation with selected major historical, religious, philosophical, and literary works from East Asian traditions. Texts covered in the course, although formed and transmitted in the particular historical, geographical, and cultural contexts of East Asia starting about three millennia ago, nonetheless invite students to join in and carry on their discussions concerning general and common human conditions and issues that are still inevitably encountered in the present world. May be repeated to a maximum of six semester hours.

Chinese Language and Culture

CHI 5505r. Reading in Chinese Literature (3). Prerequisite: Instructor permission. This course is to help those students whose interest is focused on literature. Students may choose a particular author from either ancient or modern time and do a thorough analysis of his or her works. Students may also choose a certain field or period and do extensive reading in that field or period. May be repeated to a maximum of six semester hours.

CHT 5600r. Studies in Chinese Diasporic Literature and Cultures (3). This course allows students to study Chinese diasporic literature and cultures through examining literary works and films by major Chinese diasporic writers and filmmakers in North America, Western Europe, and Southeast Asia. May be repeated to a maximum of six (6) credit hours.

CHI 5856r. Classical Chinese (3). This course introduces students to the grammar, vocabulary, and style of classical Chinese, by reading, translating, and analyzing authentic writings that embody Chinese cultural traditions. It also helps students who desire to read modern Chinese texts in the formal, professional, and academic styles. Students are also expected to review major publications on learning classical Chinese.

CHT 5931r. Special Topics in Chinese Studies (3). This course allows students to study special topics on modern Chinese literature and culture. May be repeated to a maximum of nine semester hours.

CHT 5935r. Studies in Premodern Chinese Literature and Culture (3). This course allows students to study special topics on premodern Chinese literature and culture. May be repeated to a maximum of nine (9) semester hours within the same term.

CHI 5906r. Directed Individual Study (3). (S/U grade only). May be repeated to a maximum of nine semester hours.

CHI 5910r. Supervised Research in Chinese (1–5). (S/U grade only). A maximum of three semester hours may apply to the master’s degree. May be repeated to a maximum of five semester hours.

CHI 5940r. Teaching Practicum (0–5). (S/U grade only). A maximum of three semester hours may apply to the master’s degree. May be repeated to a maximum of five semester hours.

CHW 8970r. Master’s Comprehensive Exam (0). This course (0 credit, Pass/Fail) is designed for Chinese-track graduate students of the MA Program in East Asian Languages and Cultures (EALC), who wish to exit the Program by taking a comprehensive examination. During the last semester of the graduate studies, the student will register for this course in order to take the exam.

Japanese Language and Culture

JPW 5100. The Art of Translating Japanese (3). This course examines the art of translating literary Japanese. Students read representative works of translation theory, explore how translators of Japanese have approached the task of translation, compare Japanese literary works in translation with the original, and participate in a collaborative workshop where students translate a Japanese literary work into English.

JPW 5135r. Prewar Japanese Literature (3). This course examines texts in prewar Japanese literature and literary and cultural criticism, concentrating on modern Japanese writers from the Meiji (1867-1912) and Taisho (1912-1926) periods. Students will learn how to read and critically evaluate these texts with the help of secondary readings in English. Texts change with each offering of the course. All primary texts are in Japanese.

JPW 5134r. Postwar Japanese Literature (3). This course examines selected texts in postwar (roughly the 1940s through the present) Japanese literature and literary and cultural criticism. Students will learn how to read and critically evaluate these texts with the help of secondary readings in English. Texts change with each offering of the course. All primary texts are presented in the original Japanese.

JPW 5300r. Traditional Japanese Literature (3). This course offers a panoramic overview of Japanese literature from its beginnings through the classical, medieval, and early modern periods, up to the late 19th century. Students read the fundamental works of traditional Japanese literature in the original Japanese (using didacticized editions).

JPW 5400. Life-Writing in Japan (3). This course explores the theory, history, and practice of life-writing (roughly speaking, the recording of personal experiences) in Japan. This course focuses on various texts–including autobiographies, biographies, and memoirs, as well as diaries, letters, and oral histories–in the original Japanese.

JPT 5506. War and Representation (3). This course examines how Japanese artists respond to war, how war shapes aesthetic thought, and how war is represented in literary form and other media from the late nineteenth through the twentieth century. Students will learn how aesthetic form affords an artist an ethical position about war. Texts include poetry, fiction, travelogue, memoir, reportage, painting, photography, and film.

JPN 5900r. Studies in Japanese Language and Literature (3). Prerequisite: JPN 3230 or equivalent. This course is designed to introduce advanced Japanese syntax and to expose students to graded materials in the humanities and social sciences. The primary objective is to help students to gain a good insight into the intricacies of the Japanese language and culture and to develop adequate translation skills. May be repeated to a maximum of nine semester hours.

JPT 5935r. Special Topics (3). This course allows students to study literary or cultural topics of a special kind, depending on student interest and faculty expertise. May be repeated to a maximum of nine (9) semester hours within the same term.
Possible topics include:

  • Japanese Animation. This course follows the history of Japanese animation from the early 20th century to the present time, with special focus on the contemporary period. We will investigate not only the richness of what is commonly referred to as anime, but also anime’s various origins in Japan and abroad.
  • Japanese Manga. This course traces the history of manga from its hybrid prehistory to its developments as a postwar industry and cultural form, investigating manga’s connections to adjacent media practices and its social and cultural importance both domestically and abroad.
  • Image Ecology in Contemporary Japan. This course investigates Japan’s contemporary image environment, with special emphasis on the interpenetration of representation and reality: the ways in which media, games, and other fictional forms infiltrate and transform the lived environment.

JPN 5906r. Directed Individual Study (3). (S/U grade only). May be repeated to a maximum of nine semester hours.

JPN 5915r. Supervised Research (1–5). (S/U grade only). A maximum of three hours may apply to the master’s degree. May be repeated to a maximum of five semester hours.

JPN 5940r. Teaching Practicum (0–5). (S/U grade only). A maximum of three hours may apply to the master’s degree. May be repeated to a maximum of five semester hours.

JPW 8960r. Master’s Comprehensive Exam (0). This course (0 credit, Pass/Fail) is designed for Japanese-track graduate students of the MA Program in East Asian Languages and Cultures (EALC), who wish to exit the Program by taking a comprehensive examination. During the last semester of the graduate studies, the student will register for this course in order to take the exam.

East Asian Linguistics

LIN 5932. Special Topics (3). In this course, different topics are selected to suit the needs and interests of students. A special effort is made to select topics related to current theoretical and practical issues. May be repeated to a maximum of twelve semester hours.
Possible topics include:

  • East Asian Linguistics. This course focuses on Chinese linguistics and Japanese linguistics. Topics include Chinese and Japanese phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, pragmatics, neurolinguistics, first language acquisition, and second language acquisition.
  • East Asian Language Pedagogy. This course offers foundational trainings in the approaches and techniques for the teaching of Chinese and Japanese from the perspectives of linguistics and second language acquisition. Though theoretical and research-based, this is not a course about research; rather, it focuses on practical issues of Chinese and Japanese language pedagogy and basic skills for teaching them as foreign languages.
  • East Asian Historical Linguistics. This course examines the phonological, grammatical, and other linguistic features of the Chinese and Japanese languages in various periods of their histories. Topics include the earlier stages in the phonological system of old Chinese, the changes in rhyming practices, the origin and evolution of the Chinese script, the classification and development of modern Chinese dialects, the origin and development of the Japanese writing system, grammatical changes in Japanese over time, the westernization of modern Japanese, etc.
  • Second Language Sentence Processing. This is an advanced seminar course on adult second language sentence processing. Throughout the course, students will perform a critical examination of theories and studies on L2 sentence processing. Topics such as the resolution of syntactic ambiguities, the processing of filler-gap dependencies, prediction in sentence processing, and the processing of inflectional morphology will be discussed.
  • Second Language Acquisition of Chinese and Japanese. This course provides an introduction to the field of second language acquisition in Chinese and Japanese. It covers practical issues in Chinese and Japanese pedagogy, problems in current SLA research, analysis of learner data from multiple perspectives, and comprehension of important studies in current Chinese and Japanese SLA research.

East Asian Literature and Culture

ASN 5465. Conceptualizations of the Imagination in East Asia and Beyond (3). This graduate seminar critically examines the content, function, and limits of the “imagination” in the Chinese, Japanese, and English literary traditions. It concentrates on poetry and literary works that are “poetic,” or that which makes us think of poetry. By also exploring how other literary forms, genres, and media are informed by the poetic tradition, students will develop a thick description of the “imagination.”

Graduate Seminars in the Department

† LIN 5744. Introduction to Language, Language Learning, and Language Instruction (3). This course provides an overview to the nature of language and how languages are learned. Furthermore, using insights from second language acquisition, the course explores current approaches to communicative, task-based language instruction.

FOW 5025. Critical Theory and Its Application to Non-English Literatures (3). This course introduces graduate students to critical theories and their application to non-English literary texts. Members of the Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics and invited faculty from other University departments team teach.

FOW 5595. Transnational Literature (3). This course considers contemporary literature and film in the context of recent economic, social, and cultural debates about globalization. Readings and discussions are in English.
Possible topics include:

  • Studies in East Asian War Cinema. The course covers the three East Asian countries with a focus on China and Japan, and centers around three topics: cinematics of war and violence, ethics of war, and East Asian war histories.

FOT 5805. Translation Theory and Practice (3). In this course, students analyze and engage with theories and practice of translation. Enrollment limited to graduate students.

* Required for all EALC students.
† Required for all EALC teaching assistants.