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TTh 1:00 PM-2:30, 130 Tappan Hall The Arts and Letters of
China
This interdisciplinary course is jointly taught by faculty specialists in philosophy, religion, history of art, drama, and literature. Not a survey course, the focus is on the critical study of a number of significant and representative works in order to present some major themes of the distinct and complex civilization of China. In spite of inner tensions, China’s cultural tradition can be seen as a highly integrated system composed of mutually reinforcing elements, making such an interdisciplinary, multi-media approach particularly effective. Towards the end of the course we will observe the collapse of this system under the impact of the West, China’s struggles to adapt to the modern world, and consider how our themes continue, persist, or change. Selected topics and partial reading list: I. Archaeological and mythic origins: cosmology, the nature of the Chinese language, the writing system as a unifying force. II. Philosophy: Confucianism: Mencius, theories of human nature and government, the ideal of public service, the self in society; Taoism: Chuang Tzu, individual solitude and withdrawal, concept of the Tao. III. Religion: Buddhism’s arrival in China; the development of Ch’an (Zen). IV. Poetry and painting: Court painting and literati painting, masters of landscape painting; nature and pictorialism; theories of poetry, poems from The Book of Odes (CA 600 BC) to the 12th century. V. Narrative fiction: classical and vernacular tales; the world of the storyteller; narative transformations; desire, transgression, and the image of women. VI. Theatre: themes and conventions of a poetic-musical theatre; anti-realism; the actor’s art, and illusion on the Chinese stage; A Night at the Peking Opera (film); Crump: Chinese Theatre in the Days of the Kublai Khan. VII. Modern literature: continuity and change in a revolutionary society, women and peasant as "other" post-Mao reappraisals, the search for identity: gender, cultural roots, etc. in recent fiction. Stories by Lu Xun, Mo Yan, Ding Ling, Wang Anyi, etc. Course format: lectures and discussions by Crump (theatre); Feuerwerker (modern literature); Lin (Taoism, poetry); Powers (history of art); Rolston (traditional fiction); Sharf (religion). In the fourth hour, we will divide into discussion sections. Requirements: 3 _ papers, final exam. (Feuerwerker, Yi-Tsi) |
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