Along with Beginning Modern Chinese II, Beginning Chinese III (Non-Intensive) and Beginning Chinese IV, this is the first course of a four-semester sequence. By completing all four semesters, students fulfill the College language requirement. The sequence starts each fall. Students cannot begin their study in the spring. This course is designed primarily for students who have little or no prior exposure to Chinese. The objective of the course is to help students build a solid foundation of the four basic skills--listening, speaking, reading, and writing in an interactive and communicative learning environment. The emphasis is on correct pronunciation, accurate tones, and mastery of basic grammatical structures, laying the foundation needed to be able to manage social situations such as relating one's personal life and experiences, expressing preferences and feelings, ordering meals, purchasing goods, and asking for directions. In order to achieve these goals, students are expected to thoroughly preview and review the materials according to the weekly lesson plan (on course website) prior to attending class. Regular attendance is mandatory and strictly monitored.

This course is designed for students who have little or no previous exposure to Chinese. The main objective of the course is to help students develop their listening and speaking skills. The emphasis is on correct pronunciation, accurate tones and mastery of basic grammatical structures. By the end of the second semester, students will be able to manage many situations that have immediate concern to them, such as relating one's personal life and experiences, expressing preferences and feelings, ordering meals, purchasing goods, asking for directions. Chinese characters will not be taught. See LPS Course Guide. **This course fulfills LPS language requirement only. It does not fulfill the laguage requirement for other colleged only.

Mongolian is the national language of the independent State of Mongolia and the language of the nomadic warriors Genghis Khan (known to the Mongolians themselves as Chinggis Khan). It is also spoken in China and Siberia. Today Mongolian musical styles like throat singing (khoomii), products like cashmere (nooluur), and tourism to visit Mongolia's nomadic herders (malchid) are making a mark on the world stage. In this class the students will continue with the basics of modern Mongolian language, as spoken in Ulaanbaatar "Red Hero," the country's capital. They will learn in the phonetic Cyrillic script, which was adapted to Mongolian language from Russian in 1945, with a few additional letters. Intermediate and more advanced grammar will be taught through communicative methodology. Students will also have opportunity to experience Mongolian arts, culture, and cooking in and out of class. This is the first semester of Intermediate Mongolian. By the end of two semesters intermediate Mongolian, students will have learned all the noun forms, and all the major verb forms and will be able to form complex, multi-clause sentences, telling stories, expressing their feelings, and making arguments and explanations. They should be able to interact in all basic "survival" situations in Mongolia.

Mongolian is the national language of the independent State of Mongolia and the language of the nomadic warriors Genghis Khan (known to the Mongolians themselves as Chinggis Khan). It is also spoken in China and Siberia. Today Mongolian musical styles like throat singing (khoomii), products like cashmere (nooluur), and tourism to visit Mongolia's nomadic herders (malchid) are making a mark on the world stage. In this class the students will learn the basics of modern Mongolian language, as spoken in Ulaanbaatar "Red Hero," the country's capital. They will learn in the phonetic Cyrillic script, which was adapted to Mongolian language from Russian in 1945, with a few additional letters. Basic grammar will be taught through communicative methodology. Students will also have opportunity to experience Mongolian arts, culture, and cooking in and out of class.

An accelerated course in scholarly Japanese for Sinologists and others with a knowledge of Chinese characters. Prerequisite: Knowledge of Chinese characters.

"This seminar will introduce graduate students to current scholarship on the Song dynasty (960-1276) by surveying both classic and recent work in the field. Students will gain a foundation in how historians have interpreted theSong period and learn the major debates within the field. Readings will be principally in English, and no background in Chinese studies is required." This seminar will introduce graduate students to current scholarship on the Song dynasty (960-1276) by surveying both classic and recent work in the field. Students will gain a foundation in how historians have interpreted the Song period and learn the major debates within the field. Readings will be principally in English, and no background in Chinese studies is required.

Close reading and interpretation of texts in various styles of classical Chinese drawn from the Han, Wei, Tang, and Song periods. Focus on strengthening students' reading ability in classical Chinese. Attention to questions of style, rhetoric, and syntax.

In this class students who already know some modern Mongolian in the Cyrillic script will learn how to transfer that knowledge to the reading of first post-classical, and then classical texts written in the vertical or Uyghur-Mongolian script. Topics covered will include the Mongolian alphabetic script, dealing with ambiguous readings, scholarly transcription, vowel harmony and syllable structure, post-classical and classical forms of major declensions, converbs, verbal nouns, and finite verbs, syntax, pronunciation and scribal readings. Readings will be adjusted to interests, but as a rule will include selections from short stories, diaries, chronicles, Buddhist translations, government documents, popular didactic poetry, ritual texts, and traditional narratives. Students will also be introduced to the most important reference works helpful in reading classical and post-classical Mongolian. One year of modern Mongolian or equivalent required to enroll.

This course will be an exploration of premodern Japanese history through the lens of violence. The centuries under consideration (roughly, the eighth thought nineteenth) were characterized by greatly varying levels of violence, both of the state-sanctioned variety (war, punishments for law-breakers and political losers) and of the non-sanctioned variety (piracy, banditry, warrior and peasant rebellions). Examining a wide variety of translated sources, from diaries to chronicles, from legal codes to fiction, we shall examine the changing social, political, economic, and cultural contexts of violence, in order to interrogate not only why certain periods were remarkably peaceful while others were not, but also why violence took different forms in relation to different circumstances. We shall consider how contempories made sense of the violence that surrounded them (or didn't) and how they divided the acceptable use of force from the wanton and society-threatening abuse of it. The course will feature presentations and several (very short) papers.

This course will provide an overview of the major tropes, themes, and interpretations of contemporary Japanese science fiction and fantasy. As we establish a foundational knowledge of the history and structural formulations of genre fiction in Japan, we will cover topics such as folklore, high fantasy, apocalypse, dystopia, magical realism, posthumanism, video games, and transnational media franchises and cross-cultural marketing. By the end of the semester, students will possess a deeper understanding and appreciation of the role that science fiction and fantasy play in shaping contemporary media cultures in Japan and around the world.