Survey of the civilization of China from prehistoric times to the present.

This seminar is designed to acquaint graduate students with the basic methods and resources of Sino logical research. The course will begin with an overview of essential reference works and aids to study, such as dictionaries and concordances, and continue with a survey of the major primary sources for the study of traditional Chinese history. Students are required to demonstrate the use of the methods learned in the course in a research paper, to be presented to the class in the form of a brief lecture at the end of the semester. Only graduate students may enroll in this course. The prerequisites are reading knowledge of modern Chinese and two years of the classical language. Familiarity with Japanese, though not required, would prove helpful.

Topics vary semester to semester

"Crowning masterpiece of Japanese literature," "the world's first novel," "fountainhead of Japanese literary and aesthetic culture," "a great soap opera in the vein of Jacqueline Susann." Readers over the centuries have praised the Tale of Genji, the monumental prose tale finished just after the year 1000, in a variety of ways. In this course we will read the latest English translation of Murasaki Shikibu's work. We will watch as Genji loses his mother at a tender age, is cast out of the royal family, and begins a quest to fill the void she left. Along the way, Genji's loyalty to all the women he encounters forges his reputation as the ideal lover. We will consider gender issues in the female author's portrayal of this rake, and question the changing audience, from bored court women to censorious monks, from adoring nationalists to comic book adaptors. Study of the tale requires consideration of poetry, imagery, costume, music, history, religion, theater, political and material culture, all of which will be components of the course. We will also trace the effect of the tale's many motifs, from flora and fauna to murderously jealous spirits, on later literature and conceptions of human emotions. All material is in English translation. There are no prerequisites. Research in an East Asian language required for graduate credit.

Shinto-derived images and ideas frequently appear in Japanese anime and film, and journalists and academics frequently mobilize the term Shinto as a way of explaining Japan s past or envisioning its future. The environmentalist left champions a green Shinto while Shinto-derived ideas serve as red meat for politicians pandering to Japan s nationalist right. While the influential position Shinto occupies in Japanese sociopolitical life is therefore clear, the term Shinto itself is actually not. Depending on who one asks, Shinto is either the venerable indigenous religion of the Japanese archipelago, the irreducible core of Japanese culture, a tiny subset of Japanese Buddhism, an oppressive political ideology linked to the emperor system, an environmentalist ethic, or some combination of these. This course investigates the multifarious types of Shinto envisioned by these competing interest groups.

Readings in classical texts drawn from the Heian, Kamakura, Muromachi, and Edo periods. Introduction to the different styles of classical Japanese, and to classical Japanese as a whole.

This course explores Chinese medicine and healing culture, its diversity, and its change over time. We will discuss topics including the establishment of canonical medicine, Daoist approaches to healing and longevity, diverse views of the body and disease, the emergence of treatments for women, medical construction of sex difference and imagination of female sexuality, the thriving and decline of female healers, the identity of scholar physicians, the transmission of medical knowledge, domestic and cross-regional drug market, healer-patient relations, and new visions of traditional Chinese medicine in modern China.

This course examines gender in Chinese religious culture from ancient to contemporary times. We will explore topics including the Buddhist accommodation of Chinese family system, Chinese transformation of the bodhisattva Guanyin, female deities in Daoist and popular religious pantheons, writings about religious women, female ghosts and fox spirits in literary imagination and folk tales, and the significance of yin force in Chinese medicine and Daoist alchemy. Through the case of China, we will look at how gender plays critical and constitutive roles in religious traditions, and how religion can be used both to reinforce and to challenge gender norms.

Study of Chinese painting and practice from the earliest pictorial representation through the late twentieth century. Painting styles are analyzed, but themes such as landscape and narrative are considered with regard to larger social, cultural, and historical issues. The class will pay particular attention to the construction of the concepts of the "artist" and "art criticism" and their impact on the field into the present. Visits to study paintings at the University of Pennsylvania Museum and Philadelphia Museum of Art.