"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.

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 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 the interrelationship among "gender," "religion," and "China" as conceptual and historical categories. We ask, for example, how gender plays critical and constitutive roles in Chinese religious traditions, how religion can be used both to reinforce and to challenge gender norms, how religious women impact Chinese society and culture, and what the construction of "China" as a cultural identity and as a nation-state has to do with women, gender, and religion. We will also think about what assumptions we have when speaking of gender, religion, and China, and the infinite possibilities when we strive to think beyond. We will read three kinds of materials: (1) scholarship on gender and religion in historical and contemporary China as well as the Chinese-speaking world, (2) scholarship concerning theories and methodology of gender and religious studies not necessarily focused on China, and (3) historical record of religious women in English translation.

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.

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.

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.

Continuation of CHIN491 EALC221/621, which is the only prerequisite for this course. Upon completion of Shadick, readings in a wide selection of texts with Chinese commentaries may be taken up. These readings are in part chosen to reflect student interest. This is the second half of a year-long course. Those who enroll must take both semesters.

This is a seminar about Tang China and Nara Japan, and Early Heian Japan, Unified Silla Korea, Northeast Asia under Parhae, and Uyghur Inner Asia through their cities, palaces, monasteries, Buddhist art, and painting. We begin by studying material remains of the two best-documented civilizations of East Asian in the seventh-ninth centuries. Using painting, sculpture, ceramics, and architecture of Tang China and Nara Japan, we investigate the validity of the frequent assessment of an international Tang through material remains in China and Japan. We then move to Korea, Mongolia, and Central Asia. Students will have a wide range of topics to work on. They will be encouraged to find comparative topics. This seminar is an opportunity for students to use Chinese, Japanese, or Korean in research papers. There are no exams. Readings will be assigned to the whole group and to individual students for short presentations every week. Undergraduates will write one short and write and present one long paper.