This course explores the relationship between the United States and Korea by examining the roles and contributions of a diverse range of individuals. While the US-Korea relationship is often studied from a top-down perspective, focusing on high-level officials and grand diplomatic agreements, this course analyzes the stories of individuals with different backgrounds. It includes not only diplomats and politicians, but also businesspeople, immigrants, students, and others who have been overlooked in traditional diplomatic history, yet all contributed to the formation of US-Korea relations. By listening to these varied voices, students will have a better understanding of how micro-interactions shaped the broader cultural, political, and social context of US-Korea relations. Each week, we will engage in primary source or media analysis activities in class, utilizing materials in different formats to familiarize students with various historical methodologies. By analyzing a variety of source materials¬—such as memoirs, novels, diaries, films, and more—students will explore how everyday lives of individuals are entangled with major historical events, and moreover, how they are remembered and forgotten today.

This course offers a unique exploration of China’s ethnic frontiers, with a special focus on the North and the Western regions. We will delve into major works in the field that delve into topics such as the politics and discourse of ethnicity, nationality, religion, minority status and indigeneity, patriotism/loyalty, historiography, geography, cultural expression, modernization, settler colonialism, imperialism, natural resources, and other related subjects within the context of modern China. Our journey will span the historical periods from the 17th century to the present.
The readings for this course are eclectic, drawing from various disciplines. This interdisciplinary approach provides in-depth insights into the history and forms of expression of pluralism and the tensions it creates in China. We will engage with the works of historians, anthropologists, political scientists, and social theorists, fostering a broad perspective on some of the most relevant issues of our time.

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.

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. It is preferred, but not required, that students take Advanced Classical Chinese I first.

Continuation of Intro to Classical Chinese I, 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 course is an introduction to the study of law and society in China in a comparative and global context. We will begin by considering the tradition of imperial Chinese law and its social and philosophical foundations. We will then turn to the confrontation between the Qing empire and Euro-American imperial powers in the nineteenth century and the attendant collision between European and Chinese notions of sovereignty. Next, we will consider early twentieth-century law reforms as the Qing empire was transformed into the constitutional form of a modern republic, followed by the introduction of socialist law and the establishment of the People’s Republic of China. The course will conclude with post-Mao reforms and their implications for the future of Chinese law and society. Throughout the course, we will pay attention to the use of historical and comparative methods. What are the potentials and liabilities of using law as an analytical category in cross-cultural study? What happens when “Eastern” and “Western” legal cultures come in contact with each other? How is law related to capitalism and socialism? How does law structure political and socio-economic relations globally? How does law produce as well as constrain subjects and identities? What is the relationship between law, gender, and sexuality?

This course explores medicine and healing culture in Chinese history, including the introduction of Western/biomedicine to China. We start from the early 20th century, when we witnessed the major confrontation between Chinese medical traditions and the modernizing Chinese state. We then go back in time two thousand years ago and move chronologically to highlight plurality and changes. In the second half of the semester we come back to the 20th–21st centuries and investigate the practice and policies of public health in China and Chinese East Asia, including the recent history of SARS and COVID-19 in Taiwan.

Japan has one of the richest and most varied theatrical traditions in the world, and is a veritable museum of classical and contemporary performances practices. This seminar is designed to introduce students to several major aesthetic principles that are embodied in different theatrical genres. The students will be taken deep into several important texts of the performance tradition, as well as to various places on Penn campus and in Philadelphia in order to fully experience these aesthetics:
1. The “zen” aesthetic of the medieval noh theater characterized by minimalism and Buddhist contemplation.
2. The “queer” aesthetic of the early modern kabuki theater characterized by gender impersonation and exaggeration.
3. The “grotesque” aesthetic of modern butoh performance characterized by distorted physicality and apocalyptic scenarios.
4. The “anime” aesthetic of the all-female Takarazuka Revue and of postmodern theater characterized by parody and fan-generated culture.

This course serves as an introduction to ecocriticism through the lens of Japanese culture from the late medieval period to the present day. We will approach themes relating to the study of the natural world from a multidisciplinary perspective, and the course will address topics concerning Japanese history, religion, folklore, and contemporary media. Students will learn to identify and analyze ecological themes in current events, social issues, and texts drawn from popular culture.

This class is an opportunity to work closely with the Chinese sculpture, paintings, bronzes and other works of art in the collection of the Penn Museum. Some of the objects are well-known and on permanent display. Others have hardly been researched since they were acquired, and rarely leave storage. The class will meet in small groups at the museum. Students will work on research papers and collaborative in-class presentations on objects of their choice. A variety of approaches will be encouraged and students may choose to focus on iconography, historical and religious context, materials and manufacturing techniques, collectors and patronage, or inscriptions. There are no prerequisites for this course.