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.

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.

"Why was the Great Wall of China built? What made the two people of China and Mongolia so hostile that a vast wall had to be built to separate them? Is this wall a symbol of Chinas might and glory, or a symbol of tyranny like the Berli n wall? Did the wall actually keep out the barbarians? Can it really be seen from the moon? For almost 2,000 year how to handle the nomads of Mongolia was the most important foreign policy question for Chinas rulers. At several differ ent times and several different places from the third century BC to the twentieth century AD, they used walls to defend themselves from the nomads. The wall thus came to symbolize the social, economic, military, political, and cultural clash between China and Mongolia. Across this frontier, nomads and Chinese fought, but also traded, exchanged diplomatic missions, and made peace. In understanding this conflict, students will explore fundamental issues of international relations: is conflict between different societies and cultures inevitable? Does greed always cause war or can economic interests be harnessed to make peace profitable? How much does domestic politics and ideology tie the hands of policy-makers confronting foreign threats? Can smaller powers make peace with larger neighbors without losing their independence and identity? "

Continuation of Introduction 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.

Representations of a perfect society and imagined scenarios of a dystopian or apocalyptic future are a common features of all human societies. Philosophical, religious, and literary attempts to imagine alternative futures and critique present conditions enjoyed wide popularity and considerable influence throughout Chinese history. The goal of this course will be to introduce students to the major themes and trends in utopian and apocalyptic thought in China, from the premodern age to our times. In the first part of the semester, we will learn about the utopian and apocalyptic narratives that emerged in early and medieval China. We will begin by discussing the two archetypal models of a utopian society in early China: the Confucian harmonious moral society and its Daoist counterpart of an idyllic secluded community located in faraway lands. We will then turn our attention to the emergence of organized religion and the utopian and apocalyptic scenarios promoted by Daoist and Buddhist writers and religious innovators. In the second part of the semester, we will focus on the modern and contemporary periods and the study the impact of the introduction of Western utopian and millenarian narratives on the Chinese imagination. In addition to surveying some real-world attempts to establish a utopian society, such as the 19th century Taiping Rebellion, Mao Zedong's attempts to re-fashion China into a Community Utopia in the 20th century, and the 21st century eco-village green movement, students will be introduced to a wide variety of literary and cinematic texts that try to imagine a possible future - from the utopian sci-fi nationalism of The Wandering Earth to the dystopian fiction of leading writers such as Han Song, Chen Qiufan, and Han Jingfang. Using these works as case studies, we will strive to ascertain the role of utopianism as a tool of political, social, and environmental criticism and as a way to construct a better and more just society in the 21st century. No knowledge of Chinese is necessary - all readings will be in English. As a split-level seminar, the course will be discussion-based. Students will be asked to post weekly 500-word response papers in which they will analyze and critique the readings. The goal of this task is to help students familiarize themselves with the assigned sources before the in-class discussion thus facilitating a meaningful and productive discussion. For their final project, students will conduct their own research on a topic of their choice and present it during the last meeting. Undergraduate paper will be limited to 10-pages; graduate papers should be around 20-25 pages, including original-language research.

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.

Ancient Chinese writers considered sexual activity to be an essential component of humanity, and the study of human sexuality to be essential to the study of human history. Sexuality constituted a fundamental source of imagery and categories that informed the classical Chinese conception of social, political, and military relationships. This course will survey the major sources dealing with sex and society in ancient China. There are no prerequisites, and no knowledge of Chinese is presumed.

This course examines gender and sexuality in Chinese history from ancient to contemporary times. It focuses on historiographical developments and methods of studying gender and sexuality in history as well as in Chinese history. The readings will include, but not be limited to, works by Robin Wang, Paul Goldin, Jen-der Lee, Patricia Ebrey, Beverly Bossler, Charlotte Furth, Susan Mann, Dorothy Ko, Francesca Bray, Yi-Li Wu, Matthew Sommer, Janet Theiss, Siyen Fei, Judith Zeitlin, Keith McMahon, Nicole Barnes, Gail Hershatter, Tani Barlow, and Lisa Rofel.

This graduate seminar addresses the pressing need to study comparative histories of gender and sexuality in the premodern world from non-Western-centric perspectives. It accentuates the significance of studying gender and sexuality together, as well as the relevance of the non-Western premodern to our contemporary world. This course is not a world history survey but a focused discussion of select academic works that are particularly inspiring and pathbreaking in their approaches and methodologies. The selection of readings will depend on students’ interest and new scholarship of the time, but the initial selection will come from the attached bibliography.

How have screen media interacted with bodies in East Asia? This graduate seminar hopes to use the “/” symbol to bring to light different ways screens have recorded, archived, addressed, and transformed both human and non-human bodies in East Asia. A central narrative thread of the course is the archeology of screen-based media. We will connect the contemporary proliferations of screens of various sizes, shapes, and properties to the television screen, the collective screen of cinema, and the traditional furniture screen. Course readings will be interdisciplinary, bringing into dialogues inquiries and methodologies found in art history, cinema and media studies, science and technology studies (STS), and performance studies. Another focus of the course is reflecting on and developing strategies for grounding broad, theoretical frameworks in the specific geopolitical space of East Asia. Any given screen situation will be examined in relation to both the nation state and transnational forces, as the intersection between the technological, the material, the cultural, and the historical.