First-Year Seminar: Exploring East Asian Classics

This first-year seminar introduces students to major works of the Chinese, Korean, and Japanese traditions. Although written centuries in the past, these texts still reverberate with meaning today and offer important means to understand the often chaotic and confusing events occurring daily around us. What is the self? What is the relationship between the individual and society? How do we live an ethical life? What is literature and for whom is it intended? In grappling with these questions, students will directly engage with the texts through close reading and in-class discussion. Students will, at the same time, also ask broader questions that concern how knowledge is produced, spread, and consumed: what is a canon? Who are the gatekeepers? What does it mean to approach East Asia through a set of "canonical" texts? Among the texts considered will be The Analects, Daodejing, Lotus Sutra, Tale of Genji, Tales of the Heike, Tales of Moonlight and Rain, Samguk yusa, and Memoirs of Lady Hyegyong. Prerequisite: first-year, non-transfer students only.
Course Attributes: EN H; FYS; BU BA; AS HUM; AS LCD; FA HUM; AR HUM

First-Year Seminar: Exploring East Asian Classics

JAPANESE 150

Section 01