Close Reading Area Studies: China and Japan in the World

2-4 credits · Graduate

This course will consider alternative strategies and modes of close reading that can be relevant to the study of East Asia with a focus on China and Japan. As we concentrate on the historical role of philological research, translation studies, interdisciplinary scholarship and ask how "knowledge" about East Asia is produced in our fields, our readings on "close reading" will help us question the common sense of "civilization," culture," and "tradition," and explore new ways of asking questions about text and context, aesthetics and politics, cultural memory, historical narratives, and regimes of knowledge.