Dream of the Red Chamber

4.0 credits

This course is devoted to an intensive reading of the greatest work of Chinese prose fiction, the eighteenth-century novel, Dream of the Red Chamber (Hongloumeng). We will pay close attention to the novels extended reflection on the relations between illusion, reality, and fabrication; its subversion of historical narrative; its construction of architectural and natural? spaces; its intense obsession with the sensuousness of material culture; and its powerful narration of desire in early modern China. No background in Chinese literature, culture, or language assumed. All readings in English.