Worldviews, World-Building, and World Literature: New Approaches to Chinese Literature (1500-1900)

3 units

This course explores how the multivalent notion of world creates new approaches for studying Chinese literature from the 16th century up to the early 20th century. It will consider the following questions: How did the Chinese people perceive, map, and write about the world prior to modernity? What are the strategies to construct fictional, virtual, or gameful worlds through literature and other media? How and why should we position Chinese literature as world literature? Issues covered in this course include premodern worldviews, literary and transmedia world-building, multilingualism, adaptation, and translation. One primary goal of this course for students is to learn how to critically apply theories from narratology, media studies, and comparative literature to study Chinese literature. To this end, the first session will focus on a particular piece of theoretical work or relevant secondary scholarship, and in the second session students will conduct a case study with selected primary sources to practice employing, questioning, and complicating those theories and methods. All readings will be provided in English. Students with classical and modern Chinese skills will be encouraged to read materials in the original to the extent possible. Fulfills premodern elective for EALC major.