The Culture of Death in East Asia

3 units

This course explains a wide range of historical themes pertaining to death in East Asia, namely China, Korea, and Japan. The key questions addressed in this course are how and why people in the past understood and experienced death in certain ways, and in what ways the experience and meaning of death transformed over time. We will try to answer these questions by exploring historical and cultural terrains that shaped the ways in which people conceptualized death and afterlife in the three countries. Throughout the first half of the semester, we will observe how notions of death and afterlife evolved and were shaped and influenced within the multifaceted interplay between religions, philosophies, ideologies, and popular customs. We then move on to the impact of modernization on the practices of death in the late 19th and 20th centuries. Students will be asked to think critically and creatively about how to define death as a historical experience or event, as well as how we could see history differently through the lens of death. For this purpose, we will consult a variety of course materials, such as selected secondary scholarship, primary documents, ghost tales, and films. Although a short lecture will be given when necessary, the class will be discussion-based. Studenets who are interested in death but have no background in East Asian studies and history are welcome; we value any creative input from the perspective of diverse cultural backgrounds as far as death is taken seriously.