ASIAN 6637

Love and Identity in Early Modern China

Course Description

Course information provided by the Courses of Study 2014-2015.

This course will explore the culture and society of early modern China (roughly defined as covering the period from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century) through literary and visual representations related to love and identity. Along with major cultural and social transformations such as commercialization, the spread of literacy and printing, and increased social mobility, early modern China in particular witnessed the cult of love (qing). This unprecedented enchantment with love not only liberated inner emotions but also involved in the redefinition of self and the cultural and social order. Through a close reading of a variety of genres of texts, we will read major love stories as a discursive practice for constructing individual and collective identities and observing how these identities changed over time in relation to the shifting cultural, economic, social, and political situations.

When Offered Spring.

Course Subfield (LL)

Comments Co-meets with ASIAN 3337. No prior knowledge of Chinese necessary.

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