Fall 2003

CHI 384 • 5-Modern Chinese Literature

Course Description

This course is designed to prepare graduate students specializing in different aspects of modern and contemporary Chinese literature and culture for an academic career in this country. It will be divided into two main parts. First, the students will read works of English-language scholarship in the last four decades and give oral reports on their critical methodologies. Second, the class will discuss selected Chinese literary texts from the Pre-Communist and Post-Mao eras in light of critical issues currently of central concern to scholars in the field. In particular, we will carefully examine the underlying theoretical assumptions of such terms as “the modern,” “modernity,” and “modernism,” which have frequently appeared -- but not always clearly defined -- in recent studies of modern Chinese literature. In addition to class presentations, a final research paper is required.

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