This class is intended to provide a survey of literature, literary movements, and debates of twentieth century China from the May Fourth Movement (1915-1925) through to the present day. We will read short stories from the May Fourth period, the socialist realism era beginning from the 1930s through to the Yan’an days in the 1940s, and the rapidly changing literary forms of post-Mao Culture (from the late 1970s to the present).
Prominent topics and themes throughout the course will include: the May Fourth literary movement, gender issues, Communist revolutionary literature, and Post-Mao “scar” literature, experimental literature, and commercial literature, and discuss the impact of history, political ideology, commercialism and globalization on literature. We will read from a variety of texts by both male and female Chinese authors that have helped shaped the discourse on twentieth century Chinese literature. We will look at how literature frames historical and political movements. Background lectures will help to contextualize the literature within a cultural and literary context.
Prerequisites:
None
Attendance policy:
IES Abroad does not allow any unexcused absences. Unexcused absences will result in your grade being lowered (i.e. B+ to B-).
Learning outcomes:
After taking the course Introduction to Modern Chinese Literature, students will:
• Possess an understanding and knowledge of twentieth-century modern Chinese literature through the use of narratives, films, and secondary sources.
• Be able to identify key authors and themes in Modern Chinese literature.
• Have a historical understanding of gender and sexuality in traditional Chinese culture and demonstrate how this changes over time, for both the individual and society, and how it is represented in Chinese literary works and film.
• Understand how modern Chinese political and literary movements have profoundly influenced the construction and symbolism of gender and sexuality in Chinese literature.
• Acquire an understanding of the historical and political contexts in which literary works were produced during the 20th century.
• Through art exhibitions that we visit, see connections between literature and art that reflect a great variety of interpretations of, and responses to, the dramatic changes in current Chinese society.
• Be able to write concise analytical papers engaging the themes above.
Method of presentation:
Discussion, Lecture and the occasional use of film
Required work and form of assessment:
Discussion Leaders: Every student will be responsible for leading discussion twice during our month- long course. (10%)
Analytic Response Papers: Please bring a one-page single-typed response paper to class every Monday and Thursday. The papers should be analytic rather than descriptive. Please, do not retell the stories. The ideal paper identifies a problem raised by the text, either explicitly or by what it leaves out, and develops your ideas about it. These analytic "reaction pieces" will provide a starting point for class discussions. I will not accept late papers. (25%)
Class Participation: The class is structured as a seminar. I look forward to active class discussions regarding the texts. (25%)
Final Paper: There is an 8-10 page paper due at the end of the term. The following is an overview of the general requirements for the paper. In your final paper, please choose three narratives that you will analyze. Not all three stories or novels should be from the same time period. For example, one of the texts should be from the pre-Revolution period (pre-1949) and the other two from the post-Mao period, or vice-versa. Your paper should focus on a specific theme that is either implicit or explicit in the stories. Hopefully themes you have developed in your weekly response papers will serve as a starting point for the longer paper. (40%)
I expect every paper to have a clearly expressed thesis that argues an interesting point. Your paper argument should respond to your thesis question and be supported by the texts and information from lectures. I do not want you to use sources from outside this class unless approved by me.
I encourage everyone to come and talk with me during my office hour or send me an email regarding their thesis prior to writing their paper.
Grading:
Discussion leader—10% Class
Participation—25% Weekly
Response Papers—25% Final
Paper Presentations—5% Final
Paper—35%
content:
Week 1: 10-13-10/14
Thursday: May Fourth and the Literary Movement
Lu Xun: Preface to “Call to Arms” (LX)
Friday: May Fourth: Chinese Tradition and the Intellectual
“A Madman’s Diary,” pp. 7-18 (LX) “Kong Yi Ji,” pp.3-7 (MC)
“My Old Home,” pp. 11-16 (MC)
Week 2: 10/17-10/21
Monday: Lu Xun cont.
“The New Year’s Sacrifice,” pp. 17-26 (MC) “Soap,” pp. 33-38 (MC)
“Medicine,” pp. 6-10 (MC)
Tuesday: Female Subjectivity and Gender Roles
Ling Shuhua:
“Embroidered Pillows,” pp. 197-199 (MC)
“The Night of Mid-autumn Festival,” pp. 200-205 (MC) “Once Upon A Time”
Thursday: Male/Female Subjectivity, Sexuality, and the Chinese Nation
Yu Dafu: “Sinking,” pp. 125-141 (MC)
Ding Ling “Miss Sophia’s Diary,” pp.49-81 (DL)
Friday:
Film: Xin nüxing
Kristine Harris. "The New Woman Incident: Cinema, Scandal, and Spectacle in 1935
Shanghai
Week 3: 10/24-10/28
Monday: Internal Conflict, Gender, and Illness
Shen Congwen: “Xiaoxiao” pp. 227-236 (MC)
Mao Dun: “Spring Silkworms, pp. 144-156 (MC)
Mao Zedong “Talks on Art and Literature at the Yan’an Forum”
Tuesday: Illness and Subjectivity
Ding Ling: “In the Hospital” pp.279-291 (MC)
“When I Was In Xia Village,” pp. 268-278 (MC) “Thoughts on March 8th”
Wednesday: Fieldtrip to 798
Thursday: Chinese Modernism
Zhang Ailing: “Sealed Off,” pp. 174-183 (Columbia)
Shi Zhicun: “One Evening in the Rainy Season,” pp. 116-124 (Columbia) Documentary: China in the Age of Revolution: “The Mao Years”
Friday: No Class
Week 4: 10/31-11/04
Monday: Post-Mao Scar Literature
Zhang Jie “Love Must Not Be Forgotten”
Chen Ran: “Sunshine Between the Lips,” pp. 112-129 (Mao) Liu Heng: “Dog Shit Food,” pp. 366-378 (Columbia)
Tuesday: Avant-garde Fiction: The Present through the Past
Mo Yan: “Divine Debauchery,” pp. 1-12 (Wild) “The Cure,” pp. 172-181 (Mao)
Bei Dao: “Declaration,” pp.576-577 (Columbia) “Resume,” pp. 577 (Columbia)
Thursday: Avant-garde Fiction: Culture and Violence
Yu Hua: “One Kind of Reality” pp.21-68 (Wild)
Su Tong: “The Brothers Shu,” pp. 25-68 (Mao)
Friday: Nostalgia and the Cultural Revolution
Wang Xiaobo: “2015” In Wang in Love and Bondage: Three Novellas by Wang Xiaobo
Wang Xiaobo “The Golden Age” In Wang in Love and Bondage: Three Novellas by Wang
Xiaobo
Week 5: 11/07-11/08
Monday: Nostalgia and the Past
Film: In the Heat of the Sun
Article: Braester, Yomi. "Memory at a Standstill: From Mao History to Hooligan History” in Witness
Against History: Literature, Film, and Public Discourse in Twentieth-Century China
Film Discussion
Tuesday: PAPER DUE!!
Required readings:
Lu Hsun: Selected Stories. Translated by Yang Hsien-yi and Gladys Yang, Norton
Library, 1977 (LX)
Modern Chinese Stories and Novellas 1919-1949, ed. C.T. Hsia, J. Lau, L. Lee, Columbia University Press, 1981 (MC),
I Myself Am A Woman: Selected Writings of Ding Ling, ed. Tani Barlow and Gary J.
Bjorge, Beacon Press, 1989 (DL)
Zhang Jie, Love Must Not Be Forgotten. San Francisco: China Books, 1986
Chairman Mao Would Not Be Amused, Ed. Howard Goldblatt, Grove Press, 1995 (Mao)
Running Wild: New Chinese Writers, ed. David Wang and Jeanne Tai, Columbia
University Press, 1994 (Wild)
Columbia Anthology of Modern Chinese Literature, ed. Joseph S.M. Lau and Howard
Goldblatt, Columbia University Press, 2007 (MCL)
Shanghai Baby, Wei Hui. Translated by Bruce Humes, Pocket Books, 1999 (SB)
Wang In Love and Bondage: Three Novellas by Wang Xiaobo, Wang Xiaobo. Translated
by Hongling Zhang and Jason Sommer, State University of New York Press, 2007 (Wang)
Films: Xin Nuxing Dir. Cai Chusheng (1935) with Ruan Lingyu
Yangguang canlan de rizi, Dir. Jiangwen (1994).
The IES library does have the Chinese texts for most of the stories. I encourage students to try and read the stories in the original Chinese.
Brief Biography of Instructor:
Eileen Vickery has a Master’s degree in Asian Studies (1997) and a doctorate in Chinese Literature and Languages (2004) from the University of Oregon. She studied intensive Chinese at the Stanford Center at Taiwan University in Taipei from 1997-1998 and at Nankai University in Tianjin in 1996. Eileen first came to China in 1992 to teach English at Qufu Teachers’ University in Shandong. Her research focuses on the dilemmas of identity of the modern Chinese woman and representations of illness in modern Chinese fiction. She has been the recipient of several academic awards, notably the Esterline Prize for best academic paper at Asian Studies Pacific Coast Conference and the UC Berkeley Institute for East Asian Studies for Academic Excellence. Her article on Wei Hui’s Shanghai Baobei was published in the ASPAC Journal and her letters from China while teaching in Shandong, were included the book, Dear Alice: Letters Home from Teachers Living in China, UC Berkeley Press. Eileen also taught for IES in Beijing during the 2005-2006 academic year.
This class is intended to provide a survey of literature, literary movements, and debates of twentieth century China from the May Fourth Movement (1915-1925) through to the present day. We will read short stories from the May Fourth period, the socialist realism era beginning from the 1930s through to the Yan’an days in the 1940s, and the rapidly changing literary forms of post-Mao Culture (from the late 1970s to the present).
Prominent topics and themes throughout the course will include: the May Fourth literary movement, gender issues, Communist revolutionary literature, and Post-Mao “scar” literature, experimental literature, and commercial literature, and discuss the impact of history, political ideology, commercialism and globalization on literature. We will read from a variety of texts by both male and female Chinese authors that have helped shaped the discourse on twentieth century Chinese literature. We will look at how literature frames historical and political movements. Background lectures will help to contextualize the literature within a cultural and literary context.
None
IES Abroad does not allow any unexcused absences. Unexcused absences will result in your grade being lowered (i.e. B+ to B-).
After taking the course Introduction to Modern Chinese Literature, students will:
• Possess an understanding and knowledge of twentieth-century modern Chinese literature through the use of narratives, films, and secondary sources.
• Be able to identify key authors and themes in Modern Chinese literature.
• Have a historical understanding of gender and sexuality in traditional Chinese culture and demonstrate how this changes over time, for both the individual and society, and how it is represented in Chinese literary works and film.
• Understand how modern Chinese political and literary movements have profoundly influenced the construction and symbolism of gender and sexuality in Chinese literature.
• Acquire an understanding of the historical and political contexts in which literary works were produced during the 20th century.
• Through art exhibitions that we visit, see connections between literature and art that reflect a great variety of interpretations of, and responses to, the dramatic changes in current Chinese society.
• Be able to write concise analytical papers engaging the themes above.
Discussion, Lecture and the occasional use of film
Discussion Leaders: Every student will be responsible for leading discussion twice during our month- long course. (10%)
Analytic Response Papers: Please bring a one-page single-typed response paper to class every Monday and Thursday. The papers should be analytic rather than descriptive. Please, do not retell the stories. The ideal paper identifies a problem raised by the text, either explicitly or by what it leaves out, and develops your ideas about it. These analytic "reaction pieces" will provide a starting point for class discussions. I will not accept late papers. (25%)
Grading scale for papers:
√+ = 95%
√ = 85%
√ - = 75%
Class Participation: The class is structured as a seminar. I look forward to active class discussions regarding the texts. (25%)
Final Paper: There is an 8-10 page paper due at the end of the term. The following is an overview of the general requirements for the paper. In your final paper, please choose three narratives that you will analyze. Not all three stories or novels should be from the same time period. For example, one of the texts should be from the pre-Revolution period (pre-1949) and the other two from the post-Mao period, or vice-versa. Your paper should focus on a specific theme that is either implicit or explicit in the stories. Hopefully themes you have developed in your weekly response papers will serve as a starting point for the longer paper. (40%)
I expect every paper to have a clearly expressed thesis that argues an interesting point. Your paper argument should respond to your thesis question and be supported by the texts and information from lectures. I do not want you to use sources from outside this class unless approved by me.
I encourage everyone to come and talk with me during my office hour or send me an email regarding their thesis prior to writing their paper.
Grading:
Discussion leader—10% Class
Participation—25% Weekly
Response Papers—25% Final
Paper Presentations—5% Final
Paper—35%
Week 1: 10-13-10/14
Thursday: May Fourth and the Literary Movement
Lu Xun: Preface to “Call to Arms” (LX)
Friday: May Fourth: Chinese Tradition and the Intellectual
“A Madman’s Diary,” pp. 7-18 (LX) “Kong Yi Ji,” pp.3-7 (MC)
“My Old Home,” pp. 11-16 (MC)
Week 2: 10/17-10/21
Monday: Lu Xun cont.
“The New Year’s Sacrifice,” pp. 17-26 (MC) “Soap,” pp. 33-38 (MC)
“Medicine,” pp. 6-10 (MC)
Tuesday: Female Subjectivity and Gender Roles
Ling Shuhua:
“Embroidered Pillows,” pp. 197-199 (MC)
“The Night of Mid-autumn Festival,” pp. 200-205 (MC) “Once Upon A Time”
Thursday: Male/Female Subjectivity, Sexuality, and the Chinese Nation
Yu Dafu: “Sinking,” pp. 125-141 (MC)
Ding Ling “Miss Sophia’s Diary,” pp.49-81 (DL)
Friday:
Film: Xin nüxing
Kristine Harris. "The New Woman Incident: Cinema, Scandal, and Spectacle in 1935
Shanghai
Week 3: 10/24-10/28
Monday: Internal Conflict, Gender, and Illness
Shen Congwen: “Xiaoxiao” pp. 227-236 (MC)
Mao Dun: “Spring Silkworms, pp. 144-156 (MC)
Mao Zedong “Talks on Art and Literature at the Yan’an Forum”
Tuesday: Illness and Subjectivity
Ding Ling: “In the Hospital” pp.279-291 (MC)
“When I Was In Xia Village,” pp. 268-278 (MC) “Thoughts on March 8th”
Wednesday: Fieldtrip to 798
Thursday: Chinese Modernism
Zhang Ailing: “Sealed Off,” pp. 174-183 (Columbia)
Shi Zhicun: “One Evening in the Rainy Season,” pp. 116-124 (Columbia) Documentary: China in the Age of Revolution: “The Mao Years”
Friday: No Class
Week 4: 10/31-11/04
Monday: Post-Mao Scar Literature
Zhang Jie “Love Must Not Be Forgotten”
Chen Ran: “Sunshine Between the Lips,” pp. 112-129 (Mao) Liu Heng: “Dog Shit Food,” pp. 366-378 (Columbia)
Tuesday: Avant-garde Fiction: The Present through the Past
Mo Yan: “Divine Debauchery,” pp. 1-12 (Wild) “The Cure,” pp. 172-181 (Mao)
Bei Dao: “Declaration,” pp.576-577 (Columbia) “Resume,” pp. 577 (Columbia)
Thursday: Avant-garde Fiction: Culture and Violence
Yu Hua: “One Kind of Reality” pp.21-68 (Wild)
Su Tong: “The Brothers Shu,” pp. 25-68 (Mao)
Friday: Nostalgia and the Cultural Revolution
Wang Xiaobo: “2015” In Wang in Love and Bondage: Three Novellas by Wang Xiaobo
Wang Xiaobo “The Golden Age” In Wang in Love and Bondage: Three Novellas by Wang
Xiaobo
Week 5: 11/07-11/08
Monday: Nostalgia and the Past
Film: In the Heat of the Sun
Article: Braester, Yomi. "Memory at a Standstill: From Mao History to Hooligan History” in Witness
Against History: Literature, Film, and Public Discourse in Twentieth-Century China
Film Discussion
Tuesday: PAPER DUE!!
Lu Hsun: Selected Stories. Translated by Yang Hsien-yi and Gladys Yang, Norton
Library, 1977 (LX)
Modern Chinese Stories and Novellas 1919-1949, ed. C.T. Hsia, J. Lau, L. Lee, Columbia University Press, 1981 (MC),
I Myself Am A Woman: Selected Writings of Ding Ling, ed. Tani Barlow and Gary J.
Bjorge, Beacon Press, 1989 (DL)
Zhang Jie, Love Must Not Be Forgotten. San Francisco: China Books, 1986
Chairman Mao Would Not Be Amused, Ed. Howard Goldblatt, Grove Press, 1995 (Mao)
Running Wild: New Chinese Writers, ed. David Wang and Jeanne Tai, Columbia
University Press, 1994 (Wild)
Columbia Anthology of Modern Chinese Literature, ed. Joseph S.M. Lau and Howard
Goldblatt, Columbia University Press, 2007 (MCL)
Shanghai Baby, Wei Hui. Translated by Bruce Humes, Pocket Books, 1999 (SB)
Wang In Love and Bondage: Three Novellas by Wang Xiaobo, Wang Xiaobo. Translated
by Hongling Zhang and Jason Sommer, State University of New York Press, 2007 (Wang)
Films: Xin Nuxing Dir. Cai Chusheng (1935) with Ruan Lingyu
Yangguang canlan de rizi, Dir. Jiangwen (1994).
The IES library does have the Chinese texts for most of the stories. I encourage students to try and read the stories in the original Chinese.
Eileen Vickery has a Master’s degree in Asian Studies (1997) and a doctorate in Chinese Literature and Languages (2004) from the University of Oregon. She studied intensive Chinese at the Stanford Center at Taiwan University in Taipei from 1997-1998 and at Nankai University in Tianjin in 1996. Eileen first came to China in 1992 to teach English at Qufu Teachers’ University in Shandong. Her research focuses on the dilemmas of identity of the modern Chinese woman and representations of illness in modern Chinese fiction. She has been the recipient of several academic awards, notably the Esterline Prize for best academic paper at Asian Studies Pacific Coast Conference and the UC Berkeley Institute for East Asian Studies for Academic Excellence. Her article on Wei Hui’s Shanghai Baobei was published in the ASPAC Journal and her letters from China while teaching in Shandong, were included the book, Dear Alice: Letters Home from Teachers Living in China, UC Berkeley Press. Eileen also taught for IES in Beijing during the 2005-2006 academic year.