ASIAN 3337 - Love Stories of Early Modern China

(crosslisted) CAPS 3337
(GHB) (LA-AS)

Spring. 4 credits.

Co-meets with ASIAN 6637. No prior knowledge of Chinese necessary.

S. Son.

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. 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. (LL)