CHLIT 3314 - Violence, Sex, and Justice in Premodern Chinese Novel

(GHB) (LA-AS)

Fall. 4 credits.

Prerequisite: two years or more of Chinese or instructor’s consent. Co-meets with CHLIT 6614 .

S. Son.

This course centers on close reading of four masterworks of Chinese novel of the sixteenth century, such as Romance of Three Kingdoms (Sanguo yanyi), Journey to the West (Xiyou ji), Water Margin (Shuihu zhuan), and The Plum in the Golden Vase (Jin Ping Mei) in their original form. By a combination of translating selective chapters and discussing secondary scholarship, the course aims to examine the novels both as literary and historical artifacts evolving with the society in which they were created and circulated. (LL)