ASIAN 2270 - East Asian Imagination of Death

(crosslisted) CAPS 2270
(GHB) (CA-AS)

Fall. 4 credits. Student option grading.

No prior knowledge of East Asian languages required.

S. Son.

What does “death” mean in the East Asian context and how is it imagined? This course aims at examining the ways in which East Asia have imaginatively, metaphorically, ritually, and visually conceived of death and the afterlife. The first part of the course deals with the popular beliefs and practices associated with the imagination of death and the afterlife; the second half focuses on the major themes of mortality, memory, and trauma in the literary, visual, and material representations. By examining the repository of images, ideas, objects, and stories from various disciplines, this course approaches the notion of death and the afterlife as cultural reflection and provide an opportunity to situate it in a comparative perspective beyond a specific genre or a specific culture. (SC)