CHLIT 6608 - [Formation, Transformation, and Reception of Chinese Literary Canon]

Fall. Not offered: 2021-2022. Next offered: 2023-2024. 4 credits. Letter grades only.

Prerequisite: reading knowledge of modern and classical Chinese. Permission of instructor required. Enrollment limited to: graduate students.

D.X. Warner.

This is a seminar designed for pre-A-exam level graduate students who intend to pursue advanced study in pre-modern Chinse literature, history, and culture. It aims to engage students in exploration of critical theories, approaches and methodologies in such fields as literary criticism, cultural study, history of the book, and history of reading for the study of Chinese literary history, guided by the central question about the formation, transformation, and reception of ancient China’s literary canon through the centuries, including in contemporary times. Students will be encouraged to probe such questions as how historical contexts in a given epoch—political, social, cultural as well as economic—conditioned the vicissitudes of the stature of particular works, authors, and genres, not only within a particular historical moment but in the narrative of Chinese literary history that subsequent generations came to construe. Its goal is to equip students with knowledge and skills that are essential for conducting research in the history of classical Chinese literature as well as to take up the larger questions of goals and methods. Students will examine prevalent practices and trends that characterize scholarship on literary history in general and Chinese literary history in particular, as well as assess the future directions and opportunities for scholarship in the field. Reading knowledge of modern and classical Chinese is required. (LL)