This course explores popular, realist, and avant-garde literature from mainland China and Taiwan since 1949. We will consider how writers have engaged with the cultural dislocations of modernity by exploring questions such as the presentation of cultural and gender identities and the politics of memory and place. Central to our discussion will be the problem of how literature not only reflects but also critically engages with historical and cultural experience through a variety of genres. A crucial aspect of this course will be the development of skills in close, critical, and historically contextualized reading.

Fall 2025: This course introduces students to Chinese literary, cinematic, and musical works from the early 20th century to the present. The course is not a survey; rather, we will close-read a group of selectively curated stories, films, and records produced from out of the dizzying historical transformations of the revolutionary, postwar, post-Mao, and contemporary Chinese-speaking world. The course will ask several fundamental questions. First of all, how was modern Chinese as a language invented, and how did it participate in reinventing modern China? Second, what is modern Chinese literature, and why has it been a matter of life and death in China? How have writers and film-makers not only reflected upon, but also profoundly shaped modern Chinese history by way of their words and images? What kinds of narratives have emerged from out of China’s tumultuous experience of war, revolution, nation-building, Cold War, and modernization? What narrative strategies have writers and film directors used to represent the sometimes unspeakably violent upheavals of these years? How are contemporary creators reflecting on the current landscape of global environmental devastation, social inequity, and geopolitical conflict? Finally, how can we become more closely attuned and more critical readers of literary, filmic, and musical texts?

Repeat Rules

Course is not repeatable for credit.

Requirements class fulfills