2024-2025 Graduate Courses

In The Creation of the World or Globalization (2002), Jean Luc Nancy notes the distinction between two seemingly synonymous terms: globalisation (globalization) and mondialisation (world-making). For Nancy, they are opposing concepts/forces: he deems the former a process of world un-making, as globalization entails the violent imposition of uniformity through economic and techno-logics of late capital. This critique of globalization was not yet mainstream in 2002, but has since taken on the semblance of liberal common sense, particularly in light of emerging reactionary populisms from the US to the UK to Japan and beyond. While the pathologies of economic globalization are omnipresent, the resort to hostile localisms culturalizes and thus disguises the actual political and institutional causes of planetary devastation, social disparity, and dispossession. This misrecognition ultimately shores up the logic of capital and its attendant ideological armatures, including nationalism and developmentalist scales of cultural comparison.

This seminar explores the oceanic imaginary of space and the spatial technologies of islanding in the modern world—including the emergence of mega-ports, artificial islands, and the creation of political and economic zones of exception and military bases, with an emphasis on East and Southeast Asia. Posing islanding in the verb form, the readings deconstruct “island” as a natural geographic setting and probe its role in mediating the relations between individual and totality, insularity and world, mainland and periphery, land and sea, etc. We explore different mediations of oceanic imaginary and work toward theories of resistance.

This course explores the history of Manchu rule in China’s last imperial dynasty, the Qing (1644–1912), through an introduction to the Manchu language. In addition to acquiring basic Manchu reading skills, you will be exposed to a wide range of historical approaches to the study of Manchu social, literary, and political culture, as well as ethnicity in late imperial China.

This course serves as a practicum for graduate-level research in East Asian Studies, focusing on various critical approaches and methodological models relevant to contemporary issues in East Asian humanities research. In addition to introducing key topics, the course aims to enhance students' ability to formulate questions and engage in critical thinking. Students are expected to: 1) grasp the core issues and arguments presented by authors, 2) understand how scholars challenge conventional concepts and contribute to new knowledge frontiers, and 3) question, analyse, and interpretate assigned texts.  To facilitate this, a set of guiding questions is provided to students weekly. In return, students are encouraged to contribute one written passage per class session, summarizing an author's main argument, posing a question about the reading, or offering a creative interpretation of a primary source assigned for the week. Analytical (critical) reading of scholarly and intellectual works, as well as close examination of primary sources, are the main focus areas of this training and exercise. Other requirements and assignments include critical review essays, close-reading write-ups about primary sources, final research essay, as well as participation and presentation.