ASIA 1000 Origins of Contemporary Southeast Asia
T/Th 3:30-4:45
Lauren Collins (lauren.collins@colorado.edu)
Introduces the shared historical experiences that have shaped diverse Southeast Asian societies, with a focus on the continuing effects of colonialism, nationalism, and globalization in the region. Examines key issues facing contemporary Southeast Asian communities, including current debates around gender, faith, human rights, democracy, and development.
ASIA 1700 Origins of Tibetan Civilization
M/W 04:40PM-05:55PM
Tenzin Tsepak (tenzin.tsepak@colorado.edu)
Explores the dynamic history of Tibet from its early empire to the present. Offers interdisciplinary perspectives on Tibetan civilization, including arts and literature, religion and politics, society and culture.
ASIA 4400/5400 Asian Studies Open Topics: Climate and Society in Asia
T/Th 9:30-10:45am
Atreyee Bhattacharya (Atreyee.Bhattacharya@colorado.edu)
How are Asian societies, with their diverse, often unequal, socio-economic-political-cultural-demographic realities responding to the challenges of climate change? How have Asian societies of the past responded to climate crises? This interdisciplinary seminar course will explore the many different ways in which climate in Asia influences different aspects of the human society and vice versa.
ASIA 4700 Tibetan Literature and Culture
T/Th 12:30PM-01:45PM
Tenzin Tsepak (tenzin.tsepak@colorado.edu)
This course focuses on Tibetan literary writings, mostly secular, from the 12th to the 20th century. Students will read English translations of primary Tibetan texts (and secondary works) selected from a wide variety of genres such as history, literary, poetry, biography, guidebooks, maxims, and fiction.
ASIA 4830 Senior Seminar
Tuesday 05:00PM-06:15PM
Lauren Collins (lauren.collins@colorado.edu)
This seminar guides students in conducting independent research and writing a scholarly paper on a topic about Asia. This course is required for Asian Studies majors but is open to minors and other majors from different departments who wish to take this course as an opportunity to explore in depth an Asian Studies topic of particular interest to them.
CHIN 3361 Women and the Supernatural in Chinese Literature
T/Th 2-3:15pm
Katherine Alexander (Katherine.Alexander@colorado.edu)
In “Women and the Supernatural in Chinese Literature”, taught in English, we will engage closely with poetry, short stories, plays, and excerpts from novels. We explore liminal spaces occupied by supernatural women, encountering fictional literary incarnations of nature spirits, foxes, ghosts, and immortal maidens, mainly from the perspectives of male literati fiction writers of the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1911). How do concepts of gender in pre-modern China affect the way such literature conceives of women as supernatural beings? Do spaces beyond the norm afford women broadened roles, or do they replicate the social and political structures that govern the mundane? Finally, can these Chinese works help us to examine our own assumptions about gender, society, and literature?
ASIA 4001 CLAC Co-Seminar
Th 3:30-4:45pm
This co-seminar provides us with a space to delve more deeply into an aspect of “Women and the Supernatural in Chinese Literature” which the main class does not have time to go into: the practical religious aspects of “the supernatural” as it relates to female deities or their female devotees.
Each week, we watch one episode of the Taiwanese television series 《通靈少女》. Deeply reflective of its contemporary Taiwanese context, the show is also rooted in millennia-old traditions of female mediumship, ghost lore, Daoist magic, and lay Buddhist pious practices. This fun TV series allows us to explore serious questions about what role “the supernatural” plays in the lives of women, both fictional and real, and in society more broadly, in both the Chinese past and the Taiwanese present.
INDO 1120 Beginning Indonesian 2
M/W/F 11:15-12:05
Ida Fauziyah (Ida.Fauziyah@colorado.edu)
A continuation of Beginning Indonesian 1. Reading assignments will include reading, listening and grammar, which students will demonstrate during class sessions, in which they will offer reading summaries, answer questions and practice speaking.
INDO 2120 Intermediate Indonesian 2
M/W/F 12:20-1:10
Ida Fauziyah (Ida.Fauziyah@colorado.edu)
Continuation of Intermediate Indonesian 1. In the second year, students will be exposed to more active communication.
NEPL 1120 Beginning Nepali II - DILS
T/Th 9:30am-10:45am
Nabin Shrestha (nbnshr@gmail.com)
Continuation of Beginning Nepali 1.
TBTN 1120 Colloquial Tibetan II - DILS
MWF 9:05am-9:55am
Tenzin Tsepak (tenzin.tsepak@colorado.edu)
Continuation of TBTN 1110; provides a thorough introduction to the colloquial Tibetan language, emphasizing speaking and listening in the Lhasa dialect. Trains students in basic conversations and the idiomatic and syntactical features of Tibetan through drills and dialogues.
TBTN 2020 Intermediate Colloquial Tibetan 2
MWF 10:10-11:00am
Tenzin Tsepak (tenzin.tsepak@colorado.edu)
Aims at increasing students' proficiency in colloquial forms of Tibetan. Expands knowledge of the vocabulary and grammar of colloquial Tibetan and also continues to develop knowledge of reading and writing modern Tibetan.
ANTH 1110: Anthropology of Japan
MW 11:15am-12:05pm, HUMN 250 + recitation Friday (same time)
Dr. Kathryn Goldfarb (Kathryn.Goldfarb@colorado.edu)
This course offers you a broad sample of cutting-edge contemporary anthropological and social science explorations of Japan, featuring Wednesday public guest lectures and film screenings. You will meet many of the scholars whose work we will read, giving you the opportunity to ask them questions about their research process. In addition to the readings listed in the syllabus, course materials include podcasts, visual media, and news articles about current social issues in Japan.
A core theme running through the course is the question of what “Japanese identity” means: the nation is around 98% ethnically Japanese and popular narratives frame the country as “homogenous,” but at the same time, “multiculturalism” and “internationalization” are key words in public discourse and policy narratives. Further, many sorts of people constitute Japan, including Indigenous Ainu and the Ryukyuan people of Okinawa, people whose ethnic origins come from outside Japan or who are mixed-race, gender minorities, and people with disabilities. What might it be like to live in a nation framed as “homogenous,” when the human experience is inherently diverse?
Throughout, we will consider core methodological and theoretical issues in anthropology more broadly, and the anthropology of Japan, specifically. You will gain an understanding of the anthropological fieldwork process, as we consider the methodologies our authors used, and the ways that their methodologies shaped their findings and analysis. You will also learn about key debates within Japanese studies. Assignments will give you the opportunity to explore topics of your own interest.
RLST 3200 Yoga: Castes and Magic
T/Th 2pm- 3:15
Loriliai Biernacki (Loriliai.Biernacki@colorado.edu)
This course addresses the practices of yoga, magic and religious asceticism in Hinduism in India from ancient times through the modern period.
RLST 2610 Happiness and Nirvana: India
T/Th 12:30-1:45pm
Loriliai Biernacki (Loriliai.Biernacki@colorado.edu)
This course will focus what happiness is and how one becomes happy, based on what we find in a variety of religious traditions from India-- Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainsim, Sikhism. We look at
some of the ancient beliefs of Indian culture: karma, dharma and rebirth, for instance, and how these frame what it means to attain enlightenment, nirvana, and happiness.
CHIN 3343: Chinese Science Fiction
MWF 1:25pm-2:15pm
Evelyn Shih (evelyn.shih@colorado.edu)
Chinese science fiction is beginning to participate powerfully in the project of imagining new futures and new worlds across different media, and this is an opportune moment for us to reflect on its pasts, its propensities, and its vital dynamism within global sci-fi. Our survey of Chinese science fiction will help us to question some of the imperialist and critical discourses in other science fiction traditions.
HIST 2500: Fact and Fiction in History: Investigation Japan
MW 3:35-4:50
Marcia Yonemoto (yonemoto@colorado.edu)
What is a fact? Who gets to determine what is true? Why do people lie or invent alternative realities, and is doing so always a bad thing? This course will address these questions through case studies that straddle the line between fact and fiction—such as tales of a murderous vendetta waged by two peasant girls, the life story of a half-German woman who became Japan’s first female doctor, the legacy of the “last samurai” Saigō Takamori, stories of infamous murderesses popularly known as “poison women,” and the war memories of ordinary citizens—to explore Japan’s history from the seventeenth through the early twentieth century.
History 4020: Modernity in China and Japan
T/Th 2:00 – 3:15
Tim Weston (timothy.b.weston@colorado.edu)
This class concentrates on the creation of “modernity” in China and Japan. It is organized around the proposition that “modernity” is an overarching historical idea, a state of consciousness, closely connected to, but also distinct from, “modernization.” We will proceed from the premise that the Chinese and Japanese cases should be studied together, in relation to one another, rather than separately. We will consider the multiple ways that ideas, culture, and power formations operated outside of and crossed the political boundaries of the nation-states that arose in China and Japan in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
HINDI/URDU COURSES
Nidhi Arya (Nidhi.Arya@Colorado.EDU)
HIND 1020-001 Beginning Hindi 2
M-F 10:10 - 11:00
HIND 2120-001 Intermediate Hindi 2
M-F 11:15 - 12:05
HIND 3120-001 Advanced Hindi 2
MWF 12:20 - 1:10
ONE OF THE TOP FIVE LANGUAGES OF THE WORLD IS HINDI/URDU (HINDUSTANI). LET’S LEARN AND MOVE FORWARD!