The course surveys the diverse political, social, and economic arrangements across East Asia. China, Japan, and North and South Korea are the main focus, but attention is also paid to the other countries in the region. The course examines the relationship between democracy and economic change in East Asia, and asks if the relationship is different in Asia than elsewhere in the world. Narratives of East Asia. Surveys major narrative works of China, Japan, and Korea from early times to the present.
All texts are English translation.
Asian Studies 180c,d. Living in the Sixteenth Century. Examines the nature of state and society in an age of turmoil. Studies patterns of allegiances, ways of waging war, codes of conduct, and the social matrix of sixteenth-century Japan based on primary and secondary sources. Kurosawa's masterpiece Kage Musha provides the thematic foundation for this course.