| Chair: Edward Fowler
The Department of East Asian Languages
and Literatures at UCI brings both theoretical sophistication
and scholarly rigor to the study of the literatures
and cultures of East Asia. The department focuses on
China, Korea, and Japan but also stresses the larger
regional and global dynamics of transformation in which
these cultures participate.
The undergraduate
curriculum in East Asian Languages and Literatures
enables students to understand the extensive and rich
literary, historical, social, and aesthetic traditions
of East Asia through the intensive study of an East Asian
language and of literary texts in translation and in the
original language. Students take a total of four years
of courses in the modern language, in which comprehension,
speaking, reading, and writing are stressed. Studies of
texts take place throughout the curriculum: the first
three years students read texts in translation and the
fourth year they read in the original language. The literature-in-translation
courses consist of general introductory overviews as well
as more specific topics at the intermediate level for
those students whose language proficiency is insufficient
to cope with difficult literary texts. At the advanced
level, course content focuses on reading texts in the
original language and rotates among significant literary
and cultural topics. In these courses, the curriculum
integrates the study of East Asian literatures with theoretical
issues that shape the study of world literature in general.
In this way, the student gains the dual perspectives of
studying East Asian cultures on their own terms as well
as recognizing the affinities these civilizations share
with the emerging world culture.
The graduate program emphasizes rigorous training
in language, textual analysis, and critical theories
necessary to approach East Asia within the framework
of multidisciplinary study. Unlike traditional East
Asian literature programs, the curriculum builds upon
recent developments in critical theory to decenter literary
texts and shift attention to the larger world of cultural
production. Subjects of inquiry within the department
include film, theater, oral narratives, mass media,
and political economy as well as poetry, vernacular
fiction, and discursive prose genres. The program centers
on a faculty whose research interests engage significant
issues in Chinese, Japanese, and Korean literature and
culture while developing connections with the larger
community of scholarship at UCI.
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