COLIT-UA 726: Chinese Literature & World Literature

What is Chinese literature, and what is world literature? Is Chinese literature world literature? Are these questions even worth asking? Through a combination of literary texts and theoretical readings, this course will approach these basic questions from a number of different angles. Our attempts to interrogate the slippery categories of “Chinese literature” and “world literature” will take us through a variety of modern and contemporary Chinese works by a diverse group of writers. At the same time as we engage in a close literary analysis of these texts, we will examine the many ways the categories of “Chinese” and “world” literature can become complicated, including through issues of translation, genre, politics, culture, nation, and literary assessment. By the end of the course, we hope to have developed a productive critical perspective on the notions of “national literature” and “world literature” by working through the particular set of problems Chinese literature presents these categories.

College of Arts and Sciences, Comparative Literature and East Asian Studies
COLIT-UA 726 | 4 units | Class#: 19656
EAST-UA 952 | 4 units | Class#: 20124