Institute of East Asian Studies

Offered through: East Asian Languages and Cultures
Terms offered: Summer 2018 10 Week Session, Summer 2017 10 Week Session, Summer 2015 10 Week Session
This is the equivalent of 1A-1B offered in the regular academic year.

Offered through: East Asian Languages and Cultures
Terms offered: Fall 2019, Summer 2019 First 6 Week Session, Spring 2019
This course is designed for students who have little or no prior knowledge of the Korean language. Students will learn the Korean alphabet and basic grammar.

Offered through: East Asian Languages and Cultures
Terms offered: Fall 2019, Fall 2018, Fall 2017
This course is designed for students who already have elementary comprehension and speaking skills in Korean and have minimum exposure to reading and/or writing in Korean.

Offered through: East Asian Languages and Cultures
Terms offered: Fall 2019, Summer 2019 Second 6 Week Session, Spring 2019
With an emphasis on speaking, listening, reading and writing, students will learn daily life expressions, common colloquialisms, and speech acts. The course is also intended to introduce certain cultural aspects through media sources and various activities.

Offered through: East Asian Languages and Cultures
Terms offered: Spring 2019, Spring 2018, Spring 2017
With special emphasis on reading and writing, students will expand common colloquialisms and appropriate speech acts.

Offered through: East Asian Languages and Cultures
Terms offered: Fall 2019, Fall 2018, Fall 2017
A survey of pre-modern Korean literature and culture from the seventh century to the 19th century, focusing on the relation between literary texts and various aspects of performance tradition. Topics include literati culture, gender relations, humor, and material culture. Texts to be examined include ritual songs, sijo, kasa, p'ansori, prose narratives, art, and contemporary media representation of performance traditions. All readings are in English.

Offered through: East Asian Languages and Cultures
Terms offered: Spring 2019, Spring 2018, Spring 2017
A survey of modern Korean literature and culture in the 20th century, focusing on the development of nationalist aesthetics in both North and South Korea. Topics include "new woman" narratives, urban culture, colonial modernity, war and trauma, and diaspora. Texts to be examined include works of fiction, poetry, art, and film. All readings are in English.

Offered through: East Asian Languages and Cultures
Terms offered: Summer 2017 10 Week Session, Summer 2016 10 Week Session, Summer 2015 10 Week Session
This course is the equivalent of 10A-10B offered in the regular academic year.

Offered through: East Asian Languages and Cultures
Terms offered: Fall 2019, Spring 2019, Fall 2018
With equal attention given to speaking, listening, reading, writing, and cultural aspects of the language, students will further develop their language skills for handling various everyday situations.

Offered through: East Asian Languages and Cultures
Terms offered: Fall 2019, Fall 2018, Fall 2017
This is an intermediate course for students whose Korean proficiency level is higher in speaking than in reading or writing due to Korean-heritage background. Students will elaborate their language skills for handling various everyday situations.

Offered through: East Asian Languages and Cultures
Terms offered: Spring 2019, Spring 2018, Spring 2017
With equal attention given to speaking, listening, reading, writing, and cultural aspects of the language, students will learn vocabulary, expressions, and varieties of speech styles beyond the basic level.

Offered through: East Asian Languages and Cultures
Terms offered: Spring 2019, Spring 2018, Spring 2017
This intermediate course will emphasize reading and writing so that students can reach a comparable proficiency with their already high speaking and listening skills.

Offered through: East Asian Languages and Cultures
Terms offered: Prior to 2007
The Freshman Seminar Program has been designed to provide new students with the opportunity to explore an intellectual topic with a faculty member in a small seminar setting. Freshman seminars are offered in all campus departments and topics vary from department to department and semester to semester. Enrollment limited to fifteen freshmen.

Offered through: East Asian Languages and Cultures
Terms offered: Prior to 2007
Freshman and sophomore seminars offer lower division students the opportunity to explore an intellectual topic with a faculty member and a group of peers in a small-seminar setting. These seminars are offered in all campus departments; topics vary from department to department and from semester to semester.

Offered through: East Asian Languages and Cultures
Terms offered: Prior to 2007
Sophomore seminars are small interactive courses offered by faculty members in departments all across the campus. Sophomore seminars offer opportunity for close, regular intellectual contact between faculty members and students in the crucial second year. The topics vary from department to department and semester to semester. Enrollment limited to 15 sophomores.

Offered through: East Asian Languages and Cultures
Terms offered: Fall 2005, Spring 2005, Fall 2004
Small group instruction in topics not covered by regularly scheduled courses.

Offered through: East Asian Languages and Cultures
Terms offered: Fall 2004, Fall 1996
Independent study in topics not covered by regularly scheduled courses.

Offered through: East Asian Languages and Cultures
Terms offered: Fall 2019, Fall 2018, Fall 2017
This is a third-year course in modern Korean with emphasis on acquisition of advanced vocabulary and grammatical structure. Equal attention will be given to all four language skills: speaking, listening, reading, and writing.

Offered through: East Asian Languages and Cultures
Terms offered: Fall 2019, Fall 2018, Fall 2017
This is a third-year course in modern Korean with emphasis on acquisition of advanced vocabulary and grammatical structure.

Offered through: East Asian Languages and Cultures
Terms offered: Spring 2019, Spring 2018, Spring 2017
Students will learn more advanced expressions and use them in reading and writing. Small group discussions will enhance speaking and listening skills.

Offered through: East Asian Languages and Cultures
Terms offered: Spring 2019, Spring 2018, Spring 2017
Students will be introduced to advanced-level Korean by reading authentic texts and writing short compositions, summaries, essays, and critical reviews. Students will be encouraged to speak using advanced vocabulary and expressions.

Offered through: East Asian Languages and Cultures
Terms offered: Fall 2019, Fall 2018, Fall 2017
This is an advanced course of reading and textual literary analysis in Korean. Advanced reading and writing skills and practice in the use of standard reference tools will also be introduced.

Offered through: East Asian Languages and Cultures
Terms offered: Spring 2019, Spring 2018, Spring 2017
This is an advanced course of reading and textual analysis in various areas including politics, economics, society, and history. Both fluency and accuracy will also be emphasized in speaking and writing with the goal of preparing students to conduct independent research in Korean.

Offered through: East Asian Languages and Cultures
Terms offered: Spring 2019
This course is for students wanting to acquire high-advanced and superior level Korean proficiency in Korean business settings through the nuances of job-related communication and cultural expectations. Students master appropriate workplace terminology, expressions, and professional style spoken and written form. They complete job a search, plan a new product, present and negotiate the product status, and finally present the product externally. In addition, this course will cover Korean job culture topics such as work ethics and relationships. Upon completion, students can expect to be able to more confidently navigate a job search, application process, interview, job acceptance, and common situations in a professional Korean setting.

Offered through: East Asian Languages and Cultures
Terms offered: Fall 2019, Summer 2019 First 6 Week Session, Spring 2019
This course is uniquely designed for students who are interested in enhancing their proficiency level up to high-advanced or superior level through the lens of Korean popular media. By analyzing various media such as movies, documentary, TV shows, K-Pop songs, and news articles, students will broaden their knowledge and understanding about Korean society and culture in a deeper level, which is vital in advancing proficiency. Class discussions, presentations, article readings, and essay writings will help students learn and practice how to express their own opinion on various topics from aspects of Korean history to current social issues. Additionally, four-letter idioms, advanced grammars, and vocabularies will be introduced.

Offered through: East Asian Languages and Cultures
Terms offered: Fall 2019, Fall 2018, Fall 2017
This course is designed to increase the students' proficiency to advanced-high (or superior for some students) level in all aspects of Korean. Texts and materials are drawn from authentic sources in various genres. Some will be selected according to student interests. Students will write research papers based on specialized topics of their choice and present them orally in class.

Offered through: East Asian Languages and Cultures
Terms offered: Spring 2019, Spring 2018, Spring 2017
This course aims to prepare students for research or employment in a Korea-related field. Authentic materials will be used to discuss various issues in Korea and some may be selected by students to explore their specific interests/needs. Students will conduct research projects in their own fields of study.

Offered through: East Asian Languages and Cultures
Terms offered: Fall 2006
This course will examine traditional and poetry, and consider the performative and cultural contexts of compositional practice before the 20th century. The course is intended to introduce key verse forms as well as basic reading knowledge of premodern Korean texts. Topics will vary.

Offered through: East Asian Languages and Cultures
Terms offered: Fall 2013, Fall 2011, Fall 2010
This course is a critical exploration of the broad range of prose literature before the 20th century, including vernacular fiction, memoirs, travel accounts, and essays. Particular attention will be given to narrative styles, issues of personal identity, and a link between literary text and material culture in the development of prose literature before the 20th century. The course is intended as a close reading of key prose narrative works, while functioning simultaneously as an introduction to basic reading knowledge of premodern Korean texts. Topics will vary.

Offered through: East Asian Languages and Cultures
Terms offered: Spring 2019, Spring 2018, Spring 2017
This course will examine the works of major poets in the first half of the 20th century and will consider the formation of modern Korean poetry. Particular attention will be given to the ideas of lyricism, modernism, and the identity of a poet in the context of the colonial occupation of Korea.

Offered through: East Asian Languages and Cultures
Terms offered: Spring 2019, Spring 2018, Spring 2017
This course aims to facilitate critical understanding of persistent themes and diverse styles of modern Korean literature through close readings of canonical works from the colonial period (1910-1945). It encourages students to develop broad comprehension of “post-colonial” characteristics of Korean literature. Concurrently, it explores how Korean literature aspired to the expression of the universal aesthetic values and judgment against the particularistic historical condition of colonialism.

Offered through: East Asian Languages and Cultures
Terms offered: Fall 2019, Fall 2018, Fall 2017
This course surveys modern Korean fiction in the first half of the 20th century. Readings include major works of the novel, short fiction, and literary criticism. The course examines the development of modern fiction in the context of nationalist movements, colonialism, and the Korean War.

Offered through: East Asian Languages and Cultures
Terms offered: Fall 2019, Fall 2018, Fall 2017
This course surveys contemporary Korean literature, focusing on the separate development of language, literary aesthetics, and nationalism in North and South Korea from the end of the Korean War to the present. The course examines an assortment of works of fiction, poetry, literary criticism, and visual media. Emphasis is on close readings of the texts, while considering various issues involving post colonial cultural production: war and trauma, gender and labor, political violence, modernization and dislocation, and diaspora. Topics will vary.

Offered through: East Asian Languages and Cultures
Terms offered: Fall 2019, Fall 2015, Fall 2014
This course will explore the moments of intercultural encounters captured in Korean literature. Encounters with foreign cultures and literary reflections on them have emerged as prominent at critical moments of Korean history, such as periods of great social transition or international conflict. In this course, we will be addressing questions concerning how experiences of the encounters of foreign cultures have been represented in Korean literature from the sixteenth through the twentieth century; what their domestic ramifications were, especially in terms of literary genres; and how the transformation of Korean national identity have been imagined and articulated in literary works.

Offered through: East Asian Languages and Cultures
Terms offered: Spring 2015
This course examines Korean literature from the fifteenth through the nineteenth centuries through the perspectives of gender. Although the modern discourse of enlightenment in Korea, beginning in the early twentieth century, has been sharply critical of gender inequality in premodern Korea, the gender relations represented in premodern Korean literature are much more complex and dynamic than we might expect. To revise our understanding of gender in premodern Korea, this course seeks to examine how gender is imagined particularly in terms of the body, bodily practice, and theatrical performance.

Offered through: East Asian Languages and Cultures
Terms offered: Spring 2016, Spring 2015
This course surveys modern Korean fiction of the 20th century in literary and visual media. Topics will vary.

Offered through: East Asian Languages and Cultures
Terms offered: Fall 2015, Fall 2014, Fall 2013
This course introduces various critical approaches to modern Korean literature through a set of texts in English translation. Readings will include an assortment of works of fiction, poetry, literary criticism, and visual media. Emphasis is on close reading of texts and literary approaches to them.

Offered through: East Asian Languages and Cultures
Terms offered: Fall 2012, Spring 2008
This course explores the role of modern visual media in shaping geopolitical, cultural, and historical imaginations of Korea during the last hundred years. Drawing examples from photographs, films, and literature, produced in and outside Korea, the course aims to consider the idea of "Korea" primarily via images constructed through transnational cultural networks. Consideration will be given to the relationship between visual media and cultural memory. We will think in particular about the ways in which globally accessible visual media such as photography and film narrate the key local sites of contested memories of colonization, war, and political violence.

Offered through: East Asian Languages and Cultures
Terms offered: Spring 2019, Spring 2018, Spring 2016
This course offers a historical overview of Korean cinema from its colonial development to its present renaissance. It covers Korean film aesthetics, major directors, film movements, genre, censorship issues, and industrial transformation as well as global circulation and transnational reception. In an effort to read film as sociocultural texts, various topics will be discussed. All readings are in English.

Offered through: East Asian Languages and Cultures
Terms offered: Fall 2018, Spring 2017, Fall 2015
This course examines representations of history and memory in contemporary Korean cinema. Korean films have displayed a thematic preoccupation with the nation's tumultuous past by presenting diverse stories of past events and experiences. The course pays close attention to the ways in which popular narrative films render history and memory meaningful and pertinent to contemporary film viewers. All readings are in English.

Offered through: East Asian Languages and Cultures
Terms offered: Fall 2016, Fall 2015, Fall 2013
This course examines the formation and transformation of global Cold War culture in South Korean literature and film of the 20th century. It pays close attention to representations of the Korean War and its aftermath in literature and cinema, but opens up the field of inquiry to encompass larger sociocultural issues related to the Cold War system manifest in literature and cinema. All readings are in English.

Offered through: East Asian Languages and Cultures
Terms offered: Spring 2016
This undergraduate course examines aesthetic features and thematic preoccupation of major Korean film authors. It begins with the brief survey of historical development and theoretical underpinnings of the concept of “auteur” and advances an inquiry into the application of such theoretical tool in the area of film criticism and culture in Korea. In addition to analyzing signature style, generic orientation, and thematic consistency, the course also situates and explores the unique film authorship in relation to larger contexts that constitute the dynamics of Korean cinema: industrial structure, government censorship, social changes and cultural phenomena, intellectual development, technological shifts and discourse of national cinema.

Offered through: East Asian Languages and Cultures
Terms offered: Fall 2005, Spring 2005, Fall 2004
Small group instruction in topics not covered by regularly scheduled courses.

Offered through: East Asian Languages and Cultures
Terms offered: Fall 2004, Fall 2003, Spring 1999
Independent study in topics not covered by regularly scheduled courses.

Offered through: East Asian Languages and Cultures
Terms offered: Spring 2011, Spring 2007, Fall 2004
This seminar provides in-depth discussions on a topic germane to Korean and other East Asian literary and cultural studies. Students in the Group in Asian Studies with research interests in Korean literature, intellectual history, and popular culture are particularly recommended to take this course. Students in Chinese and Japanese may take this course for the purpose of comparative examination with the student's main area of research. The course is open to graduate students in all fields, but students should consult with the instructor to determine the viability of this course for the student's overall program of studies. Topics will vary.

Offered through: East Asian Languages and Cultures
Terms offered: Fall 2016, Spring 2016, Fall 2015
Special tutorial or seminar on selected topics not covered by available courses or seminars.

Offered through: East Asian Languages and Cultures
Terms offered: Fall 2016, Spring 2016, Fall 2015

Offered through: East Asian Languages and Cultures
Terms offered: Fall 2016, Spring 2016, Fall 2015
Individual study for the comprehensive or language requirements in consultation with the graduate adviser. Units may not be used to meet either unit or residence requirements for a master's degree.

Offered through: East Asian Languages and Cultures
Terms offered: Fall 2016, Spring 2016, Fall 2015
Individual study in consultation with the major field adviser, intended to provide an opportunity for qualified students to prepare for various examinations required of candidates for the Ph.D.