East Asian Languages and Civilizations

The Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations (EALC) offers a BA program in East Asian studies that introduces students to the traditional and modern civilizations of China, Japan, and Korea, and provides them with the opportunity to achieve a basic reading and speaking knowledge of Chinese, Japanese, and Korean. This program is interdisciplinary and students may take relevant courses in both the humanities and the social sciences.
Students in other fields of study may also complete a minor in EALC. Information follows the description of the major.
Before declaring their major in EALC, students must meet with the Director of Undergraduate Studies (typically before the end of their second year) to discuss their areas of interest.
Students must complete 1300 units toward an EALC major. No courses may be double-counted toward general education requirements or minor requirements. Students who plan to major in EALC are strongly encouraged (but not required) to meet the general education requirement in civilization studies by taking EALC 10800-10900-11000 Introduction to the Civilizations of East Asia I-II-III.  Students planning to major in EALC should meet with EALC’s Director of Undergraduate Studies to discuss their program of study, ideally by the end of their second year.
To graduate with an EALC major, students must demonstrate competency in a primary East Asian language that is equivalent to the intermediate (second-year) level of the language. Beginning with the Class of 2021, language credit toward the major will be awarded ONLY for courses taken and successfully completed either at the University of Chicago or through a study abroad or summer program pre-approved by the Director of Undergraduate Studies. To demonstrate extant competency, students have the following options: (1) place into and complete a higher-level language course (20300 or higher), including Literary Chinese or Literary Japanese; or (2) successfully complete an EALC content course that requires the use of texts in the original. For this second option, students are required to meet with the Director of Undergraduate Studies to find a suitable course and to get permission to count the course in advance.        
Students in the Class of 2021 or before who demonstrate extant competency and who place into and successfully complete a higher-level course (20200 or higher), including Literary Chinese and Literary Japanese, may petition to receive credit for the language courses between 20100 and the University of Chicago course completed. A maximum of three credits (300 units) granted via this petition process may be used toward major requirements. No matter the language proficiency, all students must earn credit for at least ten courses (1000 units) toward the major via course enrollment. The College also requires a minimum of 3800 units of credit earned by course enrollment.
All students are required to take three Topics in EALC courses (EALC 10500-10799). These courses are meant to introduce students to issues in East Asian studies.
Students in the Class of 2019 and before are required to take only one Topics in EALC course to replace the discontinued Concentrator’s Seminar.
Students are required to complete an additional 1000 units. Up to 600 units of these may be language credit. Many students will take an additional year of their primary East Asian language or a year of a secondary East Asian language. A beginning language sequence in the primary East Asian language cannot be counted toward the major; beginning sequences are acceptable for secondary languages.
Up to three quarters (300 units) of Literary Chinese or Literary Japanese may count either as language or as content courses.
Students who complete their general education requirement in civilization studies with a sequence other than EALC 10800-10900-11000 (Introduction to the Civilizations of East Asia I-II-III) may take any of those courses as an elective in the major. Students may also take additional Topics in EALC courses as electives in the major.
A maximum of six approved courses taken while studying abroad may be counted toward program requirements by petition to the Director of Undergraduate Studies.
 Students who have demonstrated competency through course work, placement, or extensive prior experience/exposure to a language may substitute these courses with additional electives as approved by the Director of Undergraduate Studies.
EALC 10500-10799
Up to three of which may be a further year of the same language or a year of a second East Asian language
Students must receive quality grades in all courses taken to meet requirements in the major. No P/F grades are offered in language courses.
Students who have maintained an overall GPA of 3.5 or higher are eligible for honors, but only students who complete a bachelor’s thesis that earns an “A” grade will be awarded honors in the department. Students who do not wish to be considered for honors are not required to submit a bachelor's thesis for graduation. To be eligible to write a bachelor's thesis, students must have maintained an overall GPA of 3.5 or higher and submit an acceptable proposal to the department. Students typically choose an adviser for their BA project in Spring Quarter of their third year. The project must be approved by both the adviser and the director of undergraduate studies early in the student's fourth year, typically no later than second week of Autumn Quarter. Interested students should consult the Director of Undergraduate Studies for details concerning the proposal.
Students in other fields of study may complete a minor in EALC. The minor in EALC requires a total of seven courses chosen in consultation with the director of undergraduate studies. No more than three of these courses may be in an East Asian language (credit by petition may not be used for this language option). Students who plan to pursue an EALC minor are encouraged to take EALC 10800-10900-11000 Introduction to the Civilizations of East Asia I-II-III to meet the general education requirement in civilization studies. 
Students who elect the minor program in EALC must meet with the director of undergraduate studies before the end of Spring Quarter of their third year to declare their intention to complete the minor by submitting a form obtained from their College adviser. Students choose courses in consultation with the director of undergraduate studies. The director's approval for the minor program should be submitted to the student's College adviser by the deadline above on a form obtained from the adviser.
Courses in the minor (1) may not be double counted with the student's major(s) or with other minors and (2) may not be counted toward general education requirements. Courses in the minor must be taken for quality grades, and more than half of the requirements for the minor must be met by registering for courses bearing University of Chicago course numbers. 
EALC 10508. Topics in EALC: Popular Culture, Past & Present. 100 Units.
This course explores the influence of popular culture in shaping so-called civilization in China, Japan, and Korea. Among the topics to be addressed are local cults and spirit mediums, food and drink, games, literacy, and mass media.
Instructor(s): D. Harper     Terms Offered: Spring
EALC 10799. Topics in EALC: The Family in East Asian Cinemas. 100 Units.
How would you describe your family? Who do you count as its members? Nuclear family, extended family, socialist commune, totemic kinship-the list goes on. Despite the etymological affinity, it turns out that little about the family is familiar. From its inception, cinema has participated in the project of imagining different ways of constructing family life. Sundry families have been rendered on screen, soliciting our physical departure from the confine of domiciles into the movie theater where they appear. This is particularly true and prominent in contemporary films produced across East Asian societies and diasporic communities-places that are often perceived to foreground familial connection as the primary source of identity. Indeed, while the ideological ordering of these regimes frequently presumes a standard model of the family life for which they can legislate, families on the ground hardly cohere to any single structure. All the films we will study in this class pivot around the negotiation between conformity and rebellion, predictability and strangeness, the urge to integrate and the force of diffusion behind family formation. We shall explore how the idea and ideal of the family have routinely been pursued, interrogated, destroyed, and, occasionally, rebuilt in films by such directors as Sylvia Chang, Hou Hsiao-hsien, Ann Hui, Kawase Naomi, Kore-eda Hirokazu, Clara Law, Tsai Ming-liang, Wang Shaudi, Wong Kar-wai, Edward Yang, Zhang Yimou, among others.
Instructor(s): P. Tang     Terms Offered: Spring Equivalent Course(s): CMST 24621
EALC 15100. Beginning the Chinese Novel. 100 Units.
This course will look at four of the most famous novels of pre-modern China: Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Water Margin, Journey to the West, and Dream of the Red Chamber. Deeply self-conscious about the process of their own creation and their place within the larger literary canon, these novels deploy multiple frames, philosophical disquisitions, authorial ciphers, invented histories, and false starts before the story can properly begin. By focusing on the first ten chapters of each novel, this course will serve as both an introduction to the masterworks of the Chinese novel and an exploration of the fraught beginnings of a new genre. All readings available in English. Equivalent Course(s): FNDL 20301
Instructor(s): A. Fox     Terms Offered: Winter Note(s): Open to MAPH and MAPSS students Equivalent Course(s): EALC 35100, FNDL 20301
EALC 19201. Japan in the Age of the Samurai, 1500-1868. 100 Units.
The sword-wielding samurai is perhaps the best known image of early modern Japan in popular culture, but while they were the political elite, they were the minority within a complex and rapidly evolving society, one in which commoners were the drivers of economic and social change. Through lectures and discussions, this course explores the society and culture of Japan's early modern period with a focus on the political structure, economic change, gender and the family, and popular and elite culture.
Instructor(s): S. Burns     Terms Offered: Spring Prerequisite(s): No previous knowledge of Japanese history is required. Note(s): History Gateways are introductory courses meant to appeal to 1st- through 3rd-yr students who may not have done previous course work on the topic of the course; topics cover the globe and span the ages. Equivalent Course(s): HIST 19201
EALC 22027. The Modern Japanese Novel. 100 Units.
This course introduces students to modern Japanese literature through the form of the novel. We begin in the late-nineteenth century, when a new generation of writers sought to come to terms with this world historical form, and end in the twenty-first, with writers trying to sustain the form through graphic art and digital media. Along the way, we will consider some of the key debates that have structured the novel's evolution: between elite and mass forms, truth and fiction, art and politics, self and other, native and foreign. The course also looks at how the form has evolved in response to shifting modes of cultural production and shifting patterns of literary consumption. Authors covered will include Natsume Soseki, Tanizaki Jun'ichiro, Kawabata Yasunari, Oe Kenzaburo, Tawada Yoko, Murakami Haruki, and Mizumura Minae. All works will be read in English.
Instructor(s): H. Long     Terms Offered: Autumn Note(s): Undergrads only Equivalent Course(s): EALC 32027
EALC 24305. Autobiog Writ: Gender& Modern Korea. 100 Units.
This course explores the intersections between gender, the genre of autobiography, forms of media (written; oral; visual; audiovisual) and historical, cultural, and political contexts of modern Korea. The students read theoretical writings on autobiography and gender as well as selected Korean autobiographical writings while being introduced to Korean historical contexts especially as they relate to practice of publication in a broader sense. The focus of the course is placed on the female gender-on the relationship between Korean women's life-experience, self-formation, and writing practices in particular while dealing with the gender relationship in general, although some relevant discussions on the male gender proceeds in parallel.
Instructor(s): K. Choi     Terms Offered: Spring Equivalent Course(s): GNSE 25300, CRES 24305, GNSE 35305, EALC 34305
EALC 24514. Colonial Power in East Asia. 100 Units.
This course takes a transnational and comparative approach to the study of colonialism in East Asia from the Opium Wars through the end of World War I. Using foundational theories of postcolonial scholarship as a starting template, we will explore the interrelationship of colonial power and ideologies of race and gender across China, Japan, and Korea during the nineteenth century. Critically evaluating both primary and secondary sources will help us contextualize the development of the Japanese empire within a larger narrative of the expansion of Euro-American colonial power into East Asia. In doing so, we will discover that sites of empire in East Asia often destabilize the most common binaries of postcolonial study: Occident/Orient, colonizer/colonized, white/other, and premodern/modern.
Instructor(s): J. Dahl     Terms Offered: Winter Equivalent Course(s): CRES 24514, GLST 24514, HIST 24514, GNSE 24514
EALC 24515. Social Outcasts: Exclusion and Discontent in Late Imperial and Modern China. 100 Units.
This course considers the often neglected presence of "social outcasts" in Chinese history as a gateway to understanding ideas and practices of discrimination from the late Qing to modern-day China. It traces changes in the intersection of law, custom, and daily social practices, focusing on attempts aimed at legitimizing discrimination across class, territory, ethnicity, religion, gender and disability. Thus a theoretical objective of the course is to analyze legal and social dimensions of exclusion along the axis of empire and state building. Chronologically, this course begins with the collapse of status order in the late Qing and explores how the Republic and the PRC managed transgressive elements of society, from beggars, prostitutes, and the insane to ethnic and religious minorities. We will use legal documents, police records, and visual materials to explore how sociocultural processes shape the experience of discrimination and its resistance. Another focus of this course will be asking how disenfranchised groups might enhance our understanding of mainstream values. Through discussions, in-class presentations, and written assignments, students will develop skills to analyze historical evidence and critically reflect on its implication for cross-cultural issues.
Instructor(s): C. Wang     Terms Offered: Spring Equivalent Course(s): HIST 24515, CRES 24515, GNSE 24515
EALC 24607. Chinese Independent Documentary Film. 100 Units.
This course explores the styles and functions of Chinese independent documentary since 1989, with particular attention to the social and political contexts that underpin its flourishing in Mainland China and Taiwan. We will discuss the ways in which recent Chinese documentaries challenge current theories of the genre, how they redefine the relationship between fiction and non-fiction, and the problems of media aesthetics, political intervention, and ethics of representation that they pose. We will look at their channels of circulation in Asia and elsewhere, and will discuss the implications and limits of the notion of independence. Readings will include theorizations of the documentary genre in relation to other visual media and narrative forms, analyses of specific works, and discussions on the impact of digital media.
Instructor(s): P. Iovene     Terms Offered: Winter Equivalent Course(s): CMST 34607, CMST 24607, EALC 34607
EALC 24627. Allure of Matter: Material Art in China. 100 Units.
This seminar examines contemporary art in China through the lens of the Smart Museum of Art's upcoming exhibition, The Allure of Matter: Material Art in China. Using works in the exhibition as case studies, the course explores questions about materials and materiality in contemporary art. Throughout the course, we will address the following questions: How have unconventional materials impacted art practices in China? How do these material explorations inform our understanding of contemporary art in China and beyond? How do materials mediate different relationships between the artist, artwork and viewer? Guest speakers, including conservators, will expand our discussions of materiality. The course will meet for approximately half of the time at the Smart Museum or Wrightwood 659.
Instructor(s): O. Cacchione     Terms Offered: Winter Prerequisite(s): Students who have taken a course in modern or contemporary art history preferred. Equivalent Course(s): ARTH 24626, ARTH 34626, EALC 34627
EALC 24950. Fictions of Selfhood in Modern Japanes Literature. 100 Units.
As Japanese leaders in the mid-19th century faced the threat of colonization at the hands of the Western powers, they launched a project to achieve "Civilization and Enlightenment," quickly transforming Japan into a global power that possessed its own empire. In the process fiction became a site for both political engagement and retreat. A civilized country, it was argued, was supposed to boast "literature" as one of its Fine Arts. This literature was charged with representing the inner life of its characters, doing so in a modern national language that was supposed to be a transparent medium of communication. Between the 1880s and the early 1900s, a new language, new literary techniques, and a new set of ideologies were constructed to produce the "self" in novels and short stories. As soon as these new practices were developed, however, they became the objects of parody and ironic deconstruction. Reading key literary texts from the 1880s through the 1930s, as well as recent scholarship, this course will re-trace this historical and literary unfolding, paying special attention to the relationship between language and subjectivity. All readings will be in English.
Equivalent Course(s): EALC 34950
EALC 25306. Gender and Modernity in East Asia. 100 Units.
What are the salient forms, manifestations, and performances found at the intersections of gender and modernities in East Asia? This seminar aims at identifying the characteristics of modern gendering that East Asians experienced in the first half of the twentieth. It aims to generating a broad discussion on the form and patterns of "new" cultural experiences that came to shape themselves under the hegemony of Western modernities outside as well as those of "old" counterparts. While considering the shared questions of modernized gender, gendered consciousness, and personal/private spaces, discussions will respond to the diverse interests, backgrounds, and initiatives of student participants so as to best facilitate comparative and theoretical discussions on gender and modernity in East Asia.
Instructor(s): K. Choi     Terms Offered: Autumn Equivalent Course(s): GNSE 25601, GNSE 35601, EALC 35306.
EALC 25415. Poetry and its Powers in Early China: Explorations in Poetic, Prophetic, and Philosophical Verse. 100 Units and writing are equally emphasized....