Teaching

CHNS G9023
Biopolitics and Literary Realism in Modern Chinese Literature

Spring 2012: Tuesday 2:10pm-4:00pm
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INTRODUCTION

This seminar explores literary realism in modern China as an interdisciplinary topic. We will examine how literary form presupposes a philosophy of life and ask why new modes of realism in modern fiction and pictorial representation should be reevaluated in light of the contemporaneous developments in biological science and philosophical inquiries. Our goal is to reformulate the theoretical framework of literary realism and make it relevant to the perceived paradigm shift in modern evolutionary biology which appears to favor a bio-mimetic understanding of life as form. Besides revisiting Yan Fu's translation of T.H. Huxley's Evolution and Ethics, Lu Xun's interest in biogenetics and Buddhist literature, and the much publicized philosophical debate on "Science and Metaphysics" in 1923, we will investigate a core group of late-Qing translations of medical and biological texts, treatises and pictorial renderings of human physiology and pathology, visual representations of race and sexuality, confessional narrative, and public discussions of national hygiene and eugenics. Theoretical texts in the history of science, feminism, psychoanalysis, and postcolonial scholarship are included to throw new light on the primary material and raise comparative issues on the sources of scientific truths and the power of literary and visual representation in modern China and around the world.

Course Requirements

Course requirements consist of oral presentation, bibliographic research in primary and secondary sources, active participation in class discussion, and a term paper (20-25 pages). Each student is expected to lead the discussion at least once during the semester. The student must prepare discussion questions or points and post them on the Courseworks site by Monday 12noon in the week of oral presentation. For all other members of the seminar, thorough preparation and sustained engagement with the intellectual issues and research questions raised by the assigned readings are expected. Course requirements consist of oral presentation, bibliographic research in primary and secondary sources, active participation in class discussion, and a term paper (20-25 pages). Each student is expected to lead the discussion at least once during the semester. The student must prepare discussion questions or points and post them on the Courseworks site by Monday 12noon in the week of oral presentation. For all other members of the seminar, thorough preparation and sustained engagement with the intellectual issues and research questions raised by the assigned readings are expected. Beginning in Week 12, we will devote 30 minutes of class time each remaining week to the presentation and discussion of your research prospectus and bibliographic sources. The final paper is due on the first day of the exam week at 12noon.