This course introduces students to the discipline that studies and compares other cultures. Students learn about the main concepts used in anthropology and how anthropologists conduct research, while also discovering how people live in other times and places. Students will learn about theories that provide frameworks for understanding and comparing cultures. Ethnographies--descriptions of life in particular places--give students factual materials with which to apply and critique such theories. Through this introduction to the study of culture in general, and an exposure to specific cultures, students inevitably come to re-examine some of the premises of their own culture.

This course introduces students to the discipline that studies and compares other cultures. Students learn about the main concepts used in anthropology and how anthropologists conduct research, while also discovering how people live in other times and places. Students will learn about theories that provide frameworks for understanding and comparing cultures. Ethnographies--descriptions of life in particular places--give students factual materials with which to apply and critique such theories. Through this introduction to the study of culture in general, and an exposure to specific cultures, students inevitably come to re-examine some of the premises of their own culture.

This course explores the highlights of Asian art, focusing on India, China, and Japan. The class will also briefly cover Central Asia, Bengal, Nepal, Tibet, Thailand, Cambodia, Java, and Korea. Buddhism, Hinduism, Confucianism, Taoism, and other Asian beliefs will be explained in the context of how they affect Asian art. Types of artwork examined will include painting, sculpture, decorative arts, and some architecture and gardens. The text for the class is Sherman E. Lee's A History of Far Eastern Art; other texts will be used to supplement it. Class requirements include four one-hour slide examinations. No prerequisite.

This is the first half of the basic introductory language course in Modern Standard Chinese (Putonghua). This course will develop students' basic communicative competence in the Chinese language and their understanding of the Chinese culture. Throughout the course, students develop their listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills across the three communicative modes: interpretive, interpersonal, and presentational. In the first semester, the pronunciation and some basic grammar will be taught. The bulk of in-class work will be devoted to developing oral and aural skills. There will also be an introduction to the Chinese writing system. Class meetings range from eight to nine hours per week in the first semester, to seven to eight hours per week in the second. There will be required self language practice as well. Offered every year.

This course is a continuation of CHNS 111Y-112Y. By the end of the first semester, all the basic grammar of Modern Standard Chinese (Putonghua) and another 300 Chinese characters will have been introduced. There will be extensive oral and written assignments. In the second semester, there will be a review of the basic grammar through in-class oral work and an introduction to the elements of Modern Written Chinese grammar. In both semesters, there will be two required drill and discussion sessions each week with an apprentice teacher. Prerequisite: CHNS 111Y-112Y or equivalent. Offered every year.

This course is an upper-level course for students who wish to develop and refine their ability to understand, speak, read, and write Modern Standard Chinese. There will be extensive reading that deals with aspects of Chinese culture and society. Reading assignments serve as points of departure for discussion and composition. Video materials will also be used for this purpose. This course is recommended for students wishing to specialize in any field related to China. The course may be repeated with credit. Prerequisite: CHNS 213Y-214Y or equivalent, or permission of instructor. Offered every year.

This course serves as an introduction to Chinese literary traditions from the first millennium B.C. to 1911. Readings, all in English translation, include the most beloved literary texts that unify Chinese civilization through its long history, selected from early poetry and history, Confucian and Daoist classics, tales of the strange, Tang Dynasty poetry, short stories and drama written in vernacular language, and novels from late Imperial period. The discussion-based seminar will explore how Chinese literature, seen as a means of achieving immortality along with virtue, confirms social values or challenges them, and how it articulates the place of the individual in a thoroughly Confucian and patriarchal society. No prerequisites. Students need not have any background in Chinese language or culture. Normally offered every other year.

India is the world's largest democracy. It has a middle-class population larger than the population of France, and a third to a half of the world's computer software is developed and produced there. Not only does India defy simple categorization, but the stereotypes and cliches readily placed on it are grossly misleading. This course is an introduction to both the study of India and the study of history using India as a rich example. The readings and class discussions trace some of the following themes: Muslim rule in India, women in the medieval period, the diversity of cultures in South Asia, religious reform movements, European participation in trade in the Indian Ocean, the British empire, social movements, nationalism, the partition of India and Pakistan, and modern nation states. The course will examine India through a range of sources, particularly sources from South Asia. There are no prerequisites, and the course assumes no prior knowledge about India.

Japan's current cultural and socio-economic malaise has deep roots, whatever its proximate causes in the natural disasters and economic downturns of recent decades. This course examines the institutions of the last period of warrior rule-- the Tokugawa era (seventeenth through nineteenth centuries), and their transformation through the rise of modern Japan from the mid-nineteenth century to the early twenty-first century.The course addresses the central dilemma of modern Japanese history: the changing meanings of "modernity" and "tradition," and how Japanese have reinvented themselves (and a number of powerful myths along the way) over and over again in the struggle to become modern while remaining "Japanese." Japan's modern history is inseparable from that of the world around it, in particular from the United States, Korea, and China. In addition to tracing how historians have interpreted Japan's economic, political, social, and cultural development, the course explores how Japanese have understood themselves in relation to other peoples, through their own eyes, and through the eyes of people on the margins or outside the heart of Japanese society. No prerequisites. Fulfills history major Asia/Africa distribution requirement.

This course surveys the history of the Islamic(ate) world from the rise of Islam in the sixth century to the rise of post-Monol-Muslim empires--the Ottomans, the safavids, the Mughuls--in the sixteenth century. The course will especially focus on the formation and expansion of Islam as a global civilization and the historical development of the social, cultural, religious, and commercial networks and institutions that connected the Islamicate world during these centuries. Among the topics to be covered are the life and career of the Prophet Muhammad and the emergence of Islam, the expansion of Islamicate world through conquests, conversions and commercial networks, the formation of various Islamic polities and empires, such as the Abbasids, the Fatimids, the Seljuks, and the Mamluks, and the issues of authority, power, and legitimacy that confronted these polties. It will also examine the historical development of Islamic institutions such as Sufism and religious law. Fulfills Asia and the history major premodern requirement.

As the dividing line between "early modern" and "modern" European history, the French Revolution has often stood as the moment when the Old Regime was definitely brought low by social change. As a period of intense centralization and nationalism, the French Revolution has also been seen as accelerating political developments already underway. This advanced seminar will explore both interpretations of this definitive event in French and European history by asking whether the French Revolution constitutes a break or a continuation with what came before. Utilizing primary and secondary sources - including literature, art, and film - we will explore key developments of the French Revolution from its origins in the eighteenth century to the fall of Napoleon's Empire. Topics will include the Enlightenment, the Terror, the Haitian Revolution, revolutionary culture, gender and sexuality, and Napoleon. This course is recommended for students who have taken at least one course in European history, French, or eighteenth-century intellectual history or political thought. Students without such background are welcome to enroll, but should contact the instructor. This course fulfills the history department premodern distribution requirement and the history department distribution for America/Europe.

JAPN 111Y-112Y constitute the first two sequences of the five-semester Japanese program. The course will introduce basic Modern Standard Japanese that is based on the Tokyo dialect. The class work will focus on developing basic skills in speaking, listening, reading, and writing. Students will learn polite and plain speech styles. They will also study three types of Japanese orthography: hiragana, katakana, and approximately 150 kanji (Chinese characters). Class meetings range from nine hours per week in the first semester to eight hours per week in the second, with a fifty minute evening session each day of class. Offered every year.

This course and JAPN 214Y constitute the third and fourth sequences of the five-semester Japanese program. By the end of the year, students will learn all the basic grammar of Modern Standard Japanese and the cumulative total of 300 kanji, with an additional 150 to be introduced. The course will provide extensive oral and written assignments, and it requires two evening review sessions per week. Prerequisite: JAPN 111Y-112Y or equivalent. Offered every year.

This is the final sequence of the five-semester Japanese program. This course is designed to develop students' ability to understand authentic Modern Standard Japanese, i.e. the language used in visual and print media in contemporary Japan. By the end of the year, students will learn 200 new kanji, completing their study of the most frequent 500 kanji. They will also practice utilizing electronic resources for their study. This course is required for students who plan to minor in Japanese. Prerequisite: JAPN 213Y-214Y or equivalent, or permission of instructor. Offered every year.

This course introduces wide range of topics on Japanese culture including geography, history, religion, family, literature and pop culture to students encountering the formal study of Japanese culture for the first time. Students learn about contemporary and traditional Japanese culture that serves as a foundation for contemporary Japanese society. Students explore the different philosophy between Western and Japanese by using materials from various media such as book chapters, news articles and movies. The course aims at student success in three aspects throughout the course:(1) Understand the basic ideas and key concepts of contemporary Japanese culture that are necessary for further study; (2) Examine what makes Japan unique and distinctive; (3) Reevaluate the Western philosophy and social theory. The class will be taught in English. No prerequisites.

This course is an investigation of the issues, methods and history of the discipline of ethnomusicology. The focus in this course will be on case studies drawn from different music genres and areas of the world that illustrate the complexities of considering music in its cultural contexts. Student work will involve close listening, engagement with cultural theory and practical fieldwork exercises, and will culminate in an individual field research project on a topic related to the course. Prerequisite: MUSC 102 or ANTH 113. Offered three out of four years.

This course provides ongoing study of the music of the Sundanese gamelan degung, a traditional ensemble incorporating different types of tuned bronze percussion, drums, flutes, and vocals. Students will be introduced to basic and advanced instrumental techniques for several individual gamelan instruments and receive coaching in musicianship and ensemble skills.A variety of repertories will be covered. Each semester will culminate in one public performance. No previous musical experience is required. This course can be used to satisfy requirements in anthropology as well as music. Prerequisite: permission of instructor.

Islam is the religion of more than a billion people and the dominant cultural element in a geographical region that stretches from Morocco to Indonesia. This course examines the development of Islam and Islamic institutions, from the time of the Prophet Muhammad until the death of Al-Ghazali in 1111 CE. Special attention will be given to the rise of Sunni, Shi'i, and Sufi piety as distinctive responses to the Qur'anic revelation.

This course is a survey of the major historical and contemporary currents of religious thought and practice in Chinese culture. Our aim will be to gain a richer understanding of some characteristic Chinese ways of experiencing the self, society, and the world. We will examine the three traditional "teachings" (Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism), as well as "popular religion," and the contributions of all four to Chinese culture. Specific themes will include ancestor worship, sacrifice and divination, religious ethics, meditation, and longevity techniques. In each section we will attempt to identify those aspects of Chinese religion which are inextricable from traditional Chinese culture and those which are capable of crossing cultural boundaries. Classes are a mixture of lecture and discussion. Readings will focus on primary religious texts, supplemented by films. No prerequisites. Offered every fall semester.

In this course--cross-listed in Asian Studies Programs, we deal with some of the fundamental questions in our global age: How do we understand a culture or society that is radically different from our own? This course has two parts. In the first half, we read theoretical texts such as Said's Orientalism, excerpts from Hegel's and Marx's writing on race and world history, recent work on the epistemology of ignorance, studies of religion from the East (Lopez and Masuzawa), as well as debates about the "clash of civilizations" (Huntington) and the "geography of thought" (Nisbett) in order to conceptualize the notion of "the Other" and our relationship with "the Other." In the second half, we focus on writings about Asia (Tibet, Japan, and China), such as travel writing, historical analysis, and fiction. By analyzing these accounts of the journey to the East, we learn to recognize the complex relationships we have with the cultural, religious, and social traditions that are radically different from our own, with the hope that we can develop a meaningful connection with them through reflective understanding. This course helps both sociology and Asian studies students theorize the complex and creative relationship between oneself and "the Other," and it is of use to students who have recently returned from study abroad (particularly Asia), as well as the ones who are preparing to go abroad. Prerequisite: introductory sociology course (100 level) or permission of the instructor. Offered every other year.