Field of Study Course Proposal
MLC 325
A. Cover Application
1. Proposed field of study: FSLT
2. Course number: MLC 325
3. Course title: Revolution and Modernity in Chinese Literature and Culture
4. Catalog description:
This course is an exploration of modern Chinese literature, visual culture, and critical thought
from the beginning of the twentieth century to the end of the Mao era (1911-1976). We focus on
the use of literature in “saving the nation” as a response to imperialism and the challenge of the
West in the early twentieth century. How do various writers and genres such as the short story,
prose poetry, novella, and film convey and advocate ideas about “revolution” and “modernity”?
Taught in English.
5. Prerequisites: None
6. Unit: 1 unit
7. Estimate of student enrollment: 15
8. By whom and when the course will be offered: Staff, every other year
9. Staffing implications: Currently staffed by a Visiting Assistant Professor; regular course
offering depends on fulfillment of open tenure-track line in Chinese Studies.
10. Adequacy of library, technology, and other resources: Adequate
11. Relation to existing courses and curricula: Elective course in Chinese Studies major and
International Studies (Asian Studies concentration)
12. Contact person: Yvonne Howell, Chair, MLC yhowell@richmond.edu
B. Explanation of Field of Study fulfillment
How the course fulfills FSLT:
As an exploration of modern Chinese literature, visual culture, and critical thought, this course
offers students the critical vocabulary needed in literary and visual analysis. In the first part of
the course, we will journey through various historical permutations of “realism” (from critical
realism to social realism to revolutionary realism) in order to understand the historical and
cultural contexts in which realist texts (both literary and filmic) were created and popularized
to serve specific ends in the quest for modernity.
In the second half of the course, we revisit notions of “literariness” and turn to the vibrant
revolutionary film culture during the communist era, when film, rather than literature, was
popularized by the Party to serve the illiterate population. We will explore the continuity and
discontinuity of the function of literature and of the role of intellectuals and artists in Chinese
society.
In addition to close reading of literary texts and films, students will learn to interpret and
analyze texts in relation to one another beyond the national literature framework. To that end,
students will be exposed to a variety of interpretive frameworks such as theories of translation
and world literature. They will be introduced to Russian writers such as Nikolai Gogol and Leo
Tolstoy, whose ideas on revolution, art, and modernity had a significant impact on Chinese
writers.
Besides lecture attendance, course requirements include regular postings to an online
discussion forum, participation in class discussions, small group work, an oral presentation,
two literary analyses (3-4 pages each), and a final essay that combines literary with visual
analysis (8 pages).
Sample Syllabus
Student Learning Objectives:
•
•
to acquire a critical vocabulary in literary and visual analysis
to understand the aesthetic and political functions of literature as a participant of the
modernization process in China
•
to interpret and analyze texts in relation to one another by using a variety of interpretive
frameworks
•
to think critically as an informed reader and consumer of cultural products in translation
Required Textbooks and Films:
•
Lu Xun, Diary of a Madman, and Other Stories. Trans. William Lyell. Hawaii:
University of Hawaii Press, 1990.
•
•
•
•
•
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Lao, She. Rickshaw Boy. Trans. Howard Goldblatt. New York: Harper Perennial, 2010.
Zhang, Ailing. Lust, Caution. Trans. Julia Lovell. New York: Anchor Books, 2007.
Long Live the Wife (Taitai wansui) (Sang Hu, 1947) (online resource)
Crows and Sparrows (Wuya yu maque) (Zheng Junli, 1949)
The New Year’s Sacrifice (Zhufu) (Sang Hu, 1956)
The Red Detachment of Women (Hongse niangzijun) (Cui Wei and Chen Huai’ai, 1959)
Other course texts, in pdf files on Blackboard:
Selected short stories from: Qian, Zhongshu. Humans, Beasts, and Ghosts. Trans. Christopher
Rea. New York: Columbia University Press, 2011.
Selected essays from: Zhang, Ailing. Written on Water. Trans. Andrew Jones. New York:
Columbia University Press, 2005.
Selected poems and short stories from: Lau, Joseph and Howard Goldblatt, eds. Columbia
Anthology of Modern Chinese Literature. New York: Columbia University Press, 2007.
[CAMCL]
Ding, Ling. “When I was in Xia Village.” CAMCL. 132-146.
Mao, Zedong. “Talks at the Yan’an Forum on Literature and Art.” CAMCL.
Mu, Shiying. “The Shanghai Foxtrot (a Fragment).” CAMCL.
Shi, Zhicun. “At the Paris Cinema.” CAMCL.
Wen, Yiduo. “Dead Water,” “One Sentence.” CAMCL. 502-503.
Xu, Zhimo. “Second Farewell to Cambridge,” “Chance.” CAMCL. 499-501.
Zhang, Ailing. “Sealed Off.” CAMCL.
Ding, Ling. “Miss Sophia's Diary.” I Myself Am a Woman. Boston: Beacon Press, 1990. 49-81.
Gogol, Nikolai. “The Diary of a Madman.” The Collected Tales of Nikolai Gogol. Trans.
Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky. 279-299.
Tolstoy, Leo. What is Art? Trans. Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky. New York:
Penguin Classics, 1996.
Historical documents in translation
Selected documents from:
Denton, Kirk, ed. Modern Chinese Literary Thought: Writings on Literature, 1893-1945.
Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1996. [MCLT]
Liang, Qichao. “Foreword to the Publication of Political Novels in Translation.” MCLT.
Chen, Duxiu. “On Literary Revolution.” MCLT.
Lu, Xun. “Modern Film and the Bourgeoisie.” Trans. Jessica Ka Yee Chan.
Jiang, Qing. “On the Revolution in Peking Opera.” Trans. Jessica Ka Yee Chan.
Secondary scholarship in English
Liu, Lydia. “Translating National Character: Lu Xun and Arthur Smith,” “The Deixis of
Writing in the First Person,” “Novelistic Realism.” Translingual Practice: Literature,
National Culture, and Translated Modernity-China, 1900-1937. Stanford: Stanford
University Press, 1995.
Damrosch, David. “World Enough and Time.” What is World Literature. Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 2003. 281-303.
Chi, Robert. “The Red Detachment of Women: Resenting, Regendering, Remembering”
Chinese Films in Focus. Ed. Chris Berry. London: BFI, 2003. 152-159.
Wang, Ban. “Desire and Pleasure in Revolutionary Cinema.” The Sublime Figure of History:
Aesthetics and Politics in Twentieth-Century China. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
123-154.
Donald, Stephanie. “A Socialist Realist Gaze.” Public Secrets, Public Spaces: Cinema and
Civility in China. New York: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2000. 59-67.
McGrath, Jason. “Communists Have More Fun! The Dialectics of Fulfillment in Cinema of the
People’s Republic of China.” World Picture 3 (2009):
http://www.worldpicturejournal.com/WP_3/McGrath.html
Clark, Paul. “Fixing Culture on Film.” The Chinese Cultural Revolution: A History. New York:
Cambridge University Press, 2008.
Grading Logic:
Class participation and online forum
Oral presentation
Quizzes
Two literary analyses (3-4 pages)
Final paper (literary + visual analysis) (8 pages)
20%
10%
5%
20%+20%
25%
A
Represents achievement that is outstanding relative to the level necessary to meet course
requirements.
B
Represents achievement that is significantly above the level necessary to meet course
requirements.
C
D
Represents achievement that meets the course requirements in every respect.
Represents achievement that is worthy of credit even though it fails to meet fully the
course requirements.
F
Represents failure and indicates that coursework was completed but at an achievement
level unworthy of credit, or was not completed and there was no agreement between the
instructor and student that the student would be awarded an I.
Schedule
Week 1: The May Fourth literary revolution
Tuesday: Course introduction: What is close reading?
In-class close reading: Lu Xun, “Preface,” Diary of a Madman, 21-28.
Thursday: Lu Xun, “Diary of a Madman,” Diary of a Madman, 29-41.
Nikolai Gogol, “The Diary of a Madman”
*Small group oral report for next week (each group will be assigned a text):
1) Liang Qichao, “Foreword to the Publication of Political Novels in Translation”
2) ---, “On the Relationship Between Fiction and the Government of the People”
3) Chen Duxiu, “On Literary Revolution”
Week 2: Lu Xun’s critical realism and character types—benighted peasants, victimized women,
and ineffectual intellectuals
Tuesday: Lu Xun, “Kong Yiji,” Diary of a Madman, 42-48.
Lu Xun, “Hometown,” Diary of a Madman, 89-100.
Lu Xun, “New Year’s Sacrifice,” Diary of a Madman, 219-241.
Thursday: Lu Xun, “Ah-Q—The Real Story,” Diary of a Madman, 101-172
Week 3: Lu Xun as a translator and film critic
Tuesday: Lydia Liu, “Translating National Character: Lu Xun and Arthur Smith”
David Damrosch, “World Enough and Time,” What is World Literature, 281-303.
Thursday: Lu Xun, “Modern Film and the Bourgeoisie”
Short essays on translation (Lu Xun, Qu Qiubai, Liang Shiqiu, and Mao Dun)
Week 4: Modernism and modernity: May Fourth romanticism and Shanghai modernism
Tuesday: Ding Ling, “Miss Sophia's Diary,” I Myself Am a Woman, 49-81.
Lydia Liu, “The Deixis of Writing in the First Person” (excerpts)
Thursday: *First literary analysis due in class (hard copies only)
Xu Zhimo, “Second Farewell to Cambridge,” “Chance,” Columbia Anthology, 499-501.
Wen Yiduo, “Dead Water,” “One Sentence,” Columbia Anthology, 502-503.
Shi Zhicun, “At the Paris Cinema”
Mu Shiying, “The Shanghai Foxtrot (a Fragment)”
Week 5: Social realism: peasants and laborers
Tuesday: Kirk Denton, “Introduction” (Revolutionary literature 1923-1930)
Lao She, Rickshaw Boy, 1-97 (ch. 1-8).
Thursday: Lao She, Rickshaw Boy, 98-197 (ch. 9-16).
Week 6: Social realism continued: the left-wing cinema movement
Tuesday: Lao She, Rickshaw Boy, 198-300 (ch. 17-end).
Thursday: Lydia Liu, “Novelistic Realism”
Kirk Denton, “Introduction” (Debate on literary freedom 1932-1935)
---, “Introduction” (National Crisis 1936-1945)
Screening: Crows and Sparrows (Wuya yu maque) (Zheng Junli, 1949)
Week 7: Occupation literature in Shanghai and the female experience
Tuesday: Zhang Ailing, “Sealed Off”
Zhang Ailing, “Speaking of Women,” “A Chronicle of Changing Clothes,” Written on Water
Thursday: Zhang Ailing, “Writing of One’s Own,” “From the Mouths of Babes,” “Notes on
Apartment Life,” “Whispers,” Written on Water
Week 8: Zhang Ailing: a case against literature as moral education
Tuesday: Zhang Ailing, Lust, Caution
Thursday: Nicole Huang, “Introduction,” Written on Water
Screening: Long Live the Wife (Taitai wansui) (Sang Hu, 1947) (available online)
Week 9: Qian Zhongshu
Tuesday:
Qian Zhongshu, Humans, Beasts, and Ghosts (selected short stories)
Thursday:
Qian Zhongshu, Humans, Beasts, and Ghosts (selected short stories)
Week 10: What is visual analysis?
Tuesday: Peer review
Thursday: Second literary analysis due in class (hard copies only)
Glossary of film terms
Week 11: Whom does literature serve?
Tuesday:
Ding Ling “When I was in Xia Village” in Columbia Anthology, 132-146
Thursday (11/17):
Leo Tolstoy, What is Art? (excerpts)
Mao Zedong, “Talks at the Yan’an Forum on Literature and Art” (1942)
Screening: The New Year’s Sacrifice (Zhufu) (Sang Hu, 1956)
Week 12:
Tuesday in-class screening:
The Red Detachment of Women (Hongse niangzijun) (Cui Wei and Chen Huai’ai 1959)
Thursday: TBD
Week 13: Communists have more fun? Desire and Pleasure in revolutionary cinema
Tuesday: Video homework: Watch a two-part video essay (20 minutes): “A Revolution on
Screen,” 2009 New York Film Festival Masterworks series “(Re)Inventing China: A New
Cinema for a New Society, 1949-1966”
http://www.movingimagesource.us/articles/a-revolution-on-screen-pt-1-20090924
Robert Chi, “The Red Detachment of Women: Resenting, Regendering, Remembering”
Thursday: Ban Wang, “Desire and Pleasure in Revolutionary Cinema” (excerpts)
Stephanie Donald, “A Socialist Realist Gaze,” 59-67
Jason McGrath, “Communists Have More Fun! The Dialectics of Fulfillment in Cinema of the
People’s Republic of China” (excerpts)
Week 14: Model opera: “literariness” reconsidered
Tuesday: Paul Clark, “Fixing Culture on Film”
Thursday: Jiang Qing, “On the Revolution in Peking Opera” (1967)
Week 15: Course evaluation and peer review
No readings