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This course addresses reading ethnography as a tool to understand compressed and complex modernity such as Korean societies, both in and outside of the Korean peninsula. In particular, this course aims to develop students’ critical thinking on class, ethnicity, gender, family, and migration in Korea and diasporic societies of Koreans in Canada, China, Japan, and US.

Major contemporary developments beyond Hollywood and European filmmaking, examining a select number of national/regional cinemas: Africa, Korea, Iran, India (Hindi cinema), and Latin America. Topics include: transnationalism, indigenization of generic and stylistic conventions, cultural contexts, distribution networks, film festivals, and reception within a global economy.

The course explores how composers, performers, songwriters and audiences made sense of traumatic and violent events that they experienced, such as ethnic conflicts, wars, exile and displacement, through music. We will also look at how government ideologies employ music during wars. The case studies will include stories of Jewish, Palestinian, Afghan, Romani, Korean, Rwandan and other diasporas severely affected by wars and violence.

Examines how various histories of East Asia can be written by focusing on specific themes in the histories of China, Japan, and Korea to roughly 1600. Required of EAS specialists, majors, and minors.

Examines how various histories of East Asia can be written by focusing on specific themes in the histories of China, Japan, and Korea from roughly 1600 to the Cold War. Required of EAS specialists, majors, and minors.

This course is designed to help students build communication skills in the Korean language. Through an integration of listening, speaking, reading and writing, it aims to provide a solid foundation in beginning-level Korean. This course assumes that students do not have any prior knowledge of Korean. Students must go through screening process conducted by the Department. See www.eas.utoronto.ca/languages/enrolment-instructions/korean for details. Not eligible for CR/NCR option.

As a continuation of EAS110Y1, this course is designed to help students improve their skills in the Korean language. Students in this course are expected to perform basic communicative functions, read and write paragraph-level texts, and conjugate verbs/adjectives accurately. Students who do not meet the prerequisite must go through placement process conducted by the Department. See www.eas.utoronto.ca/languages/enrolment-instructions/korean for details.

Covering both EAS110Y1 and EAS210Y1, the course is ideal for self-motivated students who enjoy fast-paced language learning, students with a passion for Korean films and television, students with some listening and speaking skills from prior study or family background, and students taking the full four-year course series. Successful completion of the course fulfils the prerequisite for EAS310Y1. Students must go through screening process conducted by the Department. See www.eas.utoronto.ca/languages/korean for details.

As a continuation of EAS110Y1, this course is designed to help students increase their Korean communication skills at beginner high to intermediate low levels. It is ideal for self-motivated students who enjoy fast-paced language learning, and students who have built basic language skills from prior study. Successful completion of the course fulfils the prerequisite for EAS310Y1. Students who do not meet the prerequisite must go through placement process conducted by the Department. See www.eas.utoronto.ca/languages/korean for details.

This course focuses on how Marxism became one of the most important and influential systems of revolutionary thought in East Asian countries such as Japan, Korea, and China in the twentieth century, with enormous repercussions for our present historical conjuncture. The course particularly focuses on the theoretical creativity and impasses that went into translating the basic tenets of Marxism to address particular, national questions in East Asia.

This lecture course examines key questions and texts in the history of literature from the Korean peninsula during the twentieth century, exploring how aesthetic form refracted the experiences of colonialism, division, and the formation of opposing nation-states.

This course examines the tumultuous events of 19th-century Korea – from peasant uprisings to gunboat diplomacy and from the decline of slavery to the economy’s integration into global capitalism – together with the ways these events have been subjected to the changing and contentious interpretations of historians.

An exploration of Korean colonial history in a comparative and global context, including coverage of controversies over political economy, gender, race, architecture, and later public memory debates.

This course begins with the division of the peninsula into two mutually-hostile Koreas in the context of decolonization and the Cold War, and traces the struggles of peoples on both sides of the divide down to the late 20th century.

Through various forms of popular culture in the 20th century, this course explores the cultural contexts and social trajectories of China, Japan and Korea. Forms of popular culture studied include art, visual culture, consumer habits, foodways, advertising, music, and fashion.

This course explores the postwar development of film in Korea with a focus on the analysis of film form, genre and historical context.

A study of Chinese, Japanese or Korean culture, history and/or literature. Content depends on the instructor. When offered, the course will have a subtitle that describes its content.

As a continuation of EAS210Y1 and EAS211Y1, this course is designed to help students improve their Korean proficiency at the intermediate level. The class focuses not only on oral fluency and grammar but also on reading comprehension. Students who do not meet the prerequisite must go through placement process conducted by Department. See www.eas.utoronto.ca/languages/korean for details.

This course considers the problem of colonial modernism through a close reading of literary and cultural texts from early 20th-century Korea. It asks what it means to enter modernity under colonial rule, and questions the relationship between imperialism, writing, and subjectivity. Topics include the role of literature in elaborating new concepts of subjectivity, literature and the fine arts as assimilatory practices, the emergence of urban space and reconfiguration of notions of the rural, and changing notions of time and space in the cultural products of nativism. Readings of literary works will be accompanied by showings of paintings and photographs from the period, as well as discussions of theoretical essays on modernism.

This course critically re-evaluates the history and historiography of Japanese capitalism, imperialism/colonialism, and world-empire through the lens of three, distinct “modes of exchange”: gift, plunder, and commodity exchange. Inspired by Kojin Karatani’s The Structure of World History: From Modes of Production to Modes of Exchange (2014), this course explores the emancipatory politics inherent in the critical analysis of modes of exchange, and takes up historical cases from Japan, Hokkaido, Okinawa, Taiwan, Korea, China, and the “Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere.”

This course introduces the Zen Buddhist traditions of China, Korea, and Japan. Emphasis is placed on the radical views of history, language, ritual, self, and enlightenment espoused by these traditions. The course also examines issues related to Zen monasticism, the development of koans, and the definition of orthodoxy in both premodern and modern Zen. Students will be asked to explore these and other topics by paying close attention to the historical, doctrinal, and institutional contexts from which they arose.

This course explores how cultural and ethnic identity in diaspora is constructed in media texts, and how the politics of national identity target various publics. We will examine the work of particular filmmakers, diasporic Korean celebrities in Korea, and digital platforms for producing public visibility, such as YouTube.

This research-oriented course examines the divided history of the Korean peninsula since 1945 in the context of the global war. Examines key debates in the history of contemporary Korea, beginning with the Korean war and ending with the contemporary culture of division.

Korea’s long 20th century experienced many tumultuous moments of dissent, rebellion, and revolution. When, why, and how do specific people dissent? This course devotes each weekly meeting to the study of a single moment of dissent, ranging from the peasant uprisings of the 1890s to labor activities in the colonial period and from anti-regime student movements in the 1970s to recent social movements and candlelight demonstrations.

A study of Chinese, Japanese or Korean culture, history and/or literature. Content depends on the instructor. When offered, the course will have a subtitle that describes its content.

As a continuation of EAS310Y1, this course is designed for advanced-level learners of Korean. Through reading short essays/articles and watching films, this course aims to improve students’ proficiency in speaking, writing, listening, and reading. Classroom and online discussions are conducted entirely in Korean. Students who do not meet the prerequisite must go through placement process conducted by the Department. See www.eas.utoronto.ca/languages/korean for details.

This course aims to assist students to upgrade their language proficiency for academic and professional purposes. It is ideal for students who seek career opportunities in Korea-related business or in higher education in Korean studies. Emphasis is on comprehension and composition of academic and business texts and preparation for Korean proficiency tests. Students who do not meet the prerequisite must go through placement process conducted by the Department. See www.utoronto.ca/languages/korean for details.

A workshop format is used to explore problems encountered when translating Korean literary texts (fiction and poetry) into English. Practice with a variety of texts is accompanied by readings in translation theory to refine our understanding of translation and enrich our experience working with historical forms of Korean and English.

This seminar provides an opportunity for in-depth reading and research into a specific topic in the cultural and intellectual history of Korea. Topics will vary each semester but may include colonial period print culture, the New Woman, the history of photography, and modernism.

This research course examines the ways our historical understanding of the Cold War in East Asia has shifted over the last twenty years. Focusing primarily on the divided Korean peninsula where it can be said the Cold War still rages, the course examines the mutual constitution of two competing regional political economies rooted in a shared commitment to developmentalism.