Gender, Sexuality, and Representation (231-0-20)

Topic

Tender Monkeys: Animals in Chinese Culture Past an

Instructors

Paola Zamperini
847/467-4593
1880 Campus Drive, Kresge Hall, Office 4-431
Office Hours: Varies quarter to quarter, please check with instructor.

Meeting Info

Kresge Centennial Hall 2-410: Mon, Wed 12:30PM - 1:50PM

Overview of class

Nonhuman animals forage, colonize, and migrate across temporal and spatial dimensions that defy boundaries meaningful only to human societies. Nevertheless, they are often incorporated into the institutionalization and reinforcement of human-imposed boundaries that contour cultural, national, and ethnic identities, and are thus affected by the material and symbolic roles they play in the human world. The trajectories of nonhuman animals, therefore, both parallel and challenge the routes of human bodies, histories, and knowledge.

Human contact with other animals helped shape Chinese culture from its beginnings. In many ways, it was the history of human immersion in the worlds of fellow animals that inspired the development of many elements that came to dominate Chinese culture in all its aspects, including art, food, literature, religion, and technologies, over the centuries.

Engaging the animal turn in the humanities, this course explores the diachronic journeys of a variety of nonhuman creatures—from dragons to horses, from phoenixes and foxes to monkeys, from tigers to dogs—in order to uncover intertwined material and cultural histories of nonhuman animals; embodiment and engendering; animacy and reproduction; temporalities; and otherworldly imaginings. Tracing their trajectories through time and across multiple media, we will examine how Chinese people redefined animals and themselves through literary, cultural, and lived experiences with animals.
This interdisciplinary course draws on methodological and theoretical approaches from Chinese literary and religious studies, gender and sexuality studies, animal studies, art history, and cultural studies.

Learning Objectives

-Acquisition of knowledge about animal studies as a field by engaging Chinese culture past and present. This will mean exposure to primary sources (in English, and for those students able to, in the respective languages in which they were created) produced by Chinese authors and artists, as well as to secondary sources related late to these fields of intellectual and disciplinary engagement.
-Acquisition of knowledge about animal culture and zoopoetics in China from early history to the twenty-first century through a range of disciplinary and methodological perspectives, including Asian humanities, film studies, literary criticism, gender and sexuality studies, and material culture.
-Development of methodological skills in studying, reading, and analyzing the primary and secondary sources related to the themes of the course.
-Growth as independent researchers in the fields of Asian humanities,and gender and sexuality studies.
-Growth as independent academic thinkers and writers.

Teaching Method

methods may include but are not limited to lecture, discussion activities, class participation, readings, films / videos, group work, guest speakers, presentations, research project, writing assignments.

Evaluation Method

Attendance; participation; short writing assignments (reading and screening responses); final research project

Class Materials (Required)

provided in Canvas

Class Attributes

Literature and Arts Foundational Discipline
Literature & Fine Arts Distro Area

Enrollment Requirements

Enrollment Requirements: Pre-registration is reserved for Gender & Sexuality Studies students