New and Highlighted Courses (Fall 2026)

Instructor: Daniel Boucher

Course Time: Tuesday and Thursday, 1:25pm - 2:4f0pm

Cross-listed with RELST 3049.

3 credits.

Prerequisite: one course in religious studies.

This course will explore the development of and variety in the academic discipline of Religious Studies. We will consider the emergence of secular approaches to the study of religion arising out of the European Enlightenment, and more particularly, the methods in the academic study of religion based upon different theoretical approaches. We will be particularly concerned to reflect upon the category of religious experience in modern discourses from historical, social scientific, hermeneutical, and psychological points of view. (ASIAN-RL)

Instructor: Anne Blackburn

Course Time: Wednesday, 2:00pm-4:30pm

3 credits.

Buddhist ideas, practices, and institutions play many roles in the political life of South and Southeast Asia, in the present day and throughout the long history of these regions. This course approaches ?politics? broadly. Thus, the course explores how persons invoke Buddhist concepts and understandings of Buddhist traditions when acting for and against state and sovereign powers, but also how Buddhist ideas and institutions are drawn into other social projects that shape the flow and accumulation of social capital, economic benefit, and authority. Case studies and theoretical works address historical, modern, and contemporary materials. Assignments include the opportunity for students to focus on a contemporary regional location of their choice. (ASIAN-RL)

Instructor: Suyoung Son

Course Time: Monday and Wednesday, 11:40am - 12:55pm

3 credits.

Prerequisite: completed two years of Chinese language training in consultation with the instructor.

This upper-level seminar explores how East Asian literary, religious, and cultural traditions have imagined worlds shared by humans and nonhuman beings. Focusing on the ways in which the boundary between the human and the nonhuman is defined, contested, and reconfigured, the course engages in close readings of theoretical and primary texts featuring ghosts, animals, insects, objects, disability, and the figures of the barbarian other. Students will analyze how nonhuman agents unsettle anthropocentric assumptions and articulate alternative ontologies of life, agency, and relationality. Drawing on contemporary theoretical frameworks such as posthumanism, multispecies studies, and ecocriticism, the course invites students to reconsider what it meant?and what it might mean?to inhabit a world that is fundamentally more-than-human. (ASIAN-LL)

Instructor: Nick Admussen

Course Time: Thursday, 8:30am - 11:00am

3 credits.

Enrollment limited to: graduate students.

This is a survey of English-language literary criticism about literature in Chinese, including drama and film, from the late Qing to the present. Students read in a roundtable format, bringing diverse monographs into one conversation about the shape and content of Chinese literary studies in Western languages. The course is designed to prepare graduate students for potential field exams in Chinese literature, modern China, or one of their many subfields. (ASIAN-LL)

Instructor: Naomi Larson

Course Time: TBD

1 credit.

Prerequisite: Grade of C+ of higher in JAPAN 1101 or by placement exam. 

In this course, students select their own Japanese reading materials and read independently at their own pace using the Extensive Reading (Tadoku) method. Tadoku means reading for enjoyment at a level where students can read smoothly and quickly without relying on dictionaries or translation. Students will meet in the class to read books at or slightly below their fluent reading level. Through this process, over the semester they will gradually build vocabulary and kanji knowledge, improve prediction skills, and develop the ability to read more complex sentences with ease. The primary focus of the class is individual reading and one-on-one consultations with the instructor. Additional activities—such as group discussions, journal writing, and presentations—will also be incorporated.

Instructor: Drisana Misra

Course Time: Tuesday and Thursday, 11:40am - 12:55pm

3 credits.

Prerequisite: Completion of JAPAN 3301/3302 or equivalent. 

This course introduces students to the fundamental grammatical forms of Classical Japanese (kobun), also known as Literary Japanese (bungo). Prior to the standardization of modern Japanese, bungo served as the official written form of the language from the Heian period through the mid-twentieth century and continues to influence contemporary Japanese poetry, as well as legal and business language. Students will gain an understanding of the historical development of Japanese across different periods while learning to distinguish the nuances of particles and to conjugate verbs. We will systematically study the core components of Classical Japanese using textbooks, excerpts from canonical texts, and supplementary materials. Grammar is taught through contextualized examples drawn from Japanese literary classics, while also reinforcing knowledge of modern Japanese. Students will practice translating short passages into English. (ASIAN-LL)