East Asian Studies
With reference to lectures, assigned readings, films, and the poem answer only one of the following three questions. For questions 1 and 2, you must refer to at least three essays covered in class and at least one of the four films or poem.
For question 3 you must refer to at least two essays covered in class and at least two of the films (or one of the films and the poem). Your chosen texts should not only be from one national situation. Essays should be approximately six to eight pages (double-spaced, using 12 point Times New Roman or equivalent font).
Throughout the course of your essay you should introduce the problem of history itself, articulate the respective viewpoints and strategies of your chosen authors, produce an argument about how historiographical form is important for the analysis of history and how it might influence the larger project of East Asian Studies.
Your analysis should not simply summarize the thinkers we have studied in the course, but should use their analyses as a point of departure for your own argument.
The problem of geography is one that all thinkers must face and is shot through with power relations. Throughout the course of your essay you should introduce the problem of geography itself and then articulate the respective viewpoints and strategies of your chosen authors, produce an argument about how geographical form is important for the analysis of geography and how it might influence the larger project of East Asian Studies.
Your analysis should not simply summarize the thinkers we have studied in the course, but should use their analyses as a point of departure for your own argument. Attention should also be given to the way cultural producers (the filmmakers and/or poet) engage these same issues?
Dominant conceptualizations of time and space do not just exist, but are produced. After first establishing the significance of these two categories for the study of East Asia, produce an argument about how at least two of the filmmakers (or one of the filmmakers and the poet) have challenged the usual effects of these categories.
