Chinese Literature, Performance, and Media Studies in the Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures offers a curriculum with intellectual breadth and depth. Students pursue in depth specific topics from a variety of critical perspectives and receive a broad foundation in the literary history of China. The faculty specialize in classical poetry and poetics, late imperial drama and fiction, local and ethnic oral and oral-connected literatures, modern literature and literary thought, film and media studies, museums and historical memory studies, east-west intercultural relations, and the study of western sinology. In addition to canonized literary texts, the faculty teach and research visual, material, and performative cultures. They treat their material from cultural-historical perspectives—as informed and shaped by historical, ideological, social, and intellectual factors—and convey the contextualized nature of both the production and interpretation of texts. Students are trained in the techniques of close analysis of texts and the critical application of diverse theoretical approaches.
Faculty Working in this Area: Mark Bender, Kirk Denton, Meow Hui Goh, Heather Inwood, Patricia Sieber