EN5231: Asian and Other Modernities

[ Introduction and Description | Schedule and Readings | Assessment and Policies | Related Resources ]

Schedule: Semester 2, 2009-2010

The seminar meets on Wednesday evenings

Week of NUS Academic Calendar	Date of Seminar	Class week	Topic	Preparation and Readings	Assignments and Events
1	13/1	1	Introduction	Readings and Preparatory Questions
UNIT 1: ORIENTATIONS
2	20/1	2	Modernity: Politics and Subjectivity	Readings and Preparatory Questions
3	27/1	3	Modernity: Provincializing Europe	Readings and Preparatory Questions	Tour: Sunday 31st January
4	3/2	4	Modernity: Aesthetics and Society	Readings and Preparatory Questions
5	10/2	5	Found Objects [I'll be involved in a conference in Australia this week, and so this class will be rescheduled to a time during the break and after the break: note that we'll have three sections, meeting either during the break or immediately after]	Readings and Preparatory Questions
Recess Week: Sat 13 Feb – Sun 21 Feb
UNIT 2: FORMAL INTERVENTIONS
6	24/2	6	Research Essay Review: *Realism, Nationalism: Pramoedya Ananta Toer, Footsteps* (1)**	Readings and Preparatory Questions	Found Objects Written Assignment Due
7	3/3	7	*Realism and Gender: Pramoedya Ananta Toer, Footsteps* (2)**	Readings and Preparatory Questions
8	10/3	8	Modernism and Fragmentation: Eileen Chang, Love in a Fallen City	Readings and Preparatory Questions	Research Essay Proposal Due
9	17/3	9	Other Histories, Other Knowledges: Zakes Mda, The Heart of Redness	Readings and Preparatory Questions
10	24/3	10	Research Essay Consultations If you'd like to go to the Cheong Soo Pieng Exhibition do so, but given people's commitments we'll probably not have a formal visit. It's certainly worth going and seeing how, in a different medium, questions of tradition in modernity are raised, modernist techniques are exemplified, and Asia (here, especially, Southeast Asia) is re-imagined.	How to Prepare
UNIT 3: SINGAPORE AS EXAMPLE OR EXCEPTION
11	31/3	11	Kuo Pao Kun, Two Plays	Readings and Preparatory Questions
12	7/4	12	Boey Kim Cheng, After the Fire	Readings and Preparatory Questions
13	14/4	13	Concluding Discussion	Readings and Preparatory Questions	Research Essay Due
14	Reading Week (17-23 April)
15	NUS Examination Period (24 April - 8 May) There is no final examination in this module
16

Required Texts

You will need to buy the following texts from the NUS Coop.

Pramoedya Ananta Toer, Footsteps. Tr. Max Lane. London: Penguin, 1991.
Eileen Chang. Love in a Fallen City. New York: New York Review of Books, 2007.
Zakes Mda, The Heart of Redness. New York: Picador, 2003.
Kuo Pao Kun. Two Plays by Kuo Pao Kun: Descendants of the Eunuch Admiral and The Spirits Play. Ed. C. J. W.-L. Wee & Lee Chee Keng. Singapore: SNP: 2003.
Boey Kim Cheng, After the Fire. Singapore: First Fruits, 2006.
COURSE PACKET , containing:

Week 2
- Fornäs, Johan. "Modernity." Cultural Theory and Late Modernity. London: Sage, 1995: 18-48.
- The series of essays included in "The Juggernaut of Capitalist Modernity" from Marx and Modernity: Key Readings and Commentary. Ed. Roberto J. Antonio. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2003.75-100.
- Pramoedya Ananta Toer, "Ketjapi." Trans. Julie Shackford-Bradley and Brandon Spars. Tales from Djarkarta: Caricatures of Circumstance and their Human Beings. Ithaca: Cornell University Southeast Asia Program, 1999. 137-142.
Week 3
- Liu, Lydia H. 1993. "Translingual Practice: The Discourse of Individualism between China and the West." Formations of Colonial Modernity in East Asia. Ed. Tani Barlow. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1997. 83-112.
- Fukuzawa Yukichi. "Good-bye Asia." Japan: A Documentary History. Ed. David J. Lu. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1996. 351-353.
- Nick Joaquin, "Three Generations." Philippine Short Stories 1925-1940. Ed. Leopoldo Y. Yabes. Manila: University of the Philippines Press, 1997. 515-530.
Week 4
- Mao Zedong. "Talks at the Yan'an Forum on Literature and the Arts." Chinese Theories of Theater and Performance from Confucius to the Present. Ed. by Faye Chunfang Fei. Ann Arbor, Mich : University of Michigan Press, 1999. 29-41.
- Fanon, Frantz. “On National Culture.” Postcolonial Criticism. Ed. Bart Moore-Gilbert et. al. London: Longman, 1997. 91-111.
- Adorno, Theodor. "Commitment." Literature in the Modern World: Critical Essays and Documents. 2nd Ed. Ed. Dennis Walder. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. 103-113.
- Ding Ling, "When I Was in Xia Village." The Columbia Anthology of Modern Chinese Literature. Ed. Joseph S.M. Lau and Howard Goldblatt. New York: Columbia University Press, 1995. 132-146
- ---. "Miss Sophia's Diary." I Myself Am a Woman: Selected Writings of Ding Ling. Ed. Tani E. Barlow. Boston: Beacon Press , 1989. 49-81.
Week 6
- Anderson, Benedict. "Cultural Roots."Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. Revised Ed. London: Verso, 1991. 9-36.
Week 7 [not week 6, as in your module packet]
- Kandiyoti, Deniz. "Identity and its Discontents: Women and the Nation." Colonial Discourse and Postcolonial Theory: A Reader. Ed. Patrick Williams and Laura Chrisman. New York: Columbia UP, 1994. 376-391.
Week 9
- Peires, Jeff. "Everything You Always Wanted to Know About the Xhosa Cattle-Killing." The Dead Will Arise: Nongqawuse and the Great Xhosa Cattle-Killing Movement of 1856-7. Johannesberg: Ravan, 1989. 312-322.
Week 11
- Kuo Pao Kun. "Knowledge Structure and Play -- A Side View of Civil Society in Singapore." State-Society Relations in Singapore.Ed. Gillian Koh and Ooi Giok Ling. Singapore: IPS/Oxford UP, 2000. 210-218.
- Chua Beng Huat. "Singapore's Routes of Modernity." Theory, Culture & Society 23 (2006) 469-471.

Last updated: 10 March, 2010