University of Minnesota
Asian Languages & Literature
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Asian Languages and Literature.

Chinese Literary and Cultural Studies

Home > Graduate Program > Areas : Chinese Literary and Cultural Studies

Curriculum

Graduate students in the department study literature, media, and other cultural phenomena of China. This curriculum encourages both traditional and non-traditional topics and allows for comparative engagements with other cultural traditions, especially those that have historically intersected with Chinese forms of thought and practice in ancient or modern times, from Indian Buddhism to traditional Japanese poetry to the modern vernacular literatures or cinemas of Europe and the Americas.

Approaches and Emphases

Asian Languages and Literatures excludes neither classical approaches to literary study (of whichever region) nor contemporary theoretical reflections on questions of cultural form, representation, history, power, language and media that have arisen transnationally. Courses are designed to advance research in literary and cultural phenomena of China through training in reading primary texts, evaluating commentaries, producing translations and attaining proficient knowledge of social, cultural and political contexts relevant to the objects of study.

We also encourage research in areas that have been emergent in the last several decades. Included here is work that bridges media (such as literature, film, photography, and other visual culture), involves linkages betweens nations or regions, and intersects disciplines (such as literary interpretation, ethnography, film studies, and art history), or reflects contemporary issues of gender, nation, and ethnicity (involving issues of representation and political ideologies).

Disciplines and Objects

Though the focus and center of gravity are expertise in the literary and cultural phenomena of China, it is possible for students in the program to attain professional training not only for Asian studies but for programs in comparative literary, cultural, feminist, or media studies as well. Conversely, it is possible for both undergraduate and graduate students in other departments at the university to minor in Asian Languages and Literatures if their studies involve focusing on any one of the languages or cultures offered.

Besides the mainstream forms of classical Chinese and modern vernacular Mandarin in the mainland, the China faculty are interested as well in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and elsewhere in the Chinese diaspora in addition to relevant cultural forms in other East Asian nations. The program complements the other Asian literatures and cultures tracks in the department by focusing on the historical evolution of literary forms such as poetry, history, philosophical classics, and the modern novel and short story; visual culture including cinema, photography, cartography, and so on; issues of canonicity and value in contexts of popular, mass and elite formations and their critical reception; the politics and ethics of language and community; the effects of socio-political orders such as imperialism, nationalism, patriarchy, capitalism, and communism; and the elaboration of cultural heritages in new media such as film and television in a globalized context. This is merely a reflection of the kinds of research that is underway currently in the department is by no means an exhaustive inventory of what can be done within it.

ALCM Faculty

  • Joseph R. Allen, Professor
    Chinese poetry and poetics (classical and modern); Taiwan studies; translation theory and practice; photography and colonialism; traditional materials in modern cultures
  • Jason McGrath, Assistant Professor
    Modern and contemporary Chinese literature and culture; Chinese and international cinemas; realism in fiction, film, and theory; Marxism and dialectics; psychoanalysis; globalization and popular culture; modernism and postmodernism; gender studies; nationalism
  • Paul Rouzer, Associate Professor
    Medieval poetry and its relation to community and ideology; the reinterpretation of traditional East Asian aesthetics in the light of postmodern thought; the relationship of Buddhism to East Asian literature, both modern and premodern
  • Ann Waltner, Professor, History; Director, Institute for Advanced Study
    Chinese social history (esp. sixteenth and seventeenth centuries); gender, kinship and religion; fiction, poetry, and painting; letters, memoirs, local histories; representations of the past; life stories
  • Ling Wang Ph.D., Lecturer
    Chinese pedagogy; applied linguistics; discourse analysis; cross-cultural studies
  • Zou Zhen Ph.D., Associate Education Specialist
    Chinese language instruction; comparative study of nineteenth-century Chinese and American cultures; modern and contemporary Chinese literature and culture

Non-Affiliated Faculty

Resources and Activities

In conjunction with ALL and ALCM, there are a handful of established institutions at the University of Minnesota that foster research and activities that relate to China scholarship.