| Course Description |
Premodern Chinese literati (wenren 文人) have long been regarded as spokesmen of “This Culture of Ours” (siwen 斯文)—a metonym for civilization in the premodern Sinitic context—
while they also fed from, partook in, and gave shape to popular and foreign cultures. Besides “literary writings” (wenzhang 文章) like poetry and prose, literati also engaged in calligraphy,
painting, and antiquarianism under the umbrella term of “literary or cultural arts” (wenyi 文藝). In turn, creation and appreciation of artwork (“cultural or civil objects,” wenwu 文物) were
intrinsic to the leisurely and aesthetic life of literati community and further established their self-identity.
Covering the long trajectory of imperial China over 3,000 years, this course reveals the birth and growth of literati culture from the beginning, to its full bloom since the Northern Song dynasty (960–1126), to the shifting patterns across the second millennium. In particular, this course takes an interdisciplinary approach to literati culture, introducing intellectual and poetic discourses, socio-historical contexts, literary criticism, visual and material culture, to envision a “common ground” for their civil world. Textual, visual sources plus material objects are meant to have conversations with each other in this course. Important issues include historical transformations of the elite class, cultural geography in different eras, materiality and visuality of elite calligraphy and painting, literati self-expression through aesthetic practice, the roles of the court and literati in producing and preserving art, as well as other relevant issues such as gender studies, vernacular literature, and commodity society.
No background in Chinese language is required in this course, and all reading materials—either translation of primary sources or secondary scholarship—are accessible in English. But students are expected to have a basic familiarity with classical traditions of China. By the end of the semester, students will have grasped a comprehensive insight of literati culture in premodern China, acquired the skills to understand and analyze key textual and visual sources, and kept abreast of up-to-date scholarship in this field. Ideally, this course will help students shed new light on Chinese literary traditions from multi-medial and interdisciplinary perspectives.
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