Modern Chinese Literature and Film

Catalog description

In this course, students will read selected contemporary Chinese and Taiwanese fiction published after the 1970s (and available in English translation) and watch their film adaptations (with English subtitles). Students will learn to analyze the texts and films critically and enrich their understanding of the works? cultural and social backgrounds, regional settings, and stylistic characteristics. Students are expected to examine and discuss the literary texts and films actively in groups, with the whole class, and in writing, interpreting what the works can tell us about human experiences in a radically changing society and to discover how artistic effects are created or altered by the authors and directors. By the end of the course, students will locate the works studied in this course in a macro view of the historical development of Chinese society since the 1910s.