From Sunzi’s Art of War to Dragon Ball: Cultures of Violence in China and Japan

Catalog description

In novels, movies, comic books, and video games, China and Japan are often associated with martial arts and other forms of idealized violence. This course will provide historical and cultural context for the study of these themes by focusing on East Asian military traditions, conceived as physical, psychological, and political practice. Students will use a variety of written and visual sources, from ancient chronicles and epic poems to anime and manga, to analyze how cultural exchanges between China and Japan produced disciplines that envisioned the body as the center of social as well as cosmic interactions. Simultaneously, the class will examine how scholarship and popular media have theorized and presented violence as a factor influencing political dynamics, individual development, and the shaping of cultural, ethnic, class, and gender identities.