- China and the West: The Myth of the Other

Catalog description

Introduces and examines the experience of "the other" from both Chinese and Western standpoints. The image of the other has always been historically shaped to represent values that are considered different from one's own. In this course, we will look at China as an idealized utopia in the eyes of some eighteenth-century Europeans, or as a land of ignorance as described in some early modern literature and cultural texts. In discussing such issues as Orientalism vs. Occidentalism and cultural relativism vs. universalism, we will examine the polemics of cultural difference in ethical terms.