THE HISTORY OF EAST ASIA BEFORE 1800

Catalog description

This course provides an overview of the pre-modern histories of China, Japan and Korea, and of their institutional and cultural interaction. Topics include the origins of civil statecraft in China and its impact on Korean and Japan; the development of a distinctive warrior class in Japan; the elaboration of court cultures in the traditional era. Emphasis will be placed on the analysis of the conflicting themes of cultural unity and cultural uniqueness in East Asian civilization, and on the way in which cultural codes from China were transformed when imported to Japan and Korea.