Road to East Asia

This course, which teaches effective non-fiction writing and publishing on the Internet, introduces postwar literature that provides insights into China, Japan, and Korea in the contemporary era. Recurring themes include doomed innocence, women's plight, and the quest for love amid turmoil. Human tragedies occupy center stage in the works with the Cultural Revolution, the Tiananmen incident, Hiroshima, or a divided Korea as a backdrop. Some of the post-Mao Chinese writers, who cherish humanism, are in exile in North America and Paris. Japanese Nobel laureate Kenzaburo Oe and Booker prizewinner Kazuo Ishiguro depict survivors of the atomic holocaust and Japan's responses to the West. As for Korean authors, they focus on their country's search for an identity despite foreign occupation, war, and partitioning.

International students will benefit from exchanging their views with their Canadian classmates. Written in English or translated, the selections also supply background information on the works by Amy Tan, Joy Kogawa, and other North American writers of East origins.

Evaluation

Two short papers (20%); one research paper (30%); two open-book tests (30%); class participation (10%); oral presentations (10%)

Required Reading

Kazuo Ishiguro, A Pale View of Hills; Kenzaburo Oe, The Silent Cry. Kit of readings selected from Chinese Literature (including "Misty poetry" reportage by Liu Binyan; the play "Bus Stop" by Gao Xingjian, and a Hong Kong tale), and Korean short fiction

Time: Thursdays 9:30-11:30 a.m., 1996-1997

Place: 112 Founders College, York University

Instructor: Isabella Wai

Critical Skills: This course teaches critical skills in reading (text analysis), essay writing (generation of idea, organization of selected data/arguments, and documentation of research sources), and speaking (oral presentations and class discussion). Students serve as writers for the journal Road to East Asia, and will develop a sense of accountability as they address an international audience.