Gender and Sexuality in East Asian Film and Fiction (NEW)

As Judith Butler has argued, if gender is dragthen gender is a performance that produces the illusion of an inner sex or essence or psychic gender core. Considering the idea of gender as performance, we will investigate”in literature and film”various performances of gender and question how they operate and function under oppressive and regulatory structures, what Butler calls a regime of sexuality. Focusing on literature, film, and other media produced from the East Asian context, we will also investigate gender and sexuality along with critical questions regarding power, performance, nationalism, and modernization. Many of the texts and moving-image media we will read and watch together will come from various genres of comedy, melodrama, musical, and speculative fiction. Many of them also feature coming-of-age narratives against the backdrop and violence of war, migration, or rapid urbanization and technological change. Together, we will practice close analysis and critical interpretation while reading essays and fiction by 20th and 21st century writers including Xiao Hong, Eileen Chang, Sang. Young Park, and Chi Ta-wei. We will practice formal analysis while screening and discussing films directed by Toshio Matsumoto, Wong Kar-wai, Park Chan-wook, and Sung Hsin-yin. This course introduces a wide-range of East Asian language materials in translation, and no previous knowledge of these languages are required.