Semester: Spring
Lecturer: Dr. WEI Chenlin
Credit: 2
Course Description:
This course, designed for international MA students in the Modern China Studies program, offers an in-depth exploration of influential Chinese texts. Combining close textual reading and historical-contextual analysis, it guide students in engaging with literary classics to examine their linguistic artistry, narrative strategies, cultural significance, and aesthetic paradigms. The course fosters sustained critical dialogue with the Chinese literary tradition, cultivating both analytical skills and cultural literacy. At the same time, the course highlights the intellectual excitement of encountering texts that have shaped Chinese cultural imagination for centuries. By tracing how these works both reflect and challenge their historical contexts, students will recognize the importance of classical literature in understanding issues of society, era, class, ideas, and identity. The course thus not only enriches students’ appreciation of traditional Chinese culture, but also equips them with interpretive tools essential for cross-cultural research, comparative literary studies, and broader engagements with global humanistic inquiry.