Boundless Love: Ghosts and Vixens in Chinese and Korean Literature With Stephen Roddy

Literature Courses
Nine cloud dream (gu’unmong), approx. 1800–1900. Korea. Ink and colors on paper. Asian Art Museum, Acquisition made possible in part by the Korean Art and Culture Committee, 1997.21. Photograph © Asian Art Museum.

Boundless Love: Ghosts and Vixens in Chinese and Korean Literature With Stephen Roddy

Instructor: 
Stephen Roddy
When: 
Repeats every week every Sunday until Sun Apr 09 2017 except Sun Mar 05 2017, Sun Mar 19 2017, Sun Apr 02 2017.
February 26, 2017
Time: 
10:15 am - 12:15 pm, Sundays, February 26, March 12, March 26, and April 9
Place: 
Education Studios, Opera Plaza 3/26
Fee: 
$80 Society members, $95 non-members (after Museum admission). Online sign ups are closed but drop ins are welcome if space allows.

Writers in both traditional China and Korea imagined amorous encounters between humans and fox spirits, ghosts, and fairies. This shared legacy began in fiction of the Tang and Song Dynasties (607 – 1276) and was transmitted to Korea during the Joseon Dynasty (1392 – 1910), where it helped to inspire or influence indigenous works with distinctive renderings of the themes. By reading examples of writing from both cultures, we will see how love in East Asia could transcend the boundaries between human and supernatural beings. We will also discuss paintings and illustrated woodblock prints on these themes from the two countries.  

 

Primary reading materials will include Tang and Song Chinese tales (Youxianku, ca. 700), early Joseon Korean tales (Kum’o shinhwa, ca. 1500), and later Chinese and Korean tales (Liaozhao zhiyi, Ku’un mong, ca. 1740). Materials will be available online or a printed copy can be purchased for an additional charge.

 

Stephen Roddy is currently Professor of Modern Languages at the University of San Francisco where he teaches courses in the literature and culture in China and Japan. His recent research has covered topics on the Chinese civil examinations, literati tea (bunjincha) in Japan, Ming and Qing Dynasty fiction, essays, and poetry, and 19thcentury Chinese and Japanese writings about the West. He returns to SAA after teaching our Spring 2016 course on the Dream of the Red Chamber.

 

 

 

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