This seminar will explore some of the spatio-temporal problems of "China" as an object and construct of both Chinese and non-Chinese discourse. What roles have the Great Wall, the "Empire of Space" (Hegel) or fengshui played in the Western spatial imagination? How is China narrated as outside of, before, or entering into History? What geographies does the East/West divide reflect or produce? What typologies and chronologies determine the role of "China" in comparative literature? Where is "China" today? The seminar will especially welcome papers that deal with both a specific aspect of "China" and some broader rhetorical or hermeneutic problem of cross-cultural construction, reception, and exchange. Groupings of papers may include:
Contact: Chris Bush (cbush@ucla.edu).
Due date: August 30.