History
1. The authors encountered in our course have discussed the problem of history from
different perspectives, and have conceptualized different modes of producing
narratives about historical events. Throughout the course of your essay you should
introduce the problem of history itself, articulate the respective viewpoints and
strategies of your chosen authors, produce an argument about how
historiographical form is important for the analysis of history and how it might
influence the larger project of East Asian Studies. Your analysis should not
simply summarize the thinkers we have studied in the course, but should use their
analyses as a point of departure for your own argument. Attention should also be
given to the way cultural producers (the filmmakers and/or poet) engage these
same issues.
2. The problem of geography is one that all thinkers must face and is shot through
with power relations. Throughout the course of your essay you should introduce
the problem of geography itself and then articulate the respective viewpoints and
strategies of your chosen authors, produce an argument about how geographical
form is important for the analysis of geography and how it might influence the
larger project of East Asian Studies. Your analysis should not simply summarize
the thinkers we have studied in the course, but should use their analyses as a point
of departure for your own argument. Attention should also be given to the way
cultural producers (the filmmakers and/or poet) engage these same issues?
3. Dominant conceptualizations of time and space do not just exist, but are
produced. After first establishing the significance of these two categories for the
study of East Asia, produce an argument about how at least two of the filmmakers
(or one of the filmmakers and the poet) have challenged the usual effects of these
categories.
