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Internationalize your spring semester - take a course about Asia or study an Asian language.

ASIA 1700 Introduction to Tibetan Civilization

ASIA 2852 Contemporary Southeast Asia: Environmental Politics

ASIA 4100 China's Space Dream: Long March to the Moon and Beyond

T/Th 3:30pm-4:45pm
Lauren Collins (collinlk@colorado.edu)

This interdisciplinary, project-based course explores the history and future of China’s space program, from its early development during the Mao era to the present. By integrating historical analysis with current policy discussions, we will investigate the long-term implications of the U.S.-China space rivalry on global industry and international relations. The course blends history, policy, science, and literature, drawing on a variety of materials such as primary source documents, policy and business case studies, and contemporary Chinese science fiction.

ASIA 4500 Urban Asia

T/Th 3:30-6pm
Shae Frydenlund (shfr8297@colorado.edu)

Together we will explore change in urban Asia, the geography of Asian cities, and the challenges of urban life through a transdisciplinary and thematic approach using books, academic articles, documentaries, and literary materials. This course is organized around case studies that enable us to delve more deeply into the complexities of urbanization in Asia – from the precolonial period to today. We will learn about the past and present of Asian cities - and together imagine urban futures. This class takes a hybrid approach to learning about Asia's cities, pairing traditional academic materials with works of creative urban fiction by Asian Authors. Asian cities are often in the spotlight in reporting and research on the impacts climate change, and we regularly see images of catastrophe and ruin - from flooding to heat stress to infrastructure issues.

ASIA 4700 Enlightened Visionaries, Dirty Tricksters, and Warrior Heroes

ASIA 4830 Senior Seminar in Asian Studies

INDO 1120 Beginning Indonesian ll - DILS

M/W/F 2:30-3:20pm
Dwi Purwanto (dwpu4338@colorado.edu)

A continuation of Beginning Indonesian 1 (INDO 1110), this is an integrated course. Classes are offered in person or remotely using the Directed Independent Language Study method. Classes will employ "flipped" task-based learning approaches. Coursework includes reading, listening, grammar, answering questions, and speaking practice. Grades are based on demonstrated proficiency of written and spoken Indonesian through in-class performance and examinations.

INDO 2120 Intermediate Indonesian ll - DILS

M/W/F 10:10-11:00am
Dwi Purwanto (dwpu4338@colorado.edu)

Continuation of Intermediate Indonesian 1. In the second year, students will be exposed to more active communication The structure, vocabulary and language features and the four language skills are embedded within various topics. Throughout the semester, students will be exposed to Indonesian vocabulary, structure, and culture.

TBTN 1120 Beginning Tibetan II - DILS

M/W/F 8-8:50am Meets Remotely
Dan Hirshberg (dan.hirshberg@colorado.edu)

Continuation of TBTN 1110; provides a thorough introduction to the colloquial and literary Tibetan language, emphasizing speaking and listening in the Lhasa dialect. Trains students in basic conversations and the idiomatic and syntactical features of Tibetan through drills and dialogues.

ANTH 1105 Contemporary Tibet: Exploring Global Cultural Diversity

CHIN 3321 Political Thought in Ancient China

T 3:30–6:00pm
Matthias L. Richter (MLR@Colorado.edu)

Co-Seminar: ASIA 4001 Ancient Chinese Philosophy and Culture in Internet Sources and Popular Comics

Focuses on the political, religious, philosophical and literary aspects of ancient Chinese civilization (1500 B.C.-A.D. 200). Special attention is paid to foundational works that influenced later developments in Chinese culture. All readings are in English and taught in English.

CHIN 4042 Readings in Classical Chinese

M/W/F 11:15am-12:05pm
Antje Richter (antje.richter@colorado.edu)

Introduces a wide spectrum of texts from medieval China written in classical and literary Chinese: philosophical, historical, ghost stories, and poems (including the Ballad of Mulan). We will read these texts closely, focusing on their linguistic and literary features and on their cultural background.

GEOG 4002 Global China

HIST 2639 The United States and China; Intertwined Histories

M/W/F 4:40-5:30
Timothy B Weston (timothy.b.weston@colorado.edu)

China and the United States: Intertwined Histories: The relationship between China and the United States (aka Sino-American relations) is the single most important bilateral relationship in the world today. How China and the United States get along going forward will have an incomparable impact on geopolitics, the global economy, and the planetary environment. In this course we will study the dramatic, twisting and turning, history of Sino-American ties, which reach back to the middle of the eighteenth century. That history laid the foundations for the troubled nature of the Sino-American relationship today.

HIST 2718 History of Japan Through Cinema

M/W/F 10:10-11:00 AM
Marcia Yonemoto (yonemoto@colorado.edu)

Over the course of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, Japan produced some of the world’s most acclaimed films. Directors like Kurosawa, Ozu, Mizoguchi, Ichikawa and, of course, Miyazaki, created unforgettable portrayals of Japanese life across the ages. This rich corpus of dramatic films provides an opportunity for students of history to explore Japan’s past through the medium of modern film. This course seeks to use careful and contextualized viewing of a selection of Japanese films as a way to understand key issues in the history of the late medieval, early modern, and modern periods in Japan, roughly covering the years 1500-1990. Among the issues we will explore: the changing role of the samurai in the late medieval and early modern periods, women and the “floating world” in early modern culture, the modernization of Japan in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, the devastation of war in the 1930s and early 1940s, the postwar recovery in the 1950s-60s, and the downside of prosperity in the 1980s. All the films we will watch were made by Japanese directors, in Japanese but subtitled in English.

HIST 4020 Modernity in China and Japan

M/W/F 2:30-3:20pm
Timothy B Weston (timothy.b.weston@colorado.edu)

This class will concentrate on the creation of “modernity” in China and Japan. It is organized around the proposition that “modernity” is an overarching historical idea, a state of consciousness, closely connected to, but also distinct from, “modernization.” We will proceed from the premise that the Chinese and Japanese cases should be studied together, in relation to one another, rather than separately. We will consider the multiple ways that ideas, culture, and power formations operated outside of and crossed the political boundaries of the nation-states that arose in China and Japan in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

HIST 4738 Japan's Great Peace, 1590-1868

M/W/F 1:25-2:15pm
Marcia Yonemoto (yonemoto@colorado.edu)

When we think of early modern Japan we think first of samurai: swords flashing, blood spilling, heads rolling. Such images of samurai dominate our own popular culture, circulated through films, books, anime, manga, and video games. But samurai famously turned away from warfare in the early modern period, and the term “samurai” meant a status group that included not only male warriors but women, children, and families. Further, samurai were only one (relatively small) part of a complex society that included farmers, merchants, artisans, and others who comprised the majority of the population. In fact, it was the commoner class in the early modern period that developed much of what we now think of as “traditional” Japanese arts and culture: woodblock prints (ukiyōe), the kabuki and bunraku (puppet) theater, the sprawling urban entertainment and pleasure quarters. Through readings of primary and secondary sources as well as the viewing of visual art and films, this course will focus on several key processes that enabled Japan’s “great peace”: establishing political stability, growing the economy, managing the environment, restructuring gender and family roles, and fostering the growth of popular culture. We will pay particular attention to the way historians have written and are now writing the history of the early modern period, and how and why historians’ views have changed over time.

ARAB/LING 3251 Language in Arab Society

T/Th 3:30-4:45pm
Mona Farrag Attwa (Mona.Attwa@Colorado.EDU)

This course introduces the multilingual situation of Arab societies and presents fundamental concepts in sociolinguistics. Students study the major theories and frameworks of language variation and change and the influence of variables such as gender, social class, religion, and colonization on language choice. Students will understand the relationship between language, identity and ideology revealing power dynamics in Arab communities. The course is taught in English and no prior knowledge of Arabic language is required.

JPNS 4120 Advanced Readings in Modern Japanese 2

M/W/F 11:15am -12:05pm
Mariko Yoshimura (Mariko.Yoshimura@colorado.edu)

Surveys a variety of material written in modern Japanese, including texts from literature, the social sciences, religion, and cultural history. Emphasizes content and style.

RLST 3040 The Quran

M/W/F 10:10am-11am
Aun Hasan Ali (aun.ali@colorado.edu)

Examines how Christian constructions of religion and scripture have shaped Muslim understandings of the Quran and marginalized other views with a much longer history. Helps students appreciate how this process of marginalization is negotiated and explores the Quran from other perspectives including sound, performance, embodiment, and occultism. By highlighting marginalized approaches to the Quran, it promotes a better understanding of how social and religious differences are shaped by different political legacies. 

RLST 3200 Yoga, Castes and Magic: Hindu Society and Spirituality

T/Th 2pm- 3:15pm
Loriliai Biernacki (Loriliai.biernacki@colorado.edu)

This course addresses the practices of magic and yoga and religious asceticism in the context of spirituality and power in Hinduism in India from ancient times through the modern period. How do spiritual practices in India change social roles and expectations? And how do religion, magic and mysticism talk about the attainment of both happiness and enlightenment? This course will examine this in the context of the ways that spiritual practices in the quest for happiness have contributed to subverting dominant orders of power. This course will also probe the ideas and practices contributing to yoga and mysticism, particularly as they reference practices for strengthening the mind and body through different forms of yoga.

RLST 3550 [Death & Rebirth in] Tibetan Buddhism

T/Th 9:30-10:45am
Dan Hirshberg (dan.hirshberg@colorado.edu)

This course explores Tibetan Buddhist theories and practices of dying and death to survey its diverse contemplative techniques, philosophical principles, and ultimate objective of total liberation from suffering. With its elaborate descriptions of the experience of death, the so-called Tibetan Book of the Dead has been an object of Western fascination for a century––but we will survey its complete form, not only as a manual for dying but for living, while placing it within its historical, textual, and literary contexts as a religious scripture and ritual liturgy. Assigned readings will include primary texts in translation, commentaries by classical and contemporary lineage holders, and secondary analyses. We will also investigate the range of death rites, signs of accomplishment, and rebirth options in Tibetan Buddhism, from “sky burial” to mummification, rainbows to relics, heavens to hells, and ghosts to zombies, as well as the Tibetan reincarnation system of tulku, who are considered the “magical emanation bodies” of buddhas.

RLST 4200 Gandhi and Meditation

T 3:30-6pm
Loriliai Biernacki (Loriliai.biernacki@colorado.edu)

Gandhi accomplished something in the 20th century that had never been done before. He overthrew the greatest, most expansive empire the world had ever seen with a “bloodless revolution.” His method of social, political engagement, what he termed “satyagraha,” – “hanging on to truth” has forever changed the way we think about how ordinary citizens can change the course of a nation. We will look at how Gandhi connected his belief system to his social activism, and especially we will look at how Gandhi articulated his social goals in light of spiritual concerns, the use of spiritual techniques like meditation, and his idea of religion.

RLST 4610 Topics in Islam: Sufism

W 3:35pm-6:05pm
Aun Hasan Ali (aun.ali@colorado.edu)

A detailed exploration of diverse intellectual approaches to central questions in Islamic traditions. Department consent required.

WGST 3712 Trans and Queer Asias

Spend part of your summer in Asia! Several Global Seminars will be offered in the summer of 2025 - Application deadline is December 1, 2024. 

Global Seminar: Excavating Taiwanese History, 1600-Present

Attend this new summer Global Seminar in Taiwan, conducted by History Professor Timothy B. Weston and offered by Education Abroad, the Center for Asian Studies and the Tang Fund. Explore the island's uniquely important role in history to understand the nature of and reasons for the great tension that exists over its status in our own time. Selected participants will receive a generous scholarship funded by the Tang Fund and the Center for Asian Studies.

Global Seminar: Self-Awareness and Images of the Other in Xi'an, China

This program will give you a first-hand look at China in the making by studying it through literature and integrating into campus life at Xi’an Jiaotong University. Excursions to see the Crested Ibis Nature Reserve in Yangxian, the Terra Cotta Army, the Tang Dynasty tomb, and an overnight trip to Beijing, the Great Wall, and the Forbidden City are included. This program offers each participant a generous Tang Scholarship through the Center for Asian Studies.

Global Seminar: Sustainability and Social Entrepreneurship Bali, Indonesia