January 19, 2006
New class part of effort to internationalize undergraduate curriculum
A new undergraduate course will explore how yearning for justice, vengeance, bravery, and honor — all manifested in the hero figure — has satisfied the psychological needs of Japanese and Chinese readers for centuries, and how that tradition is now being used to serve the psychological needs of American readers and moviegoers.
Ridding the World of Evildoers: Power, Justice, and the East, will be taught in winter 2007 by Ted Mack, assistant professor of modern Japanese literature. The course is one of nine that has received funding from the Office of Undergraduate Education, aimed at internationalizing the curriculum for UW undergraduates. Three redesigned courses are being introduced this quarter.
“When moral righteousness is assumed,” Mack says, “the use of overwhelming force is easily justified. This is particularly true when a lone hero is acting to save a world gone awry. When Batman, Superman, or Daredevil overwhelms an individual hoodlum, the act is not bullying but bravery. This is particularly true when the hero’s super powers are the result of profound commitment and effort, as when Bruce Wayne travels to the mysterious Orient to gain his vaunted skills.”
Mack’s course, which he will co-teach with Professor Chris Hamm, an expert in Chinese martial arts fiction, will focus on the intertwined traditions of popular heroic fiction in China and Japan, while simultaneously examining the influence those traditions have had on concepts of heroism — and of the East — in the United States.
In their simplest form, such tales depict the way in which “power, in the right hands, can be made to bypass moral ambiguities that are often seen as mere obfuscations of clear distinctions of right and wrong” yet the tradition has developed far beyond the simplicity of such binaries to explore the complex psychological needs revealed by such desire, Mack says.
This course will mark the second in a transition from survey-based studies of Japanese literature to problem-driven courses that challenge the national literature paradigm. The first, which is currently being taught, is titled Citizen Subject, Traitor: The Paradox of National(ist) Literature, and focuses on literature on Korea, by both ethnically Korean and ethnically Japanese writers, written during the Japanese colonial period. Mack’s goal is to develop a series of theme-based courses that eventually will be taught on rotation.
“Our goal with these grants is to infuse international themes into existing courses, or to encourage faculty to create entirely new courses that view subjects from international perspectives,” says Janice DeCosmo, assistant dean for undergraduate education. “Students are moving into an increasingly interconnected world. An understanding of other people, and their ways of thinking, knowing and making meaning is becoming central to our lives, as workers and as citizens.”
Another winter quarter course that is being internationalized is taught by Philip Howard, assistant professor of communication. In this class, students will rank 100 countries on access to modern communication technologies. At the end of the quarter, they will publish a “World Information Access Report” based on their findings. Students will interact with people in the developing countries online, conducting original research on information inequality in the developing world.
A third course, taught by Lesley Olswang, professor of speech and hearing sciences, will focus on individuals with disabilities internationally. Students will learn the factors that are used in different cultures to define and characterize a disability. “Some countries and cultures view certain conditions to be disabling, while others view them as ‘special gifts or treasures’ to be valued by an individual and his/her family,” she says. “Take the case of ‘epilepsy,’ which is considered an attribute of a shaman among Hmong and thus a true gift.”
These awards are co-sponsored by the Office of International Programs & Exchanges and the Simpson Center for the Humanities. Other classes that have received grants include:
- African-American Culture and Consciousness, taught by Luther Adams, assistant professor of interdisciplinary arts and sciences at UW Tacoma;
- Cultural Landscape Studio, taught by Jeffrey Hou, assistant professor of landscape architecture.
- Russian Media Studies, taught by Chris Demaske, assistant professor of interdisciplinary arts and sciences at UW Tacoma;
- Africa on Film, taught by Ron Krabill, assistant professor of interdisciplinary arts and sciences at UW Bothell;
- International Youth, taught by Craig Jeffrey, assistant professor of geography;
- Social Inequality and Food, taught by Katherine Stovel, associate professor of sociology.
