EAAS UN3990

I learned how to critically analyze objects at first glance. I've never been encouraged to write initial observations without contextual knowledge, so the format of this class (i.e., first writing down observations and only reading contextualizing sources afterward) really helped me develop the skills to come up with original ideas and apply my existing knowledge on East Asia to them.

I got a strong overview of the progression of East Asian history through an intersectional and transnational lens. I appreciated the focus on sexuality and feminism throughout all of our studies.

Apart from the class participation, from what I know, the workload was pretty much the same as what other seminar sections had. Preparing for the class participation was such a nightmare though and took way too much time and effort.

How to grapple with various objects, including scholarly texts, images, and videos.

Beyond in-depth discussions and readings on historical objects throughout the history of East Asia, this course excelled in instructing on exactly how a scholar should approach historical objects of research. Methodology was always a subject of conversation during class time and it became clear early on in the semester that each student as well as the instructor had a valuable and unique thought process when approaching primary sources.

we talked about east asian studies as a multidisciplinary discipline (wow, say that five times fast) and what that looks like. i was often surprised by the turns that we took in class/the spins taken on the reading, which was a good thing! really helped me expand my way of thinking

If you're not the kind of student to speak at LEAST 7-8 times per seminar, do NOT take this section!!!!!! Maybe it was because of the people who were in this class, but I have never EVER had a seminar where speaking SO many times in once class was the norm. It was honestly so ridiculous because every single time he asks a question, he would point out someone to speak about it. There was NO moderation of discussions at all which made it difficult for me to discern what was truly relevant to our analysis of the literary works and what was just pure fluff. In sum, seminars were a nightmare because we were encouraged to just fight to get our voices heard to secure a good class participation grade (which honestly is so dumb because quality should 100% be prioritized over quantity – which was not how it was during this seminar). There should definitely have been some curtailment of each person's participation – some older students were so competitive with trying to get their voices heard that it honestly felt like no one was even listening to each other. TLDR if you LOVE class participation then this seminar is for you. If you don't want to get a bad class participation grade for *only* speaking 5 times (which I personally find to be a ridiculous amount for a once-a-week seminar section) instead of 10 times per week, do NOT take this section

Learned about various objects that contribute to a holistic understanding of East Asian culture, as well as learning about the necessary ways of thought and analysis that goes into studying these objects and their accompanying readings. Got a taste of what it's like to be in this field of study, and thought about the important things that go into East Asian studies as a discipline

This isn't necessarily a course I can recommend since it's only for EALAC majors/concentrators in their junior/senior year — but I would recommend that you take it with Professor Hymes. Because of Hymes, this class became my favorite EALAC requirement.

I had never taken a course before that focused on examining archeological objects, so I feel like I really developed skills for interpreting objects as ways of telling us about culture and history, like texts. I feel like this is a really important skill to have in general in life.