Module Catalogue 2025/26

Pre Requisite Comment

Open to any student at Newcastle University

Co Requisite Comment

N/A

Aims

This module proposes to study the cultural exchanges between East and West, "East" here referring to China and Japan, or the traditional "Far East." Students are encouraged to explore how East and West came into contact and how East and West were represented into each other, while paying special attention to the cross-cultural agents who facilitated such exchanges, such as Western missionaries, sinologists, returned Chinese students, transnational writers and intellectuals. Also included in the discussion will be Chinese-Japanese cultural exchanges as they both faced the pressure of Westernization. Having completed this module, students will begin to appreciate that Eastern modernity was largely shaped by such cultural exchanges, and as the East continue to rise in global standing, they will affect Western life ever more significantly.

Outline Of Syllabus

Lecture Topics may include the following, subject to changes and adjustment:

1.       Bridging East and West: Mateo Ricci’s On Friendship
2.       Pioneering Sinologues: Robert Morrison, James Legge and Herbert Giles
3.       Yan Fu and Lin Shu: Translating Western Thought and Literature
4.       Gu Hongming on the Rise of Japan
5.       Chinese-Japanese Encounters: Lu Xun, Zhou Zuoren and Yu Dafu
6.       Hu Shi and the Chinese Renaissance
7.       The Bloomsbury Group and the Crescent Moon Group
8.       Arthur Waley: Translations of Chinese and Japanese Poetry
9.       Pearl S. Buck’s Several Worlds
10.       Lin Yutang on China and Japan in World War II
11.       D. T. Suzuki and Zen Buddhism in Japan and the West

Intended Knowledge Outcomes

1. to have an understanding of how the West initiated the cultural exchanges with the East, and how such knowledge was expanded throughout the twentieth century.
2. to have an understanding of how the East took the initiative in importing the New Learning from the West, and how China and Japan interacted in the process of Westernization.
3. to appreciate the role cross-cultural agents played in facilitating cultural exchanges.
4. to obtain basic understanding of how such cultural exchanges affected each other's social and cultural life.

Intended Skill Outcomes

1. students will be trained to master certain cross-cultural skills and sensitivity: to see things from the perspective of cultural exchanges.
2. students will enhance their critical skills by some in-depth analysis of texts involving cultural exchanges.
3. students will develop their writing skills out of some research work.

Teaching Rationale And Relationship

Lectures and small group teaching will enable students to develop understanding of the key topics covered in the syllabus. Lecture materials and the structured research and reading activities will enable students to develop critical skills and cross-cultural sensitivity. Guided Independent Study, including assessment preparation and completion and directed research and reading, will develop student's analytical skills, their research skills focusing on one aspect of East-West cultural exchanges.

Assessment Rationale And Relationship

The individual oral presentation will develop students' ability to focus on one lecture topic and then do further research, to develop their analytical and presentation skills. Students may, or may not, choose their presentation topic and develop them further in research to write their essay. To choose essay writing as the main method will help students better develop their critical and analytical skills. It suits the module because it can help students to focus on one aspect of the East-West cultural exchanges and explore in somewhat detail the topic in question.

General Notes

N/A