Modern China through Literature (in translation) This course, taught in English, is a discussion-based seminar on some of the most significant works of short fiction, novellas, and novels that tell the story of China and the Chinese from the end of the Qing dynasty to the present. Students will gain a better understanding of the history of modern China by studying the works of literature that inspired readers and provoked debate during one hundred years of social reform, revolution, war, civil war, reconstruction, cultural revolution, cultural revival, and economic growth. Our reading will include work by authors such as Lu Xun (Diary of a Madman, 1918), Zhang Ailing (Love in a Fallen City, 1944), Ah Cheng (The Chess King, 1984), Yu Hua (To Live, 1993), and, from Taiwan, Zhu Tianwen (Notes of a Desolate Man, 1999). We will consider the mainstream (socially engaged realism), the avant-garde (varieties of modernism), and popular genres (romance and martial arts), and we will look for answers to the following questions: what has been the place of fiction in China in the modern era and what vision of modern China do we find in its fiction?

Senior Seminar on Modern Chinese Literature (in Chinese) A capstone course for all Chinese majors and for others who have attained a high level of Chinese language proficiency. Students will read and critique works by major Chinese fiction writers (and sometimes playwrights) and may also see and discuss a film or films from mainland China, Hong Kong, and/or Taiwan. All reading, discussion, and critical writing will be in Chinese.

Beginning Chinese An intensive continuation of CHNS 0101, this course is required of those wishing to take CHNS 0103 in the spring.  Students may anticipate learning a significant amount of new vocabulary, sentence patterns and idiomatic expressions.  Skits, oral presentations, writing assignments, and cultural activities are also part of this course.

Advanced Chinese (Modern Chinese) This course aims at further development of overall language proficiency through extensive reading of selected texts representing a wide variety of subjects and styles. Classes will be conducted entirely in Chinese except for occasional recourse to English by the instructor to provide a quick solution to problems of definition. The main text will be All Things Considered with supplementary readings selected to help students both continue to work toward competence in conversational Chinese and also begin to master a more sophisticated register of language.

Troubling Chineseness: Indigenous Taiwan in Film and Literature In Taiwan, Indigenous heritage has become a marker of national identity, yet Indigenous communities remain socially marginalized. This course examines this paradox through films and literature from the 1980s to present. How does indigeneity define Taiwan? What is Chineseness from an Indigenous perspective? What happens when indigeneity incorporates colonial practices? We'll explore documentaries, shorts, feature films, novels, short stories, essays, and poetry about Taiwanese Indigenous peoples, created by both Indigenous and non-Indigenous artists. Through these works, we'll engage with issues of colonization, national identity, cultural stereotypes, gender, Indigenous worldviews, and Indigenous movements and cultural production. All course materials will be in English translation or have English subtitles.

Hong Kong Cinema In this course we will survey Hong Kong films from the post-war period to the present. We explore the themes, styles, genres, directors, the star system, and audiences and discuss how Hong Kong cinema, as one of the largest and most dynamic motion picture industries in the world, expresses the region’s complex, hybrid, and fluid cultural identity in the context of coloniality and transnationalism.

Chinese Cinema This course, taught in English, surveys the history of movies in China since the 1930s and also offers an in-depth look at the work of: China's fifth-generation directors of the 1980s and their successors up to the present; Taiwan's new wave; and Hong Kong popular cinema, including martial arts film. Our focus is the screening and discussion of films such as The Goddess (a 1934 silent classic), Stage Sisters (1965; directed by the influential Xie Jin), the controversial Yellow Earth (1984), In the Heat of the Sun (a 1994 break with the conventional representation of the Cultural Revolution), Yang Dechang's masterpiece A One and a Two (2000), and Still Life (Jia Zhangke's 2006 meditation on displacement near the Three Gorges Dam). The course is designed to help students understand the place of cinema in Chinese culture and develop the analytical tools necessary for the informed viewing and study of Chinese film. We will look at everything from art film, to underground film, to recent box office hits. (No prerequisites) One evening film screening per week.

Literature and Culture in Contemporary China and the Sinophone World (in English translation) In this course we will study select works of acclaimed, popular, and/or controversial short fiction, spoken drama, and poetry from the People’s Republic of China and the post-1949 Sinophone world, primarily Taiwan. We will devote some attention to other forms of cultural production, including film and visual art. We will place a particular emphasis on the study of work by Chinese and Sinophone writers and artists who belong to non-Han ethnic minority groups (e.g., Tibetan, Yi, and Atayal), and we will explore possible answers to the question, “How is Chinese national and cultural identity created and contested in literature?”

Chialan Sharon Wang

Reviews and ratings for Chialan Sharon Wang at Middlebury College.Chialan Sharon Wang teaches Modern Chinese Literature, Seminar Chinese Fiction, Continued Beginning Chinese and more.  Explore top rated instructors and find the best for you.Is Chialan Sharon Wang good ? Find out on MiddCourses.

Sharon is very passionate about film and what she teaches. Every week there's one film to watch. Sometimes there are two. After every film, there's a reading we discuss in class. 2 small partnered presentations, 2 papers, and one final project, which can be in any format approved by Sharon.

In this course we discussed the evolution of film in Hong Kong. Every week the homework was to watch one assigned film that we then discussed in class. The grading in the class consisted of 6 short answers, 2 group presentations and a final essay about any film from the class.

Wang Laoshi and He Laoshi were both excellent professors who are both fun and caring towards their students. Homework ranged between very simple writing responses (<30 minutes) to surprisingly long assignments (~2 hours). Lectures were the highlight of this class thanks to the enthusiasm of the professors and the speedy-yet-forgiving nature of the course.