The Power, Art, and Technology of Writing in East Asia

GENED 1205 Subject & Catalog Number

Description

How does writing as art and technology shape the ways in which humans imagine, generate, and use power?

This course examines how humans experience, use, and build meaning around the shape of writing, focusing on East Asia across time, place, and media. Centered on a broad, enduring question about writing’s role in society, students engage with materials from literature, art history, history of the book, linguistic anthropology, archaeology, and philosophy. By using materials that are both immediate to, and yet distant from, students’ lives, the course seeks to enhance students’ aesthetic and interpretive understanding of the world, to provide students with an understanding of the social and historical contexts for the development of various technologies related to the production, transmission, and refabrication of the written word in association with power in a variety of ways. By exploring everything from urban graffiti and online protests to ancient tombs and Buddhist temples to petroglyphs and white-paper protests, students will analyze writing’s impact on identity, authority, spirituality, and artistic expression and learn through field works and hands-on experiences such as visits to Harvard’s East Asian collections and workshops on calligraphy and ink-making. The course encourages reflection on how writing mediates power and social change, offering insights into both historical and contemporary practices. All students are invited to think beyond nation-centered and Eurocentric models, developing a nuanced understanding of writing as both art and technology. The course equips students to think critically about the role of writing in an age shaped by generative AI and large language models. No prior knowledge of East Asian languages is required.