EA109

General comment for all courses

In most cases, students who try to enroll in my courses are first placed on a waitlist, even when there is considerable space still in the course. The exception: most Japanese majors are enrolled directly. If you are on the waitlist your best strategy is to attend class. You can try talking to me after that first class but whether or not you do, I recommend you also email me using the keyword "enrollmentissue" (no spaces used—see the sidebar for how to email me). I try to rapidly determine the final enrollment of a class and can probably give you a "sense" of your status after the first two or so sessions of the course. However, since I work with the department on this it can take up to two weeks to settle all issues. The order of filters used to make selections is: majors and minors in Japanese, Chinese, Korean and Asian Studies; then, intended majors and minors in Japanese, Chinese, Korean and Asian Studies (when that intention is very clear); then, individual considerations that I make which include but does not place as the first priority, the waitlist number.

Is this course a good fit for you?

Generally speaking, this class — "History of the culture of tea in China and Japan" — covers the topic at these levels: cultural history, objects (tea manuals, literature, painting, ceramics, architecture, garden design, philosophy), and "signs" (tea-related concepts and how they move across boundaries, including country boundaries). The class opens with learning the basics about tea cultivation, harvesting, crafting of tea leaves, and brewing. After that, we cover tea culture chronologically which, in practical terms means greater emphasis on (Han) China in the earlier sessions and greater emphasis on Japan in the later sessions. The China sessions are mostly built around the origin and spread of tea practices, tea manuals, poetry and paintings. The Japan sessions are mostly built around the concept of "wabi". We spend one day on Korea.

The topic of this course might make is sound easy but there is quite a lot of reading and considerable factual detail to master for exams. It is, however, a fairly straightforward class. It is fairly easy to know what is expected of you. Much of the testable material is presented via lecture and is so complex in its details that it is unlikely that you can trust the notes of another student. There are no study sheets nor can the information be gleaned from the web. Therefore regular attendance is necessary to score well.

My experience is that students look a little worn down towards the end of the term because of the amount of detail in the course and the conceptual difficulty of understanding the origins of, and meaning of, "wabi".

This class is NOT about common social practices (tea at weddings, current tea industry, etc.). We study the more-or-less "high" culture of tea up until around 1700. We definitely do not study how to perform the Japanese (or Chinese) tea ceremony but we do look deeply at the philosophical foundation for the Japanese tea ceremony as it was originally conceived.

Bottom line expectations (things that, if not met, are certain to have a negative impact on your grade): equal intellectual curiosity and energy afforded to China and Japan, regular attendance, flexibility in maintaining interest whether the topic is poetry, ceramics, aesthetics or whatever, avoidance of multitasking, academic honesty.

Useful skills for this class: good note-taking ability, good ability at managing large amounts of factual information, analytic skills for tracking the movement of "signs" across cultural boundaries and artistic media of expression.

Having practical experience with tea (farming, selling, tea ritual knowledge, love of tea, etc.) can make this a more interesting class but is unlikely to give you a grade advantage. I think you will find most of what we cover is new to you.

(last updated: 19-Aug-2011)

Access to course details

If you are trying to find out about a course that is being taught now, or will be taught within a couple of weeks, try going to the Announcements Page for access to the course schedule, syllabus and so on. Otherwise, use this link to get a sense for the course's structure: EA109 Summer 2011.

(last updated: 19-Aug-2011)

If waitlisted or unable to get onto a waitlist ...

It is not always easy to get from the waitlist to enrolled status in this course. This semester (Fall 2011) I am inclined to take more rather than less students but I am watching the enrollment levels of J7A. Therefore, I won't really know until the first day of classes exactly what the situation is. (J7A meets for the first time on Thursday, this class on Friday.) I turned away a few students for this class even during the summer and last Fall I turned away about 1/3 of those on the waitlist. The general statement made above in italics holds for this class but in terms of individual considerations I tend to lean somewhat more towards waitlist priority numbers for this particular class.

(last updated: 19-Aug-2011)