Qiaoyu Cai

How has the digital revolution reshaped the creation and circulation of literature and other
creative works in contemporary East Asia? Building on foundational theories of technology and media from scholars such as Marshall McLuhan, Friedrich Kittler, N. Katherine Hayles, and Lev Manovich, this seminar explores how media-specific analysis has been taken up in recent scholarly work on China, Japan, and Korea, raising questions about how this research draws on classical media theories and develops locally inflected frameworks. We will examine how internet literature in China, Japanese cellphone novels, and Korean webtoons exemplify the platformization of creativity, situating these phenomena within broader conversations about social media, user-generated content, and emerging AI technologies. At the same time, we will look at earlier modes of literary production—such as newspaper serialization and mass-market anthologies—to understand what is new about digital-age platforms and how they transform relationships between authors, readers, and networks of circulation. Throughout the course, we will integrate comparative case studies and canonical theoretical frameworks to ask: What do these shifts in cultural production mean for how we study literature, technology, and society today?

Recent breakthroughs in Deep Learning (DL) have transformed automation and redefined the functional terms of artificial intelligence (AI). Alongside DL-based AI’s widespread use comes a mix of high hopes and deep anxieties about an AI-steering future. This course debunks AI as a one-way ticket to either ultramodern prosperity or machine-dominated dystopia by introducing multiple perspectives – historical , theoretical, political, and technical – on the potential and constraints of DL-based AI. Together, we shall explore: What kind of “learning” is “deep learning”? How do its technical pipelines, which involve data sampling, algorithm design, model building, evaluation metrics, and the wider industrial landscapes, shape its interaction with the world? Are these technical designs value-neutral, or embedded with cultural-technical thinking and politico-economic drives? If the latter, how do these values influence contemporary AI-related social issues like cognitive bias, labor displacement, environmental impact, and geopolitical tensions?

Modernity, broadly understood as the ongoing cultural, intellectual, and historical processes, profoundly shapes and is shaped by technological advancements, including tools, devices, and systems developed for productive purposes. Despite their interrelated nature, technology and modernity are often studied as separate fields. This course bridges these divides by exploring how technologies are affected by societies and histories and vice versa. Starting with Kant’s account of modernity and the various critiques of its universal and optimistic portrayal, this course examines various historical manifestations of modernity—modern, postmodern, and contemporary—each characterized by distinct interactive patterns with dominant technologies.

This course offers a gateway to the study of literature and cultural artifacts in a broader sense. The main objectives include introducing basic concepts and principles of textual analysis, with an emphasis on practical critical frameworks and approaches widely used across the humanities and humanistic social science. The course is structured into two modules. The first module introduces a range of foundational literary terminologies and the second covers various schools of literary criticism. Each module pairs key concepts or critical methods with a selection of literary texts, demonstrating their application in productive textual analysis. The course also features a strong writing component, requiring students to demonstrate their critical thinking skills through one literary journal entry and an analytical essay.