MLL 362 - Chinese Folktales and Culture

Units: 4 ; Breadth Area: GE-UD-3; Diversity
A survey of Chinese festival folktales with a focus on associated customs and practices and how they shaped Chinese culture and society in Greater China and the Chinese American community. Taught in English with an optional Chinese module.

Breadth Area(s) Satisfied: GE-UD-3 - Upper-Division Arts or Humanities (Humanities); Diversity
Prerequisites: Completion of GE Areas 1A, 1B, 1C and GE-2 with grade C- (CR) or better (GE Areas A1, A2, A3 and B4 for students on the 2024-25 or earlier catalogs).
Strongly Recommended Preparation: Upper division status (greater than 60 earned semester units) and completion of lower division Area 3 requirements (lower division Area C requirements for students on the 2024-25 or earlier catalogs).
Repeatability: May be repeated for credit for a maximum of 8 units.
Possible Instructional Methods: On-ground, or Hybrid, or Online-Asynchronous.
Grading: A-F or CR/NC (student choice).
Course Typically Offered: Variable Intermittently

Student Learning Outcomes - Upon successful completion of this course students will be able to:

Acquire and demonstrate knowledge of Chinese festivals and the associated folktales, customs, and practices in Greater China and Chinese American community.
Analyze representations and adaptations of Chinese festivals and the folktales in literary works, films, and arts.
Evaluate how the customs, practices, and folktales of the major Chinese festivals shaped and were shaped by historical, social political and economic changes.
Discuss the role and image of gender and sexuality in the transmission and transformation of Chinese festival folktales.
Compare and contrast the festival customs and folktales in Chinese culture and other cultures.

GE-UD-3. Upper-division Arts or Humanities Learning Outcomes

Demonstrate an understanding of and ability to apply principles, methodologies, values systems, and thought processes employed in the arts and humanities.
Analyze cultural production as an expression of, or reflection upon, what it means to be human.
Demonstrate how the perspectives of the arts or humanities are used by informed, engaged, and reflective citizens to benefit local and global communities.

Diversity Overlay Learning Outcomes

describe the histories and/or experiences of one or more U. S. cultural groups and the resilience and agency of group members;
identify structures of oppression and the diverse efforts and strategies used by groups to combat the effects of oppressive structures;
analyze the intersection of the categories of race and gender as they affect cultural group members’ lived realities and/or as they are embodied in personal and collective identities;
recognize the way that multiple differences (including, for example, gender, class, sexuality, religion, disability, immigration status, gender expression, color/phenotype, racial mixture, linguistic expression, and/or age) within cultural groups complicate individual and group identities.