Beijing, China
COURSES
UNDERGRADUATE LANGUAGE COURSES
Undergraduate students must register for 8 points. Students may either register for one language course and one content course or register for two content courses.
EAST-UA 9201 - Elementary Chinese I - Peking University faculty (4 points)
Conducted in Chinese. Open to students with no previous training in Chinese.
Introductory course in modern Chinese. Open to students with no or little training in Chinese. Designed to develop and reinforce language skills in listening, speaking, reading, and writing as it relates to everyday life situations. The objectives are: to master the Chinese phonetic system (pinyin and tones) with satisfactory pronunciation; to understand the construction of commonly used Chinese Characters (both simplified and traditional) and learn to write them correctly; to understand and correctly use basic Chinese grammar and sentence structures; to build up essential vocabulary; to read and write level appropriate passages; to become acquainted with aspects of Chinese culture and society related to the course materials.
EAST-UA 9202 - Elementary Chinese II - Peking University faculty (4 points)
Conducted in Chinese.
Continuation from Elementary Chinese I. Reinforces and develops language skills in listening, speaking, reading, and writing as it relates to everyday life situations.
Prerequisite for NYU students: V33.0201 or equivalent.
EAST-UA 9203 - Intermediate Chinese I - Peking University faculty (4 points)
Conducted in Chinese.
Prerequisite for NYU students: EAST-UA 202 or permission of the Program Director.
A continuing study of Chinese at the intermediate level. Designed to consolidate the student's overall aural-oral proficiency. Focuses gradually on the written aspect of Chinese. The objectives are: to be able to obtain information from extended conversation; to both express and expound on, in relative length, feelings and opinions on common topics; to expand vocabulary and learn to decipher meaning of compound words; to develop reading comprehension of extended narrative, expository and simple argumentative passages; to solve non-complex textual problems with the aid of dictionaries; to write in relative length personal narratives, informational narratives, comparison and discussion of viewpoints with level appropriate vocabulary and grammatical accuracy, as well as basic syntactical cohesion; to continue being acquainted with aspects of Chinese culture and society related to the course materials.
EAST-UA 9204 - Intermediate Chinese II- Peking University Faculty (4 points)
Conducted in Chinese.
Prerequisite for NYU students: V33.0203 or equivalent.
Continuation from Intermediate Chinese I. Consolidates aural-oral proficiency. Focuses increasingly on developing reading and writing competence as it relates to written Chinese.
EAST-UA 9205 - Advanced Chinese I - Liao (4 points)
Conducted in Chinese.
Prerequisite for NYU students: V33.0204 or permission of the program Director.
Designed to further develop proficiency in speaking and writing through readings on and discussions of socio-cultural topics relevant to today's China. Focuses on improving reading comprehension and writing skills. The objectives are: to further improve oral communicative competence by incorporating semi-formal or formal usages; to acquire vocabulary and patterns necessary for conducting semi-formal or formal discussions of socio-cultural topics; to increase reading speed of texts with more advanced syntax; to learn to make context-based guess about the meaning of a new word, conduct sentence analysis and solve textual problems with the aid of dictionaries; to write and present more fully developed narratives or reasoned and structured arguments in length; to learn to employ basic rhetoric methods; to learn to appreciate stylistic usage of Chinese language.
EAST-UA 9221 - Reading in Chinese Culture I – Liao (4 points)
Conducted in Chinese.
Prerequisite for NYU students: V33.0206 or permission of the program Director.
A fourth-year-level Chinese course designed to enhance Chinese proficiency through reading authentic materials rich in cultural connotations. Stresses primarily reading and writing. The objectives are: to develop speaking skills needed for semi-formal or formal presentation on academic topics; to develop specialized vocabulary; to further improve reading speed and develop skills needed to conduct textual analysis on and, on some occasions, translate texts with syntactical sophistication and stylistic nuance; to develop responsiveness to and ability to interpret linguistic features of different genres and writing styles; to advance strategies for autonomous learning of Chinese from an analytical perspective.
UNDERGRADUATE CONTENT COURSES CONDUCTED IN ENGLISH
EAST-UA 9540 - Contemporary Chinese Culture and Society: Cinema and Social Change in People's Republic, 1949-2009 –NYU Faculty (4 points)
Conducted in English. course syllabus
This class, organized as an undergraduate research seminar, covers major paradigms of social imagination in modern and contemporary China by tracing its expressions and constructions in the cinematic space. From longings for freedom and individuality in the earlier decades of the twentieth century to nostalgia for a lost collective form of life in today’s Chinese metropolises; and from fervent revolutionary pursuit of justice and equality in the heydays of Mao’s China to fantastic wish-fulfillment of desire in the massive reorientation toward market and profit in recent decades, Chinese cinema both documents and formulates a social psyche with its attendant dreams, anxiety, hope, and politics. By closely reading a number of film texts from the major schools and movements of Chinese cinema, the course also aims at introducing the students to the histories of collective and private life in various periods of contemporary China, its material, physical forms; its ethical norms and ideological idiosyncrasies; as well as the lost innocence of the by-gone years captured and preserved by the filmic work.
EAST-UA 9950 - Contemporary Chinese Culture and Society: Political and Intellectual Transformations in the Reforms Era - NYU Faculty (4 points)
Conducted in English. course syllabus
This class will study some aspects of major change of Chinese society since the 1980s and its lasting impacts on Chinese people’s psyche, life patterns and self-knowledge. Since China’s development is regionally uneven, any effort to see China as a whole would risk losing a more subtle view that can deliberately reveal extremely complex social contradictions and dynamics inherent in the rapid state-rebuilding process. This class will introduce students to a broad but also limited scope of social themes which include: the separation of politics and culture in the Eighties, the emergence of everyday life and civil society in the Nineties, an ongoing mystification of individualism in contrast to the old fixed collective and national identities and the rise of a consuming society in recent years. Behind these themes are a series of topics to explore such as modernization of Beijing city, disintegration of organic Chinese intellectual class, popular culture, avant-garde arts, experimental models of economic development, and movie industry. The class will use literary, visual materials and social documents to present the issues to be discussed.
COSTS
8 points are required for undergraduate students to participate in this program.
Undergraduate Tuition
$6,744 (8 points)
Program & Activities Fee
$500
International Health Insurance
approximately $70
Housing
$1,100
PLEASE NOTE: All students participating in the program are required to live in NYU-provided housing. Students are billed a standard housing rate in the spring. Housing charges will be adjusted at the end of the program based on actual housing assignments, which may result in an additional charge or credit issued in the late summer.
There is an additional registration and services fee of:
$250 for students registered at NYU for spring 2012
$276 for students not registered at NYU for spring 2012