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Acquisition of cognitive abilities to analyse Chinese written characters and writing styles. Basic vocabulary of written Chinese, which will enable a self-dependent, analytical perception of particular characters in public media spaces. In addition, capabilities of employing digital appliances and resources for self-dependent analysis of writing as well as basic knowledge of the cultural history of Chinese writing and its perception in the modern West.

In the lecture part, first, the general cognitive characteristics of the Chinese writing will be deduced by comparison to alphabetic writing systems, which, then, will be made comprehensible  for the participants in parallel exercises. (1. third) Subsequently, by introducing to the historical and sociological aspects of writing, its functions within state and societal institutions and under the influence of technological cataclysms will be depicted.  Exercises here will concentrate on critical discussions of text-material from various epoches of  of the history of Chinese writing from the second millenia BC to our times. (2. third) Finally, the Chinese writing in its quality as a unique form of East Asian art will be discussed as a function of "embodiment" and again insinuated on two levels - the one of historical and theoretical reflection and the one of practical exercises training cognitive capabilities. In doing so, traditional techniques and methods not lesser than modernist perceptions (Seageln, Pound, Barthes) and digital transformations of writing culture will be brought up and displayed.

Comparative analysis of writing-systems. Historical-critical method of writing's functions. Critique of translation and genre. Cognitive and practical exercises.

Written test.

Billeter, J.-F.: L’Art chinois de l’écriture, Skira, Geneva, 1989 (Engl.: The Chinese Art of Writing)

Pound/Saussy (Hg.): The Chinese Written Character as a Medium for Poetry: A Critical Edition, New York 2008

De Francis, J.: The Chinese Language. Fact and Fantasy (Honolulu 1984) - Die chinesische Sprache: Fakt und Fantasie (2011)

Karlgren, B.: Schrift und Sprache der Chinesen (e-book Heidelberg 2001)

The  literature will be studied in the course of the semester in preparation of particular sections. Acknowledgement in advance is not compulsory.