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Jonathan Chaves

Professor of Chinese

Rome 468
801 22nd Street, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20052

Phone: (202) 994-6474
Fax: (202) 994-1512
E-mail: jchaves@gwu.edu
Homepage: http://home.gwu.edu/~jchaves/

Education:

Ph.D., Columbia University

Expertise:

Chinese and Japanese culture and literature

Background:

Professor Chaves received his B.A. from Brooklyn College and his M.A. and Ph.D. in Chinese Literature from Columbia University. Before coming to The George Washington University, Professor Chaves taught Classical Chinese language and literature at Cornell University.

He has published many books and articles including Japanese and Chinese Poems to Sing: The Wakan Roei Shu, co-authored with J. Thomas Rimer, (Columbia University Press), Singing of the Source: Nature and God in the Poetry of the Chinese Painter Wu Li (University of Hawaii Press), Shisendo: Hall of the Poetry Immortals, co-authored with J. Thomas Rimer, Stephen Addiss, and Hiroyuki Suzuki, (Weatherhill), Pilgrim of the Clouds: Poems and Essays from Ming China by Yuan Hung-tao and His Brothers (Weatherhill), Mei Yao-ch'en and the Development of Early Sung Poetry, (Columbia University Press) and Heaven My Blanket, Earth My Pillow: Poems from Sung Dynasty China by Yang Wan-li (Weatherhill). Professor Chaves' book Pilgrim of the Clouds was nominated for the National Book Award in Translation. His book Japanese and Chinese Poems to Sing won the US-Japan Friendship Commission Award for translations from Japanese literature.

Professor Chaves was the invited curator of an exhibition, The Chinese Painter as Poet, to be shown at the Art Gallery of The China Institute in America in New York City, Sept. 14-Dec. 17, 2000. His book of the same name (China Institute in America, 2000) is a study of the interrelationships between poetry and painting in China, with comparative material from Japan and the West.

Professor Chaves has also published and spoken in public on the current state of literary studies in general. His most recent contribution in this area has been "Soul and Reason in Literary Criticism: Deconstructing the Deconstructionists", published in America's oldest specialized scholarly journal, The Journal of the American Oriental Society (2002).

Courses Taught:

Chin 109 Intro. to Classical Chinese
Chin 110 Intro. to Classical Chinese
Chin 163 Chinese Literature in Translation
Chin 164 Chinese Literature in Translation
Chin 271 Poetry of the Tang and Song Periods
Chin 272 Poetry of the Tang and Song Periods
Hmn 6 Asian Humanities
Japn 111 Japanese Literature in Translation
Japn 112 Japanese Literature in Translation

Last update: 03.22.05