Summer 2007, July 23 – Aug. 15 CRN: 40915
Hist 191: China Past and Present MUWH: 10-12 : 20. 202 VIL
Instructor: Zhihong Chen
Office: 343 Mckenzie Hall
Phone: 346-6186
Office hours: M 12:30-2:00 pm, W 12:30-2:00 pm.
Description : This course surveys modern Chinese history. Understanding modern China requires some preliminary familiarity with core cultural values and basic social structures of pre-modern China . This background sets the stage for a proper appreciation of China 's dramatic modern transformations. Through a combination of lectures, films, and discussions, this course acquaints students with the warp and weft of Chinese history since the mid-nineteenth century. It demonstrates how Chinese intellectuals, reformers and revolutionaries attempted to modify, reject, even to eradicate some aspects of Chinese traditions while at the same time searching for a specifically Chinese identity and coming to terms with modernity in a Chinese way. It also deconstructs a monolithic image of “ China ” by considering gender difference in experience of modernity and by looking at some minority peoples' perspectives of modern Chinese history, including those of muslims and Tibetans. Through intensive reading, writing, and discussing, students of this course will acquire foundational knowledge for a historical understanding of contemporary issues in Chinese politics and society.
Workload : This course is equivalent to a HIST 191 course offered during the non-summer quarters, and therefore, the readings and requirements are as academically rigorous as a 10-week course. By taking this course, students are agreeing to perform this workload in an abbreviated time.
Requirements and Grading : Students are required to attend the lecture regularly, finish the readings, and participate in the in-class discussions. The course grade is divided among the following segments:
- Three in-class small quizzes (each counting 5% of final grade), each Thursday during the first three weeks (The first quiz is a map quiz. The other two quizzes are based on the lectures and readings for those weeks.)
• Two reaction papers (3 pages each, 12-point font and one inch margins): Students must finish the first paper assignment during the first two weeks, and finish the second paper assignment during the last two weeks. Students may choose either Reaction Paper #1 or #2 for the first assignment, and, for the second assignment, either Reaction Paper #3 or #4 (you will receive handouts with details on writing assignments). All papers are due the following Tuesday of the week that the paper is assigned. For example, if you choose to write your first paper on Celebrated Cases of Judge Dee , which is the Reaction Paper assignment for Week One, then the paper is due on Tuesday of Week Two. Further instructions for writing the papers will be provided during class. 15% each.
• Midterm: 20%..
• Final exam: 25%.
• Attendance and in-class discussion evaluation: 10%.
Reading Materials : The following texts (listed in order of appearance in your reading assignments) are available at the bookstore for purchase. A copy of each will also be put on 24-hour reserve in the Knight Library. Except for Moise's book, which provides basic chronological information that students need to refer to again and again, and the course package, which includes some primary sources relevant to themes of this course, all of the other three texts are swift-paced novels or memoirs. At the same time, there are two films that will be put on reserve in Knight Library. The films are used in the third week of the class. Students are not required to buy them.
• Edwin Moise, Modern China : A History . London : Longman. Second Edition, 1994.
• Celebrated Cases of Judge Dee: An Authentic Eighteenth-Century Chinese Detective Novel, trans. and with an introduction and notes by Robert Van Gulik , New York : Dover Publications, Inc. 1976.
• Pang-Mei Natasha Chang, Bound Feet and Western Dress: A Memoir . New York : Anchor Books, 1996.
• Tashi Tsering, The Struggle for Modern Tibet .
Academic Honesty : All work in this course must be original. Plagiarism and other forms of cheating will not be permitted. Students who plagiarize an assignment will be given a zero for that assignment. YOU MAY NOT TURN IN WORK THAT IS SUBSTANTIALLY THE SAME AS ANOTHER STUDENT'S WORK!
Lateness Policy and Accommodations : Late assignments will be graded down half a grade for each day late, including weekend days. If you have an emergency situation that would prevent you from coming to class or turning in assignments on time, you need to notify the instructor in a timely manner and provide documentary proof of your emergency. Late assignments with compelling excuses (documented illness, for example) will not be subject to lowered grades.
Week One: Pre-modern China .
Day One (7/23): ORIENTATION: China 's multiple pasts: Shifting meanings of “ China ” in geographical, cultural, and ethnic sense.
Readings :
Begin reading Van Gulik, Celebrated Cases of Judge Dee .
Get acquainted with map of China based on Moise's book, p. 4, 14, 62, 79 and 143. Prepare for a map quiz on the beginning of Thursday class.
Day Two (7/24): Chinese Traditional Understanding of World Order: (I) China 's Foreign Relations; (II) The Structure of Chinese Society and Ladders of Social mobility.
Film: China 's Cosmopolitan Age .
Readings :
Continues with Van Gulik.
Moise, 1- 29.
Day Three (7/25): Late Imperial Crises (I): Long-term Internal Problems.
Film: The Opium War (Part One).
Readings : Continues with Van Gulik.
Moise, 30-38.
Day Four (7/26): Late Imperial Crises (II): Foreign Threats to the Qing Empire .
Film: The Opium War (finish).
Map Quiz .
Readings : Moise: 38-49.
Finish Van Gulik.
Prepare Reaction Paper # One (Due on next Tuesday, 7/31). See separate sheet for further instruction.
Week Two: Encountering Modernity: From Empire to Nation.
Day One (7/30): Changing the State: From the Taiping Rebellion, to the Yangwu (Western Affairs) movement, and to the 1911 Revolution.
Film: The New Woman (Part I).
Readings : Start reading Pang-mei Chang's Bound Feet and Western Dress , 1-82.
Day Two (7/31): The Cultural battlefield: New Culture Movement and the May Fourth Era.
Film: The New Woman (finish).
Readings : Chang, 82-215. Moise, 49-51.
Take-home Midterm . Due on this Thursday (8/3) class.
Day Three (8/1): Nationalists' and Communists' approaches toward a new China .
Film Clip: China in Revolution: Battle for Survival .
Readings : Moise, 52-85.
Day Four (8/2): War with Japan and the Communist Victory.
Quiz Two .
Film: In the Name of the Emperor .
Readings : Moise, 86-113.
Finish Reading Chang.
Prepare Reaction Paper #2 (Due on next Tuesday, 8/7). See separate sheet for further instruction.
Week Three: China in Red.
Day One (8/6): Consolidation of the Communist State : Territorial consolidation and the “Nationality Identification” Project.
Film: The Mao Years .
Readings : Moise, 114-136.
Day Two (8/7): The Great Leap Forward.
Film: The Mao Years .
Readings : Moise 137-155.
Day Three (8/8): The Cultural Revolution.
Film: To Live.
Readings : Moise, 156-187.
Day Four (8/9): End of Mao's utopianism: the 1970s and Deng Xiaoping.
Quiz Three.
Readings : Moise, 188-196.
Prepare Reaction Paper #3 (Due on next Tuesday, 8/ 14). See separate sheet for further instruction.
Week Four: China in Reform Era.
Day One (8/13): Issues of Democracy and Capitalism: The 1989 Student Democratic Movement and the CCP's policy regarding capitalist developments in China .
Film: Born Under the Red Flag .
Readings : Moise, 196-237.
Start Tashi Tsering's The Struggle for Modern Tibet .
Day Two (8/14): The Issue of Tibet .
Film: The Angry Monk .
Readings : Continues with Tashi Tsering.
Start Preparing for Reaction Paper #4 (Due Next Monday 8/21).
Day Three (8/15): Reflections on “ China ” and “Chinese”: The case of Chinese muslims. Historical reflections on current issues.
Prepare for Final Exam.
Readings : Finish Tashi Tsering.
Prepare Reaction Paper # 4 (Due on Next Monday 8/20 in my office 343 Mckenzie Hall, earlier submissions are encouraged.)
Thursday (8/16): 3:15-5:15. Final Exam .