Early China-W

Undergraduate Seminar
HIS 350L-X97 (Unique # NNNNN) & ANS NNN (Unique #NNNNN)
Wed. 3:00-6:00 p.m.
PAR 204

Prof. Roger Hart
Office: Garrison 405
Office hours:TBA
Office phone: 475-7258
Email: rhart@mail.utexas.edu

Course Description

This course will examine the earliest extant Chinese texts in their cultural context. Readings will include selections from divinatory texts, early histories, poetry, mathematical, astronomical, and medical treatises, and early philosophical texts, including Daoism, Confucianism, Mohism, and Legalism. This course is a substantial writing component course.

Course Requirements

Class attendance is mandatory.

This is a "substantial writing component" course. Students may choose one of the following two options:

(1) Before class write a brief summary of the readings, to be handed in at the beginning of class. Notes on each of the readings should usually be two short paragraphs -- one summarizing the central argument and one offering critical analysis -- for a total of 2 to 3 pages per week. Students should complete notes for two of three readings per week, and for ten of the fifteen weeks. These will be graded and will serve as the basis for class discussions. For more specific instructions, see "Reading Notes: Suggested Approaches." Grading: reading assignments 80%, class participation 20%.

(2) Complete a final paper of 20 pages (25 pages for graduate students). Students should consult me as early as possible on possible topics. An outline and bibliography are due by the eighth week; a first draft must be turned in by the twelfth week; and the final draft is due on the final day of class. For more specific instructions, see "Writing Term Papers." Grading: final paper 80%, class participation 20%.

Readings

All readings will be available through electronic reserves:http://reserves.lib.utexas.edu (this electronic reserves page is password-protected; please email me if you need the password). Also, please bookmark this syllabus -- I may make adjustments in the readings as the semester progresses.

These readings will include selections from the following primary texts:

Shang oracle bones

Zhou inscriptions

Classic of Changes (Shaughnessy, Lynn for Wang Bi)
Classic of Documents (in Legge, Chinese Classics)
Classic of Poetry (Karlgren)
Classic of Rites, including Mean, Music, Great Learning (Legge)
Spring and Autumn Annals, Zuo, Guliang, and Lü Commentaries (in Legge, Chinese Classics?)

Analects (Legge, Brooks)
Mencius
Laozi, Classic of the Way and Power (Hendricks?)
Zhuangzi (Graham, Watson)
Mozi (?)
Xunzi (Knobloch, Dubs)

Legalists: Guanzi (Rickett), Book of Lord Shang (trans. Duyvendak), Han Feizi, Li Si's memorials

Sunzi's Art of War

Huang-Lao ms.

Nine Chapters of the Mathematical Arts
Inner Canon of the Yellow Emperor

Record of the Grand Historian

Inner Alchemy (Bao puzi), trans. Ware

Schedule

Week 1. Sources of the Shang Dynasty

Primary sources

Keightley, Sources.

Week 2. Sources of the Zhou Dynasty

Primary sources

Shaugnessy, Sources of Zhou, selections.

Required readings

Shaughnessy, Edward L. New Sources of Early Chinese History: An Introduction to the Reading of Inscriptions and Manuscripts. Berkeley: The Society for the Study of Early China and The Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, 1997.

Supplementary readings

 

Week 3. Classic of Changes

Primary sources

Classic of Changes ( Yi jing ), trans. I Ching: The Classic of Changes, trans. Edward Shaughnessy (New York: Ballantine Books, 1997).

The Elemental Changes: The Ancient Companion to the I Ching: The T'ai Hsuan China, trans. Michael Nylan (Albany: SUNY Press, 1995).

Required readings

 

Supplementary readings

 

Week 4. Classic of Poetry

Primary sources

Classic of Poetry (Shi jing, middle -5c to the late -4c), ed. and trans. B. Karlgren (Stockholm: Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, 1950), selections.

Required readings

 

Supplementary readings

 

Week 5. Classic of Documents

Primary sources

Classic of Documents (Shang shu 尚書, middle -4c). Trans. Shu ching. The book of documents [i.e.] the Shu king. A word-for-word translation of all authentic chapters, by Bernhard Karlgren. Göteborg, Elanders Boktryckeri Aktiebolag, 1950.

Required readings

 

Supplementary readings

Creel, H., Studies in Early Chinese Culture . Baltimore: Waverly Press, 1937. pp. 55-89.

Karlgren, Bernhard, "The Book of Documents," BMFEA 22 (1950) 1-81.

Nylan, Michael, The Shifting Center: The Original "Great Plan" and Later Readings . Sankt Augustin: Institute Monumenta Serica, 19.

Week 6. Classic of Rites

Primary sources

Records of Rites (Li ji , c. 400? BCE to 100? CE), selections, including Record of Music (Yue ji ), Mean (Da xue ) and Great Learning (Zhong yong ): Legge, James, The Texts of Confucianism. Li Ki . Oxford, 1885.

Required readings
Supplementary readings

Week 7. Analects

Primary sources

Analects (Lun yu , c. 500? to 250? BCE), attributed to Confucius (Kongzi , 551-479 BCE), selections. Trans. in Brooks, E. Bruce and A. Takeo Brooks, trans., The Original Analects: Sayings of Confucius and His Successors . N.Y. Columbia University Press, 1998.

Required readings

 

Supplementary readings

Van Norden, ed. Confucius and the Analects: New Essays

Week 8. Classic of Power and the Way

Primary sources

-350 to 250 Classic of the Way and Power: Hendricks

 

Required readings
Supplementary readings

Mark Csikszentmihalyi and Philip J. Ivanhoe, eds., Essays on Religious and Philosophical Aspects of the Laozi (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1999).

Livia Kohn and Michael LaFargue, eds., Lao-tzu and the Tao-te-ching (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1998)

Week 9. Zhuangzi

Primary sources

-350 to 50 Zhuangzi

Supplementary readings

 

Week 10. Astronomy, Mathematics, and Medicine

Primary sources

Warring States: Nine Chapters of the Mathematical Arts

50 bc to 100 AD Zhou Bi, trans. Cullen

-1c Inner Canon of the Yellow Emperor

Supplementary Readings

 

Week 11. Master Sun's Art of War

Primary sources

-345 to c-272 Sunzi Art of War

Week 12. Spring and Autumn Annals

Primary Sources

Zuo Commentary on the Spring and Autumn Annals (). Trans. Legge, James, The Ch'un Ts'eu, with Tso Chuen . London: Trubner, 1872. The Chinese Classics , Vol. V.

Lü Commentary on the Spring and Autumn Annals (-239 and later, Lü shi Chun Qiu ), attributed to Lü Buwei (d. 235 B.C.). Trans. The annals of Lü Buwei (d. 235 B.C.)/ , a complete translation and study by John Knoblock and Jeffrey Riegel Stanford, Calif. : Stanford University Press, 2000

Required readings

 

Supplementary readings

Karlgren, Bernhard, On the Authenticity and Nature of the Tso Chuan . Goteborg: Elanders Boktryckeri Aktiebolag, 1926.

Kennedy, George, "Interpretation of the Ch'un Ch'iu." JAOS 62 (1942) 40-48

Queen, Sarah, From Chronicle to Canon: The Hermeneutics of the Spring and Autumn Annals, According to Tung Chung-shu . Cambridge University Press, 1996.

Week 13. Xunzi

Primary sources

Xunzi, 340-245 B.C.. Xunzi. English. Xunzi : a translation and study of the complete works / , John Knoblock. Stanford, Calif. : Stanford University Press, c1988-c1994. 3 v.

Required Readings

 

Supplementary readings

Paul Rakita Goldin, Rituals of the way: the philosophy of Xunzi (Chicago, Ill. : Open Court, 1999).

Week 14.

Primary sources

-4c to Han: Guanzi and Han Feizi

Supplementary readings

Rickett, Allyn W., The Kuan-tzu, A Repository of Early Chinese Thought . Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1965.

---, Guanzi: Political, Economic, and Philosophical Essays from Early China . Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985.

Week 15.

Primary sources

-4c to -2c Mozi

Supplementary Readings

Week 16.

Primary sources

Mencius (Mengzi ??, c. 300? to 250? BCE), attributed to Mencius (385?-312? BCE), selections.

Translations

Philip J. Ivanhoe and Bryan W. Van Norden, eds., Readings in Classical Chinese Philosophy (New York: Seven Bridges Press, 2001): new translations of some of the central works by major early Chinese philosophers-Kongzi (Confucius), Mozi, Mengzi (Mencius), Laozi, Zhuangzi, Xunzi, and Han Feizi.

de Bary, Sources.

Wing Tsit-Chan.

Resources

WWW

Benjamin Elman, "9. Bibliography of Classics and Chinese Literature in Translation with Recent Related Histories for Exercise" http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/history/elman/ClassBib/09class.htm

Brian Van Norden, "Philosophy 110-01 Early Chinese Philosophy" http://faculty.vassar.edu/brvannor/Phil110/