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Undergraduate Seminar, Fall 2008
HIS 350L (Unique # 39985) & ANS 372 (Unique # 31135)
Wednesdays 4–7 p.m., GAR 0.132
Prof. Roger Hart
Office: GAR 3.216
Office hours: Tues. and Wed., 2:00–3:30 p.m., and by appt.
Office phone: 475–7258
Email: rhart@mail.utexas.edu
This course presents a cultural history of China from the fourteenth to mid-nineteenth centuries. We will focus on primary documents (in translation), including commentaries on the Confucian classics and Neo-Confucian philosophy; novels, drama, and literary criticism; religious scriptures of Buddhists, Daoists, and religious cults; writings by and about women; Christian writings; imperial edicts, memorials to the emperor, policy essays, and civil examination essays; scientific, technological, and medical treatises; village ordinances, family instructions, and property and marriage contracts; first-hand accounts of the fall of the Ming Dynasty; and proposals to ban opium, suppress rebellions, and defend China against the West. These readings will be supplemented with the most recent secondary historical research. We will take an interdisciplinary and critical approach, integrating history with literary studies, philosophy, and anthropology.
There are no prerequisites for this course.
Class attendance is mandatory.
The final course grade will be based on the following: (1) attendance, in-class quizzes, and class participation (20%); (2) the mid-term examination (15%) and final examination (15%); (3) the term paper (16 pages, 50%). Plus/minus grades will be assigned for the final course grade.
For resources for help with writing, see the web page of the Undergraduate Writing Center. For suggestions on writing the final paper, see "Writing Term Papers ."
All readings will be available through electronic reserves:http://reserves.lib.utexas.edu/coursepage.asp?cid=491&page=01 (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.
Analects (Lun yu 論語, c. 500? to 250? BCE), attributed to Confucius (Kongzi 孔子, 551–479 BCE), selections, trans. in Sources of Chinese Tradition, ed. Wm. Theodore de Bary, 2nd ed., vol. 1, From Earliest Times to 1600 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999), pp. 41–55;
Mencius (Mengzi 孟子, c. 300? to 250? BCE), attributed to Mencius (385?-312? BCE), selections, trans. in Sources of Chinese Tradition, vol. 1, pp. 112–151.
Great Learning (Da xue 大學) and Mean (Zhong yong 中庸), from Records of Rites (Li ji 禮記, c. 400? BCE to 100? CE), selections, trans. in Sources of Chinese Tradition, vol. 1, pp. 329–338.
Zhu Xi 朱熹 (1130–1200), Great Learning, by Chapter and Phrase (Da xue zhang ju 大學章句), and Mean, by Chapter and Phrase (Zhong yong zhang ju 中庸章句), selections, trans. in Sources of Chinese Tradition, vol. 1, pp. 720–736.
Daniel K. Gardner, “Chu Hsi [Zhu Xi] and the Transformation of the Confucian Tradition,” Learning to Be a Sage: Selections from the Conversations of Master Chu, Arranged Topically (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990), pp. 57–81.
Wing-tsit Chan, Chu Hsi: New Studies (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1989).
Wang Yang-ming 王陽明 (1472–1528), “Inquiry on the ‘Great Learning”’ and selections from Instructions for Practical Living, trans. in Source Book in Chinese Philosophy, Wing-Tsit Chan (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press), pp. 654–691.
David S. Nivison, The Ways of Confucianism: Investigations in Chinese Philosophy, ed. Bryan W. Van Norden (Chicago: Open Court, 1996), pp. 217–31.
Chu Hung-lam, “The Debate over Recognition of Wang Yang-ming,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 48:1 (1988), pp. 47–70.
Tu Wei-ming, Neo-Confucian Thought in Action: Wang Yang-Ming’s Youth (1472–1509) (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976).
Wang Yang-ming, To Acquire Wisdom: The Way of Wang Yang-Ming, trans. Julia Ching, Studies in Oriental Culture, no. 11 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1976).
Yunqi Zhuhong 雲棲株宏 (1535–1615), Record of Self-Knowledge, “Personnel at Yunqi and Their Duties,” and “Regulations Regarding Good Deeds and Punishments at Yunqi,” trans. in Chun-fang Yu, The Renewal of Buddhism in China: Chu-Hung and the Late Ming Synthesis, Buddhist Studies and Translations (New York: Columbia University Press, 1981), pp. 233–270.
Li Zhaoen 林兆恩 (1517–1598), “Selected Sayings on the Nine Stages” (1579) and “Direct Pointing to the Mind as Sage” (1578), trans. in “The Nine Stages,” chap. 6 of The Syncretic Religion of Lin Chao-En, Judith A. Berling, Neo-Confucian Studies (New York: Columbia University Press, 1980), 145–194.
Chun-fang Yu, “Chu-hung and the Late Ming Lay Buddhist Movement,” chap. 4 of Renewal of Buddhism in China, pp. 65–100.
Hsu Sung-peng, A Buddhist Leader in Ming China: The Life and Thought of Han-Shan Te-Ch’ing (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1979).
Marsha Weidner, “Buddhist Pictorial Art in the Ming Dynasty,” in The Latter Days of the Law, pp. 51–87.
Li Zhi 李贄 (1527–1602), “Childlike Mind,” “Phony Sages,” “Pursuing Zhu Xi’s ‘Learning for One’s Self,’” and “Legitimacy of Being Self-Interested,” trans. in Sources of Chinese Tradition, pp. 865–74; selected letters, in Chinese Civilization: A Sourcebook, 2nd ed., ed. Patricia Ebrey (New York: Free Press, 1993), pp. 258–62.
Anon., Precious Volume of the Nine-Petaled Lotus (1523), trans. in “The ‘Chiu-lien pao-chüan’ of 1523,” chap. 4 of Precious Volumes: An Introduction to Chinese Sectarian Scriptures from the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, Daniel Overmyer (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999).
Timothy Brook, “Like a Lid to a Box, Like Ice to Ash: Accomodating Buddhism,” chap. 2 of Praying for Power: Buddhism and the Formation of Gentry Society in Late-Ming China, Harvard-Yenching Institute Monograph Series, no. 38 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1994), pp. 54–89.
Edward T. Ch’ien, “A Synthetic Neo-Confucianism as Restructured Confucianism,” chap. 5 of Chiao Hung and the Restructuring of Neo-Confucianism in the Late Ming, Neo-Confucian Studies (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986), pp. 195–240.
B. J. ter Haar, The White Lotus Teachings in Chinese Religious History (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1999).
Jean-Francois Billetier, Li Zhi, Philosophe Maudit (1527–1602): Contribution a Une Sociologie Du Mandarinat Chinois a La Fin De Ming (Geneva: Droz, 1979).
Romeyn Taylor, Official and Popular Religion and the Political Organization of Chinese Society in the Ming (1981).
Song Yingxing 宋應星 (1587–1661), Exploiting the Works of Nature (Tian gong kai wu 天工開物, 1637), trans. in Chinese Technology in the Seventeenth Century: T’ien-Kung K’ai-Wu, ed. E. tu Zen Sun, and Shiou-chuan Sun (University Park: Pennsylvania State University, 1966).
Selected writings on Chinese medicine.
Roger Hart, “Local Knowledges, Local Contexts: Mathematics in Yuan and Ming China.”
The Treatises on Military Affairs of the Ming Dynastic History (1368–1644), trans. Foon Ming Liew (Hamburg: Gesellschaft fur Natur- und Volkerkunde Ostasiens, 1998).
Judith Zeitlin, “Ming Case Histories and the Literary Structure of Medical Authority: The Writings of Sun Yikui.”
Angela Leung, “Transmission of Medical Knowledge from the Sung to the Ming.”
Christopher Cullen, “The Science/Technology Interface in 17th-Century China: Song Yingxing on ‘Qi’ and the ‘Wu Xing.’”
Selections from “Neo-Confucian Education,” chapter 23 of Sources of Chinese Tradition, vol. 1, pp. 800–19 and 852–35.
“Four Examination Essays of the Ming Dynasty,” trans. Andrew Lo, Renditions 33 & 34 (1990): 167–181.
Xu Guangqi’s 徐光啟 (1562–1633) Provincial Examination essay (1597; trans. Hart).
Thesis statement due
Benjamin A. Elman, “The Cultural Scope of Civil Examinations and the Eight-Legged Essay among Elites,” chap. 7 of A Cultural History of Civil Examinations in Late Imperial China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), pp. 371–420.
Anon., chaps. 1 and 12 of The Plum in the Golden Vase (Jin Ping Mei 金瓶梅), trans. David Roy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993), vol. 1, pp. 2–42 and 225–52.
Zhang Zhupo (1670?-1698?), “How to Read The Plum in the Golden Vase,” trans. David Roy, in How to Read the Chinese Novel, ed. David Rolston (Princeton: Princeton University Press), pp. 196–243.
Cao Xueqin 曹雪芹 (1715?-1764?), The Story of the Stone, also known as Dream of Red Mansions (Hong lou meng 紅樓夢), ch. 1–3 and 5.
“How to Read Dream of Red Mansions,” in How to Read the Chinese Novel, ed. Rolston, pp. 323–40.
Midterm Examination (in class).
Andrew H. Plaks, The Four Masterworks of the Ming Novel: Ssu Ta Chi’i-Shu (Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press, 1987).
Selections from writings on women’s education: Ban Zhao (48?–116?), Admonitions for Women; Madam Cheng (Tang Dynasty [618–906]), Classic of Filiality for Women; Song Ruozhao (Tang Dynasty), Analects for Women; Empress Xu (fl. 1410), Instructions for the Inner Quarters; Zhu Xi (1130–1200), “Funerary Inscription for Madam You, Lady of Jia’nan.” Trans. in Sources of Chinese Tradition, pp. 819–840.
Selections from writings on or by women: “Selected Writings of Luo Rufang (1515–1588),” “Final Instructions by Yang Jisheng (1516–1555),” “‘Record of Past Karma’ by Ji Xian (1614–1683),” “‘Letter to my Sons’ by Gu Ruopu (1592-ca. 1681),” “Personal Letters in Seventeenth-Century Epistolary Guides,” and “Letters by Women of the Ming-Qing Period,” chaps. 6–11 of Under Confucian Eyes: Writings on Gender in Chinese History, ed. Susan Mann and Yu-Yin Cheng (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001). pp. 103–177.
Writing sample due
Dorothy Ko, Teachers of the Inner Chambers: Women and Culture in Seventeenth-Century China (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1994).
Kang-i Sun Chang, Haun Saussy, and Charles Yim-tze Kwong, eds., Women Writers of Traditional China: An Anthology of Poetry and Criticism (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1999).
“Popular Values and Beliefs,” chap. 26 of Sources of Chinese Tradition, vol. 2, pp. 73–141.
“The Ming Dynasty,” chaps. 47–54, Chinese Civilization: A Sourcebook, 2nd ed., ed. Patricia Ebrey (New York: Free Press), pp. 203–244.
“The Qing Dynasty,” in Chinese Civilization: A Sourcebook.
Matteo Ricci, True Meaning of the Lord of Heaven, introduction and chaps. 1–2, trans. Douglas Lancashire and Peter Hu Kuo-chen (Taipei: Ricci Institute, 1985), pp. 57–131 (odd pages only).
Li Zhizao 李之藻 (1569–1630), Preface to Ricci’s True Meaning of the Lord of Heaven; Xu Guangqi, “Memorial in Defense of Western Learning”; Yang Guangxian 楊光先 (1597–1669), “I Cannot Do Otherwise”; and Zhang Xingyao 張星曜 (1633–c. 1725), “An Examination of the Similarities and Differences Between the Lord of Heaven Teaching and the Teaching of the Confucian Scholars.” In “Chinese Responses to Early Christian Contacts,” chap. 27 of Sources of Chinese Tradition, vol. 2, pp. 142–154.
Roger Hart, “Xu Guangqi, Memorialist,” pp. 1–9 and 3463.
Nicolas Standaert, “Buddhist Criticism of Yang Tingyun” [楊廷荺, 1557–1627], ch. 2 of Yang Tingyun: Confucian and Christian in Late Ming China, pp. 162–182.
Haun Saussy, The Problem of a Chinese Aesthetic, ch. 1.
Jacques Gernet, China and the Christian Impact: A Conflict of Cultures (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1985), chap. 5.
Roger Hart, “Translating Worlds: Incommensurability and Problems of Existence in Seventeenth-Century China.”
Haun Saussy, “In the Workshop of Equivalences: Seventeenth-Century Globalism and the Comparative Pursuit.”
Kwan-wai So, Japanese Piracy in Ming China During the 16th Century (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1975).
Term paper due
Selections from: Huang Zongxi 黃宗羲 (1610–1695), Waiting for the Dawn: A Plan for a Prince; Lü Liuliang 呂留良 (1629–1683), Commentaries on the Four Books; Wang Fuzhi 王夫之 (1619–1692), Posthumous Writings of Wang Fuzhi; and Gu Yanwu 顧炎武 (1613–1682). In Sources of Chinese Tradition, vol. 2, pp. 3–41.
“A Survivor of Beijing,” “A Missionary Describes the Manchus,” “Nanjing Changes Hands,” “Dutch and Chinese Views of a Battle,” “An Empress Appeals to the Pope,” chaps. 1, 3, 4, 13, and 14 of Voices from the Ming-Qing Cataclysm: China in Tigers’ Jaws, ed. and trans. Lynn A. Struve (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993).
Frederic E. Wakeman, Jr., The Great Enterprise: The Manchu Reconstruction of Imperial Order in Seventeenth-Century China, 2 vols. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985), selections.
Huang Zongxi, Records of Ming Scholars (Ming ru xue an), trans. Julia Ching and Chaoying Fang (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1987).
Lynn A. Struve, The Southern Ming, 1644–1662 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1984).
Dai Zhen 戴震 (1723–1777), in Tai Chen on Mencius: Explorations in Words and Meaning, trans. Ann-Ping Chin and Mansfield Freeman (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press 1990), selections.
Dai Zhen, “Inquiry into Goodness,” in Tai Chen’s Inquiry into Goodness: A Translation of the Yuan Shan, with an Introductory Essay, trans. and ed. Cheng Zhongying (Honolulu, 1971), selections.
“Han Learning,” in Sources of Chinese Tradition, vol. 2, pp. 41–73.
Benjamin Elman, From Philosophy to Philology: Intellectual and Social Aspects of Change in Late Imperial China (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1984).
Documents on China’s policy toward the West, opium trade, and the Tai Ping Rebellion, ch. 28 of Sources of Chinese Tradition, vol. 2, pp. 155–231.
Rewritten term paper due (in class, Wednesday, December 2). This is the final date to turn in a rewritten term paper.
Review session. There will be a review session for the final examination on Tuesday, December 1, from 7:00-9:00 PM in MEZ 1.122.
Final examination. The final examination will be given the last day of class, Wednesday, December 2, from 4-5:15. Make-up examinations and incompletes will be given only for documented emergencies.
Policies on academic integrity are posted on the following webpage:
http://www.utexas.edu/cola/depts/history/about/academic-integrity.php