Students are expected to have completed all the required viewing (found under Modules in Canvas) and readings for each week before attending the weekly session. Items marked with an asterisk (*) are available through Files in Canvas; the rest can be found elsewhere online or on reserve. [P] denotes “primary source.”
Week 1 (Sep. 5): Imagine UBC (no class)
Week 2 (Sep. 12): Orientation
- Review all the sections (including Course Tools and Support) of the Course Blog/Syllabus (blogs.ubc.ca/asiahist270/). This is important and a good habit.
- History Writing Centre (history.ubc.ca/undergraduate/writing-centre/), especially the section on “Sources.”
- The Academic Support section (https://learningcommons.ubc.ca/academic-support/) of the Chapman Learning Commons.
Focus: What is the relationship between “primary” and “secondary” sources? And why is that important for historians?
Week 3 (Sep. 19): The Idea of China
- Waley-Cohen, “Introduction” and “Early Chinese Cosmopolitanism” (up to “The Mongol Yuan, 1276–1368”), in Sextants of Beijing, pp. 3–10, 11–41 (assigned sections for this week are available under Files in Canvas).
Focus: How to think about “China” in world history?
Week 4 (Sep. 26): China under Mongol Rule
- *Valerie Hansen, “The Mongols (ca. 1200–1368),” in The Open Empire, 2nd ed. (New York, 2015), pp. 309–343.
- [P] Marco Polo (1254–1324), “The Glories of Kinsay [Hangchow]” (ca. 1300), from The Book of Ser Marco Polo the Venetian concerning the Kingdoms and Marvels of the East, trans. and ed. Henry Yule, 3rd ed., rev. Henri Cordier (London, 1903), vol. 2, pp. 185–193, 200–205, 215–216.
Focus: Why are we still reading (about) Marco Polo?
Week 5 (Oct. 3): The Great Ming
- *Timothy Brook, “The Eunuch and His Hostage,” in Great State (New York, 2020), pp. 79–108.
- *[P] FEI Hsin (1388?–after 1436), Hsing-ch’a sheng-lan: The Overall Survey of the Star Raft (1436), trans. J. V. G. Mills, rev. and ed. Roderich Ptak (Wiesbaden, 1996), pp. 27–32, 63–69.
Focus: How did the Great Ming view the world?
Week 6 (Oct. 10): The Age of Silver
- William Atwell, “Ming China and the Emerging World Economy, c. 1470–1650,” in Cambridge History of China, vol. 8, ed. Denis C. Twitchett and Frederick W. Mote (New York and Cambridge, 1998), 376–416.
- *[P-option A] Domingo de Salazar (1512–1594), “The Chinese and the Parian at Manila” (1590), in The Philippine Islands, 1493–1898 (1903), ed. Emma Helen Blair and James A. Robertson (Cleveland, 1903), vol. 7, pp. 212–238.
- [P-option B] FENG Menglong (1574–1646), “Shi Fu Encounters a Friend at Tanque,” in Stories to Awaken the World (1627), trans. Shuhui Yang and Yunqin Yang (Seattle and London, 2009), pp. 373–395.
Focus: How had trade transformed Chinese society in the sixteenth century?
Week 7 (Oct. 17): Encounters
- Waley-Cohen, “China and Catholicism in the Sixteenth Through Eighteenth Centuries,” in Sextants of Beijing, pp. 55–91.
- *[P] “Chinese Responses to Early Christian Contacts,” in Sources of Chinese Tradition, 2nd ed., vol. 2, ed. Wm. Theodore de Bary and Richard Lufrano (New York, 2000), pp. 142–154.
- Note that this selection is made up of four separate documents, one each by LI Zhizao (d. 1630), XU Guangqi (1562–1633), YANG Guangxian (1597–1669), and ZHANG Xingyao (1633–after 1715), each of which is preceded by a translator’s introduction.
Focus: What accounted for the different responses to Christianity in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century China?
Week 8 (Oct. 23–27): Mid-term Checkup
No assigned materials/class this week. Students will sign up for individual meetings with the instructor.
Week 9 (Oct. 31): “Like the Sun at Mid-day”
- Waley-Cohen, “Foreign Goods and Foreign Knowledge in the Eighteenth Century,” in Sextants of Beijing, pp. 92–128.
- *[P] Voltaire (1694–1778), “China: Its Antiquity, Strength, and Laws,” in The Works of Voltaire: A Contemporary Version (Paris, 1901), vol. 13, pp. 19–31.
Focus: How did China and Europe view each other in the eighteenth century?
Week 10 (Nov. 7): Entanglements
- Waley-Cohen, “The Turning of the Tables, 1796–1860,” in Sextants of Beijing, pp. 129–165.
- *[P] Selections from “China and the Eighteenth-Century World” and “The First Clash with the West,” in The Search for Modern China: A Documentary Collection, 3rd ed., ed. Janet Chen and others (New York, 2014), pp. 87–93, 94–110.
Focus: What were the sources of Sino-Western entanglements in the nineteenth century?
Week 11 (Nov. 13–15): Mid-term break (no class)
Week 12 (Nov. 21): Revolutions
- Waley-Cohen, “Overcoming Habits of Mind, 1914–1949,” in Sextants of Beijing, pp. 207–246.
- *[P] Selections from “New Tensions in the Late Qing,” “The End of the Dynasty,” and “A Road is Made,” in The Search for Modern China: A Documentary Collection, pp. 155–158, 179–187, 219–225.
Focus: How was the Chinese revolution framed and understood?
Week 13 (Nov. 28): Mao’s China and Beyond
- Waley-Cohen, “Culture and Conflict, 1949–1997,” in Sextants of Beijing, pp. 247–282.
- [P] Selections from Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung (Beijing, 1966; marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/works/red-book/):
- [Strongly recommended] Priya Lal, “Maoism in Tanzania: Material Connections and Shared Imaginaries,” in Mao’s Little Red Book, ed. Alexander C. Cook (New York and Cambridge, 2014), pp. 96–116.
Focus: Why was Maoism appealing?
Week 14 (Dec. 5): The Chinese Dream
- Klaus Mühlhahn, “Ambitions and Anxieties,” in Making China Modern (Cambridge, Mass., 2019), pp. 560–591 (up to “Growing Uncertainties”).
- [P] “Full Text from President Xi Jinping’s Speech,” 22 September 2015.
- [P?] Peter Hessler, “Learning To Speak Lingerie,” New Yorker, 10 August 2015 (original article, with illustrations, can be found at the New Yorker website).
Focus: Whose “Chinese Dream”?