Academic Writing II Chinese History Spring 2012
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About this Course
Method of assessment:
Students are expected to attend all meetings, prepare the required readings and participate in
in-class discussions. Further, they will be asked to give one presentation of approximately 15
minutes based on a selected article or passage from a book. After the end of term, students
will prepare an essay of c. 20pp. on a topic of their own choice.
Course objectives:
In this course, students will
1. acquire an understanding of some key issues in current debates on history and
historiography;
2. familiarise themselves with a variety of thematic and methodological approaches to
the study of history;
3. learn about Chinese historiographical genres;
4. improve their ability to independently study, assess and reflect on both historical
sources and works of scholarship;
5. hone their presentation skills;
6. work on their ability to research, plan and compose essays that meet academic
standards.
1. History and Chinese Historical Writing
Topics:
 the conceptual distinction between history and past events
 primary and secondary sources / sources and works of historical scholarship
 facts, truth, objectivity and historiography
 origins and genres of traditional Chinese historiography
Required readings:
Durrant, Stephen. 1986. “Shih-chi”. In: Indiana Companion to Chinese Literature, ed.
William Nienhauser, Jr. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 689-692.
Jenkins, Keith. 2003. Re-Thinking History. London and New York: Routledge. Chapter One.
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Pines, Yuri. 2009. “Chinese History Writing Between the Sacred and the Secular”. In Early
Chinese Religion, vol. 1, ed. John Lagerwey and Marc Kalinowski. Leiden and Boston:
Brill, 315-340.
Watson, Burton. 1999. “The Great Han Historians”. In Sources of Chinese Tradition, vol. 1,
ed. Thodore de Bary and Irene Bloom. Second edition. New York: Columbia University
Press, 367-374.
Further reading:
Dubs, Homer H. 1946. “The Reliability of Chinese Histories”. Far Eastern Quarterly 6.1: 23-
43.
Gaddis, John Lewis. 2002. The Landscape of History: How Historians Map the Past. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
Wilkinson, Endymion. 2000. Chinese History: A Manual. Cambridge, Mass., and London:
Harvard University Press, 479-497.
2. Social and Economic History
Topics:
 the importance of manuscript sources
 differences between historiographical writing and ephemeral sources
 macro and micro perspectives on history and society
 book reviews as a genre of academic writing
Required readings:
McDermott, Joseph P. 1999. Review of Éric Trombert, Le crédit à Dunhuang (Paris 1995).
T’oung Pao 85.4-5: 476-484.
Twitchett, Denis. 1957. “The Monasteries and China‟s Economic History in Medieval Times”.
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 19.3: 526-549.
–– . 1966. “Chinese Social History from the Seventh to the Tenth Centuries: The Tunhuang
Documents and Their Implications”. Past and Present 35: 28-53.
Readings for student presentations:
Rong, Xinjiang. 1999. “The Nature of the Dunhuang Library Cave and the Reasons for Its
Sealing”. Cahiers d’Extrême Asie 11: 247-275.
Skinner, G. William. 1985. “The Structure of Chinese History”. Journal of Asian Studies 44.2:
271-292.
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Further reading:
Elvin, Mark. 1973. The Pattern of the Chinese Past. London: Methuen. [Cf. the review article
by Nathan Sivin, “Imperial China: Has Its Present Past a Future?”, Harvard Journal of
Asiatic Studies 38.2 (1978): 449-480.]
Pomeranz, Kenneth. 2000. The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making of the
Modern World Economy. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press.
Rowe, William T. 2007. “Owen Lattimore, Asia, and Comparative History”. Journal of Asian
Studies 66.3: 759-786.
Shaughnessy, Edward L., ed. 1997. New Sources of Early Chinese History: An Introduction to
the Reading of Inscriptions and Manuscripts. Berkeley: Society for the Study of Early
China and Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California.
3. Culture and Mentality
Topics:
 cultural history
 the usefulness, or otherwise, of the notion of collective mentalities
 literary texts as historical sources
 the annotation of translated sources
Required readings:
Dudbridge, Glen. 1995. Religious Experience and Lay Society in T’ang China: A Reading of
Tai Fu’s Kuang-i chi. Cambridge; Cambridge University Press, 1-17.
Burke, Peter. 1997. “History and Social Memory”. In: Varieties of Cultural History. Ithaca:
Cornell University Press, 43-59.
Knickerbocker, Bruce J., trans. 2010. “„Zhenzhong ji„ (Record within a Pillow)”. In Tang
Dynasty Tales: A Guided Reader, ed. William H. Nienhauser, Jr. Hackensack: World
Scientific Publishing Co., 73-119.
Readings for student presentations:
Poo, Mu-chou. 1998. In Search of Personal Welfare: A View of Ancient Chinese Religion.
Albany: State University of New York Press, 69-91.
Further reading:
Corbin, Alain. 1986. The Foul and the Fragrant: Odor and the French Social Imagination.
New York [etc.]: Berg Publishers, 1-34.
Grafton, Anthony. 1999. The Footnote: A Curious History. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard
University Press.
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4. Writing, Printing, and Communication
Topics:
 the use of printing in the distribution and transmission of knowledge
 the social effects of printing and large-scale book production
 uses of books beyond reading
 motivation and implementation of state policies intended to control the spread of
information
Required readings:
Chia, Lucille, and Hilde de Weerdt. 2011. “Introduction”. In Knowledge and Text Production
in an Age of Print. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 1-29.
Egan, Ronald. 2011. “To Count Grains of Sand on the Ocean Floor: Changing Perceptions of
Books and Learning in the Song Dynasty”. In Knowledge and Text Production, 33-62.
Finkelstein, David, and Alistair McCleery, ed. 2005. An Introduction to Book History. New
York and London: Routledge. Ch. 1: “Theorising the History of the Book”.
Readings for student presentations:
De Weerdt, Hilde. 2006. “What Did Su Che See in the North? Publishing Regulations, State
Security, and Political Culture in Song China”. T’oung Pao 92: 466-494.
McDermott, Joseph P. 2011. “Book Collecting in Jiangxi during the Song Dynasty”. In
Knowledge and Text Production, 63-101.
Further reading:
Drège, Jean-Pierre. 1991. Les bibliothèques en Chine au temps des manuscrits (jusqu’au Xe
siècle). Paris: École Française d‟Extrême-Orient.
Febvre, Lucien, and Henri-Jean Martin. 1976 [1958]. The Coming of the Book: The Impact of
Printing, 1450-1800. London: NLB, 248-261.
McDermott, Joseph P. 2006. A Social History of the Chinese Book: Books and Literati
Culture in Late Imperial China. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press.
Tsien, Tsuen-hsuin. 2004. Written on Bamboo and Silk: The Beginnings of Chinese Books and
Inscriptions. Second edition. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press.
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5. Gender
Topics:
 the distinction between (biological) sex and (cultural) gender
 images and roles of women in Chinese society
 notions of masculinity
 law and gender
Required readings:
Butler, Judith. 2002 [1990]. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New
York and London: Routledge, 22-33.
Huang, Martin W. 2006. Negotiating Masculinities in Late Imperial China. Honolulu:
University of Hawai‟i Press,1-32.
Mann, Susan. 1997. Precious Records: Women in China’s Long Eighteenth Century. Stanford:
Stanford University Press, 1-44.
Readings for student presentations:
Sommer, Matthew H. 1996. “The Uses of Chastity: Sex, Law, and the Property of Widows in
Qing China”. Late Imperial China 17.2: 77-130
Further reading:
Ebrey, Patricia Buckley. 1993. The Inner Quarters: Marriage and the Lives of Chinese
Women in the Sung Period. Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of California
Press.
Hinsch, Bret. 2011. Women in Early China. Second edition. Lanham [etc.]: Rowman &
Littlefield.
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6. Ethnicity
Topics:
 historical and political views on the relationship between nation, ethnicity and state
 traditional concepts of “Chineseness”
 the case of the Manchus as an ethnically distinct conquering elite
Required readings:
Crossley, Pamela Kyle. 1990. Orphan Warriors: Three Manchu Generations and the End of
the Qing World. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 13-30.
Harrison, Henrietta. 2001. China. Inventing the Nation. London: Hodder Arnold, 132-149.
Smith, Anthony D. 1986. The Ethnic Origins of Nations. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 6-41.
Readings for student presentations:
Elliott, Mark C. 2006. “Ethnicity in the Qing Eight Banners”. In Empire at the Margins:
Culture, Ethnicity and Frontier in Early Modern China, ed. Pamela Kyle Crossley, Helen
F. Siu, and Donald S. Sutton. Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of
California Press, 28-57.
Pines, Yuri. “Beasts or Humans: Pre-Imperial Origins of the „Sino-Barbarian‟ Dichotomy”. In
Mongols, Turks and Others: Eurasian Nomads and the Sedentary World, ed. Reuven
Amitai and Michal Biran. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 59-102
Further reading:
Crossley, Pamela Kyle. 1999. A Translucent Mirror: History and Identity in Qing Imperial
Ideology. Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of California Press.
Elliott, Mark C. 2001. The Manchu Way: The Eight Banners and Ethnic Identity in Late
Imperial China. Stanford: Stanford University Press.