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The New York Review of Books (NYRB)
History 210
China, East Asia, and the Pacific World
Autumn 2021
China, East Asia, and the Pacific World
Autumn 2021
Tuesday and Thursday 10:00-11:45 a.m.
Robert André LaFleur Office Hours:
Morse Ingersoll 1206 Tuesday 11:45-1:15
363-2005 Thursday 11:45-1:15
363-2005 Thursday 11:45-1:15
lafleur@beloit.edu
Required Books
Bregnbaek, Susanne. Fragile Elite
Brook, Timothy. The Confusions of Pleasure
Chan, Anita, et al. Chen Village: Revolution to Globalization
Cohen, Paul. History in Three Keys
Ebrey, Patricia. Chinese Civilization: A Sourcebook
Kipnis, Andrew. Producing Guanxi
Kuhn, Philip. Soulstealers: The Chinese Sorcery Scare of 1768
Kuhn, Philip. Soulstealers: The Chinese Sorcery Scare of 1768
Mair, Victor. The Columbia Anthology of Traditional Chinese Literature
Mann, Susan. The Talented Women of the Zhang Family
Spence, Jonathan. The Gate of Heavenly Peace
Winchester, Simon. Pacific: Silicon Chips and Surfboards
Winchester, Simon. Pacific: Silicon Chips and Surfboards
*** ***
Chicago Manual of Style Guidelines (available at the bookstore)The New York Review of Books (NYRB)
Character notebook (for practicing Chinese characters)
Round and Square (www.robert-lafleur.blogsot.com)
Reserve Books (you may order your own copy if you wish, but copies are on reserve)
McNaughton, William. Reading and Writing Chinese
Wieger, James, Chinese Characters
Course Description
This course will examine Chinese history and culture in the context of the wider East Asian world. We will begin with early Chinese history and the influence of the Yellow River valley on the development of Chinese institutions. We will then examine the development of Chinese philosophical, literary, political, and economic traditions during the imperial era. The second half of the course deals with modern Chinese history and culture, paying equal attention to historical and ethnographic materials, and taking a careful look at the development of a strong Chinese state from the challenges of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Throughout the course we will use examples from the Chinese language—Chinese characters and their etymologies, idiomatic phrases, and classical allusions—to analyze Chinese history and culture in linguistic context.
Evaluation
Quizzes and Chinese Characters 15%
Pacific World Essay (Week One) 5%
Letter Assignment (Week Five) 10%
Exam I (Week Seven) 15%
Source Paper (Week Nine) 20%
Ethnography Paper (Week Fifteen) 20%
Exam II (Week Sixteen) 15%
*Yes, I know that the percentages add up to 105; I have my reasons, and will explain in class.
China, East Asia, and the Pacific World
HIST 210
Week IX
Exam Week I
Tuesday, October 19
Great Mythologies of the World (on library reserve): Lecture 43
43: Gods, Rice, and the Japanese State
43: Gods, Rice, and the Japanese State
James Peacock, The Anthropological Lens (.pdf)
(This is an important reading that is geared toward understanding what anthropologists do so that you can think about how to assess the books about modern China that will come later in the course, and to understand the way anthropologists work and see the world today.
Substance
Method
Significance
Thursday, October 21
Exam I (in class)
*** ***
McNaughton: 91-100 or Wieger: 184-211
McNaughton: 91-100 or Wieger: 184-211
Characters 300-349 Lessons 72-81
READ ALL THREE POSTS!
(Hard copy in my office—MI 206)
Click here to see the Late Assignment Policy for this course
Week X
Nineteenth Century China
CHARACTER NOTEBOOKS DUE on THURSDAY!
Tuesday, October 26
Great Mythologies of the World (on library reserve): Lecture 44
44: Nature Gods and Heroes of Polynesia
44: Nature Gods and Heroes of Polynesia
Mann, The Talented Women of the Zhang Family
Genealogical Chart of the Zhang Family and Their Collateral Kin
Prologue
Jining, Shandong (1893-1895)
Tang Yaoqing, Guixiu (1763-1831)
Zhang Qieying, Poet (1792-after 1863)
Wang Caipin, Governess (1826-1893)
Epilogue. The Historian Says . . .
Zhang Family Chronology
CHARACTER NOTEBOOKS DUE on THURSDAY!
Thursday, October 28
Continue discussion of Tuesday's assigned bookRead the following sources in Ebrey strategically ("fartlek" reading, as we discussed in class); this will help for your eventual source paper.
Ebrey, Chinese Civilization, 301-330
Village Organization
The Village Headman and the New Teacher
Boat People
Placards Posted in Guangzhou
Infant Protection Society
Mid-Century Rebels
The Conditions and Activities of Workers
Genealogy Rules
*** ***
CHARACTER NOTEBOOKS DUE on THURSDAY!
McNaughton: 101-110 or Wieger: 212-225
Characters 350-399 Lessons 82-89
READ ALL THREE POSTS!
(Hard copy in my office—MI 206)
Click here to see the Late Assignment Policy for this course
Week XI
Tuesday, November 2
Great Mythologies of the World (on library reserve): Lecture 45
45: Creation and Misbehavior in Micronesia
Cohen, History in Three Keys
Part 1: The Boxers as Event
Prologue: The Historically Reconstructed Past
The Boxer Uprising: A Narrative History
Part 2: The Boxers as Experience
Prologue: The Experienced Past
Drought and the Foreign Presence
Mass Spirit Possession
Magic and Female Pollution
Rumor and Rumor Panic
Death
Part 3: The Boxers as Myth
Prologue: The Mythologized Past
The New Culture Movement and the Boxers
Anti-Imperialism and the Recasting of the Boxer Myth
The Cultural Revolution and the Boxers
Thursday, November 4
Continue discussion of Tuesday's assigned bookRead the following sources in Ebrey strategically ("fartlek" reading, as we discussed in class); this will help for your eventual source paper.
Ebrey, Chinese Civilization, 335-384
Liang Qichao on His Trip to America
Ridding China of Bad Customs
Rural Education
My Old Home
The Spirit of the May Fourth Movement
The Haifeng Peasant Association
The Dog-Meat General
The General Strike
*** ***
McNaughton: 111-120 or Wieger: 225-238
Characters 400-449 Lessons 90-96
READ ALL THREE POSTS!
(Hard copy in my office—MI 206)
Click here to see the Late Assignment Policy for this course
Tuesday, November 9
Great Mythologies of the World (on library reserve): Lecture 46
46: Melanesian Myths of Life and Cannibalism
46: Melanesian Myths of Life and Cannibalism
Chan, Chen Village: Revolution to Globalization
Prologue
Chen Village and Its Leaders
The Big Four Cleanups
Studying Chairman Mao
The Cultural Revolution
The Cleansing of the Class Ranks
A Leftward Lurch and a Solid Footing
The Great Betrothal Dispute
Plunging into a New Decade
The Troubled Seventies
The New Era
The Midas Touch
Entrepreneurs and Gamblers
Globalization and Transformation
Lifestyles of a Middle-Class Community
Outsiders
Epilogue: An Unbroken Thread: The Sent-Down Youths and Chen Village
Other Writings on Chen Village
Thursday, November 11
Thursday, November 11 (Follow these instructions carefully)
(Read the Assignment if you have not done so already; this is not included in the two hours—the equivalent of our class meeting, so no "extra work"—reserved for this exercise).
1. Write a one-paragraph description of your final source paper topic.
2. Print it.
3. Open up your copy of Patricia Ebrey's Chinese Civilization, and make a list of sources that might be useful to you, including items that you haven't gotten to yet. You should have at least five, and maybe as many as ten. Remember, you are just compiling a list for now.
4. Underneath some of those items, write more about how they might "connect" to your project.
5. Now, do the same with Victor Mair's Traditional Chinese Literature. This is much more difficult to navigate, but open your syllabus and try to follow what we have done in the course. If you prepared for class well, you might have notes and marginal jottings to guide you.
6. Go quickly through the rest of the book (paging quickly, as historians must for some of their work). See if you find anything else that jumps out at you (so to speak). This kind of serendipitous reading is also an important part of historical (and all creative) work.
7. You should now have a list from Mair of a dozen or so items. Again, you'll be cutting-down this list in the coming week(s).
(Begin extra sheets, as necessary)
8. Now go through your secondary historical sources (Brooks, Kuhn, Cohen, Mann, and so forth). This will be more challenging, as I noted in class. Focus on the chapters. If you prepared well for class, you will already have some ideas about how the subsections of the books might be useful. Create a list of another dozen (approximately) items from those secondary sources.
9. For now, don't worry about the ethnographic source(s). We'll get to that later.
10. Next, go through your list and make small notes underneath some of the sources to expand your thinking about how the sources might fit your project.
11. Now, scan it or take a picture of it (them).
12. Send it/them to me.
Good luck. If you take this exercise seriously, you will be more than ready to go (and you will have accomplished something resembling the outlining "pre-work" in my writing guide.
We'll do more with this next week (but remember that we will be meeting both days next week.
***. ***
(As always)
Read the following sources in Ebrey strategically ("fartlek" reading, as we discussed in class); this will help for your eventual source paper.
Ebrey, Chinese Civilization, 385-400
Funeral Processions
My Children
The Life of Beggars
*** ***
McNaughton: 121-130 or Wieger: 239-256
Characters 450-499 Lessons 97-105
READ ALL THREE POSTS!
(Hard copy in my office—MI 206)
Click here to see the Late Assignment Policy for this course
Week XIII
Chinese Ethnography II
Chinese Ethnography II
Tuesday, November 16
Great Mythologies of the World (on library reserve): Lecture 47
47: Origins in Indonesia and the Philippines
47: Origins in Indonesia and the Philippines
Kipnis, Producing Guanxi
Part I Practices of Guanxi Production
Everyday Guanxi Production
Guest/Host Etiquette and Banquets
Gift giving
“Kowtowing”
Weddings, Funerals, and Gender
Feeling, Speech, and Nonrepresentational Ethics
Part II Guanxi Versions
Guanxi in Fengjia, 1948-90
Guanxi Versions throughout China
Guanxi and Peasant Subculture
Epilogue Thursday, November 18
Continue discussion of Tuesday's assigned book
Read the following sources in Ebrey strategically ("fartlek" reading, as we discussed in class); this will help for your eventual source paper.
Ebrey, Chinese Civilization, 401-469
Generalissimo Jiang on National Identity
The Communist Party
Land Reform
Hu Feng and Mao Zedong
A New Yong Man Arrives at the Organization Department
Peng Dehuai’s Critique of the Great Leap Forward
Developing Agricultural Production
Lei Feng, Chairman Mao’s Good Fighter
Housing in Shanghai
Red Guards
Victims
*** ***
McNaughton: 131-140 or Wieger: 271-285
Characters 500-549 Lessons 117-122
READ ALL THREE POSTS!
(Hard copy in my office—MI 206)
Click here to see the Late Assignment Policy for this course
Tuesday, November 23
Please Read the Revision Assignment (no class)
Thursday, November 25
Thanksgiving (Enjoy a Pandemic-Free Holiday)
READ ALL THREE POSTS!
(Hard copy in my office—MI 206)
Click here to see the Late Assignment Policy for this course
Week XV
Chinese Ethnography III
Chinese Ethnography III
LaFleur .pdf files (sent via email)
Bregnbaek, Fragile Elites (get started, and finish on Thursday) Introduction
Sculpting in Time
Filial Piety and Existential Dilemmas
Youth and the Party State
Between Parents, Party, and Peers
The Double Binds of "Education of Quality"
Success, Well-being, and the Question of Suicide
Conclusion
Thursday, December 2
Great Mythologies of the World (on library reserve): Lecture 48
48: Aboriginal and Colonial Myths of Australia
48: Aboriginal and Colonial Myths of Australia
Read the following sources in Ebrey strategically ("fartlek" reading, as we discussed in class); this will help for your eventual source paper.
Ebrey, Chinese Civilization, 470-504
The Changing Course of Courtship
The One-Child Family
Economic Liberalization and the New Problems for Women
Peasants in the Cities
Posters Calling for Democracy
Defending China’s Socialist Democracy
READ ALL THREE POSTS!
(Hard copy in my office—MI 206)
***FINAL CHARACTER NOTEBOOKS DUE on THURSDAY!***
Please bring them to class; I'll return them to
you during the exam next Tuesday.
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