From Round to Square (and back)

For The Emperor's Teacher, scroll down (↓) to "Topics." It's the management book that will rock the world (and break the vase, as you will see). Click or paste the following link for a recent profile of the project: http://magazine.beloit.edu/?story_id=240813&issue_id=240610

A new post appears every day at 12:05* (CDT). There's more, though. Take a look at the right-hand side of the page for over four years of material (2,000 posts and growing) from Seinfeld and country music to every single day of the Chinese lunar calendar...translated. Look here ↓ and explore a little. It will take you all the way down the page...from round to square (and back again).
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Monday, January 17, 2022

Confucius and the World Syllabus, Spring 2022 (b)

 On this date on Round and Square's History 

17 January 2014—China's Lunar Calendar 2014 01-17
17 January 2013—Channeling Liam: Wall Maps
17 January 2012—Prairie Ethnography: Bavaria (Wieder)
17 January 2011—Theory Cartoons: Resource Center

Click here for the other half of this two-part syllabus post:
HIST 150: Weeks 1-8                  HIST 150: Weeks 9-16
[a] 孔子 RF
Confucius and the World
History 150
Spring 2022
MWF 10:00-11:50
Robert André LaFleur                                                             Office Hours:
Morse Ingersoll 206                                                             Monday          12:00-13:30
363-2005                                                                               Wednesday    12:00-13:30
                                                             
Required Books           
Ames, Roger and Harry Rosemont. The Analects of Confucius.
Chin, Annping. Confucius: The Analects.
Chin, Annping. The Authentic Confucius.
Fingarette, Herbert. Confucius: The Secular as Sacred.
Gardner, Daniel. Confucianism: A Very Short Introduction.
Gardner, Daniel. The Four Books.
Gardner, Daniel. Zhu Xi's Reading of the Analects.
Lau, D.C. Confucius: The Analects.
Major, John and Constance Cook. Ancient China: A History 
Nylan, Michael. The Analects.
Paramore, Kiri. Japanese Confucianism.
Slingerland, Edward. The Analects (with selections from traditional commentaries).

Reserve Books or Handouts
LaFleur, Robert. Books That Matter: The Analects of Confucius (foreword and afterword).
LaFleur, Robert. Confucius's Analects—A Social Translation.
Makeham, John. Transmitters and Creators.
McNaughton, Reading and Writing Chinese
Wieger, Chinese Characters

 ***  ***
Hacker, Diana. A Pocket Style Manual (required in all history classes)
Character notebook (for practicing Chinese characters) 
Round and Square (www.robert-lafleur.blogspot.com)
The New York Review of Books (NYRB)

Course Description
Confucius (551-479 BCE) taught a wide range of disciples during a time we have come to know as the "Spring and Autumn" period of China's Zhou dynasty. His teaching was interspersed with travel and concerted attempts to find employment in the service of one of the budding and ambitious states of a changing society. After his death, his students compiled his teachings into a series of "analects"—brief observations about human behavior, social structure, and ritual conduct that would carry enormous power throughout the course of Chinese history.
[b] Pattern RF



Confucius could never have known that his teachings would be studied and adapted for twenty-five centuries. He also could not have anticipated the ways that those teachings would be transformed into something that has carried his name during that time (Western renderings often put it into the form called "Confucianism"). This course will introduce Confucius's Analects and trace their journey through the widely disparate period that make up Chinese history to the present day. Through it all, we will consider a "living" Confucius and a "living" text that continues to exert a profound influence on the world both within and well beyond China.

Evaluation
Quizzes.............................................15% 
Brief Essay and Rewrite....................  5%
Letter Assignment.............................15%
Exam I...............................................15%
Midterm analysis...............................15% 
Exam II..............................................15%
Final Paper........................................20%
Class attendance and participation is expected.  
Late assignments will be penalized.

Click here for the other half of this two-part syllabus post:
HIST 150: Weeks 1-8                  HIST 150: Weeks 9-16

HIST 150—Introduction to Historical Thinking
Confucius and the World

Week IX
 (March 21-25)

THE SYLLABUS HAS BEEN ADJUSTED (check your email on Sunday 3/20)
Monday, March 21
No Class on Monday (check your email Sunday)
Reading for Wednesday:
Yasushi, Inoue, Confucius (get started, and use class time to make progress).

Wednesday, March 23
Reading for Wednesday:
Yasushi, Inoue, Confucius (finish the novel for class on Wednesday).

Friday, March 25
McNaughton, Reading and Writing Chinese
                                McNaughton: 91-110        or         Wieger: 184-211
                                Characters 300-399                      Lessons 72-81
Note that the McNaughton characters have increased to 100 a week (you can handle it).
No Clan Meeting This Week!


Week X
 (March 28-April 1)
See the Class Attendance Policy 
Monday, March 28
Chin, Confucius: The Analects (get started)
            Books 1-20
Bring Notebooks to Class

Wednesday, March 23
No Class Today
In lieu of class time, please send me your typed list of fifty passages in the Analects. Having it done today will make everything more straightforward for your writing process. Send it to me as a .doc(x) or .pdf file by 11:00 p.m.

Friday, April 1 (No Foolin')
McNaughton, Reading and Writing Chinese
                                McNaughton: 111-130        or         Wieger: 212-225
                                Characters 400-499                      Lessons 82-89
Note that the McNaughton characters have increased to 100 a week (you can handle it).
Clan Meetings 
[1] Address the following matters: 
(a) Describe why you chose the fifty passages you chose for Sunday's assignment, especially the overarching themes that led to your choices (this could be "I just happened to like these," but reflect on why those stood out, anyway.
(b)  Describe how you are going to approach writing your essay on Sunday.
(c) Are you 100% correct with your Chicago-style citations (including journal citations)? Work with your clan group to make sure.
[2] Write a short version of your answers to the above prompts (a few sentences per item), and send it to me by noon on Friday 4/1 as an email attachment.

Week XI
 (April 4-8)
See the Class Attendance Policy 
Monday, April 4
Round and Square Click for separate Round and Square Syllabus
LaFleur, Books That Matter: Confucius and the Analects, Lecture 11-12
Slingerland, Confucius: The Analects, 1-235
     Books 1-20
Bring Notebooks to Class

Wednesday, April 6
LaFleur, Books That Matter: Confucius and the Analects, Lecture 13-14
Slingerland, Confucius: The Analects
     Review before class (or finish, if you haven't)
Bring Notebooks to Class

Friday, April 8
From here on, if you haven't been doing so already, I will be collecting characters a few times before the end of the semester. Write them in your notebook, or at least save them. As a review, you should write each character three times (one-to-three will do). Then move to the next one.
McNaughton, Reading and Writing Chinese
                                McNaughton: 131-150        or         Wieger: 225-238
                                Characters 500-599                         Lessons 90-96
Note that the McNaughton characters have increased to 100 a week (you can handle it).


Clan Meetings 
[1] Address the following matters: 
(a) Discuss with your fellow clan members some of your approaches to reading a book for class rather than, say, a .pdf article. (Now that you have finished the translations, you will be returning to books about Confucian thought in the coming weeks). Have you been taught skills about how to do this in the past? Try not to be cynical (yes, it's easy to answer this by saying "I don't" or in other ways). The fact is that it is a useful and even necessary skill. Take it seriously.
(b) Now, add a temporal dimension. Discuss your various approaches to reading "a book a week." This is very (very) common in graduate school, and yet (I speak from long experience) very few courses actually teach how to do it.
(c) Finally, put these thoughts together into perhaps a half-dozen items that you might "teach" to others who are faced with reading entire books of history.

[2] Write a short version of your answers to the above prompts (a few sentences per item), and send it to me by noon on Friday 4/8 as an email attachment.       

Week XII
 (April 11-15)
See the Class Attendance Policy 
Monday, April 11
Round and Square Click for separate Round and Square Syllabus
Gardner, Zhu Xi's Reading of the Analects, 1-181
     Introduction
     Learning 
     True Goodness
     Ritual
     Ruling
     The Superior Man and the Way
     Conclusion
Bring Notebooks to Class

Wednesday, April 13
LaFleur, Books That Matter: Confucius and the Analects, Lecture 15-16
Finish Gardner, Zhu Xi's Reading of the Analects (if you haven't already).
Makeham, Transmitters and Creators (.pdf file—sent to your e-mail address).
            Introduction
            Epilogue
Bring Notebooks to Class

Friday, April 15
McNaughton, Reading and Writing Chinese
                                McNaughton: 151-170        or         Wieger: 239-256
                                Characters 600-699                         Lessons 96-105
Note that the McNaughton characters have increased to 100 a week (you can handle it).

I will be collecting characters on Monday, April 25. Bring them to class that day (and catch up if you are behind.

[1] Address the following matters: 
(a) Even if you did this earlier, read carefully through the final assignment (the link is at the bottom of this week's syllabus entries, directly below). Take notes, and think about how you will approach it.
(b) Make a list of things (even though it is preliminary at this stage) that you will need to address to handle the topic well.
(c) Write a paragraph or so about how you are planning to proceed. In particular, address your thinking about the difference between a "research paper" and an project like this one that requires you to use the text of the Analects and what you have learned from our readings and lectures, but to create something (even if you write a story) that is an essay in the literal sense of the term—an "attempt," a "try," a "take."
(d) Discuss these matters with your clan group, and describe for your peers some of the insights you have into how the close reading (think of your fifty passages) and writing process should work.

[2] Write a short version of your answers to the above prompts (a few sentences per item), and send it to me by noon on Friday 4/15 as an email attachment.


Week XIII
 (April 18-22)
See the Class Attendance Policy 
Monday, April 18
Round and Square Click for separate Round and Square Syllabus
Paramore, Kiri. Japanese Confucianism, 1-140
            Confucianism as Cultural Capital (to late-sixteenth century CE)
            Confucianism as Religion (1580s-1720s)
            Confucianism as Public Sphere (1720s-1868)
            Confucianism as Knowledge (1400s-1800s)
            Confucianism as Liberalism (1850s-1890s)
Bring Notebooks to Class 

Wednesday, April 20
LaFleur, Books That Matter: Confucius and the Analects, Lecture 17-18
Paramore, Kiri. Japanese Confucianism, 141-191
            Confucianism as Fascism (1868-1945)
            Confucianism as Taboo (1945-2015)            
            Epilogue: China and Japan—East Asian Modernities and Confucian Revivals
Bring Notebooks to Class

Friday, April 22
McNaughton, Reading and Writing Chinese
                                McNaughton: 171-190        or         Wieger: 257-270
                                Characters 700-799                        Lessons 106-116
Note that the McNaughton characters have increased to 100 a week (you can handle it).

I will be collecting characters on Monday, April 25. Bring them to class that day (and catch up if you are behind.

  
Week XIV
 (April 25-29)
See the Class Attendance Policy 
Monday, April 25
Round and Square Click for separate Round and Square Syllabus
Gardner, The Four Books
     Introduction: The Four Books in Chinese Society
     The Great Learning
     The Analects 
     The Mencius 
     Maintaining Perfect Balance
     Conclusion: Interpreting the Four Books
Bring Notebooks to Class

Wednesday, April 27
No Class—Spring Day!

Friday, April 29
Final Clan Meeting
[1] Address the following matters: 
(a) Look back over your character notebook, and assess what you need to do to have it ready for Monday. (Remember what I said in class about cutting your losses if you have not kept on top of the characters; do not spend hours and hours trying to catch up).
(b) Take a look at what you have done so far to prepare for your final assignment. If you have not done so (not ideal), read it carefully right now. Write down a sketch of your plan to do a good job (not a rushed job at the end) that will really round out your study in this class.
(c) Take a look through the syllabus, and try to assess any areas that could be weak points in the second exam. Make a list, and then make a (realistic) plan.
(d) Finally, review in your group the exact form for how to do all three items for Chicago-style citations for both single authors books and single-author articles. Many of you are still making serious errors.

[2] Write a short version of your answers to the above prompts (a few sentences per item), and send it to me by noon on Friday 4/29 as an email attachment.              

Week XV
(May 2-4)
Monday, May 2
Two brief readings to tie together themes about what Confucian life and thought was like 1,500 years later, in the Song dynasty (c. 1000 CE). Use these essays to think about how the Confucian message changed and was adapted over time.

LaFleur, Literary Borrowing
LaFleur, Exilic Response
(Both were sent to you Saturday night; check your email).

BRING YOUR NOTEBOOKS TO CLASS!!!! Don't forget!

Wednesday, May 4
Exam II     

Click here for the other half of this two-part syllabus post:
HIST 150: Weeks 1-8                  HIST 150: Weeks 9-16
[c] Reverential RF
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