Senses-Based Learning

Up until 2018

The University of British Columbia

Instructor:

• Carla Nappi

The course is devoted to helping students understand how to creatively and rigorously interpret its primary documents (including texts, artifacts, and, where possible, sensations) alongside the best of recent historical writing about Chinese history.

Students will gain experience in the art and techniques of advanced historical analysis, using both traditional and non-traditional sources.

The course is devoted to helping students understand how to creatively and rigorously interpret its primary documents (including texts, artifacts, and, where possible, sensations) alongside the best of recent historical writing about Chinese history.

Students will gain experience in the art and techniques of advanced historical analysis, using both traditional and non-traditional sources.

This course explores the history of China from the Tang empire through the mid-Qing dynasty. Late imperial China is a fascinating historical period. The course is devoted to helping students understand how to creatively and rigorously interpret its primary documents (including texts, artifacts, and, where possible, sensations) alongside the best of recent historical writing about Chinese history. Rather than taking the existence of a timeless and monolithic “China” for granted, we will explore the various ways in which late imperial lands and peoples have been formed and re-formed in order to situate the period within broader narratives of global history. Students will gain experience in the art and techniques of advanced historical analysis, using both traditional and non-traditional sources. Fun will be had. Undue stress, to the extent possible, will be avoided. Deep thoughts will be both conceived, and put on paper, by you. Bad jokes about The Manchu Anatomy will be made.

Content course

Undergraduate or graduate students

Traditional

Keeping up with the weekly reading and assignments, and thinking deeply about them, is absolutely integral to success in this class. You will work hard, you will smell odd things, and at the end of the term you will hopefully have found a path into the study of late imperial Chinese history that excites you. You will get as much out of the course as you put into it.

Each course session will include a mixture of lecture and group discussion of the reading material due for that class meeting. You are expected to come to class having done the reading, having thought about it, and being willing to talk about it with the group.

Thinkpieces

You are required to post a thinkpiece almost every week by Wednesday at noon, as indicated on the syllabus. This is very, very important. Think of your thinkpieces as spaces to think about the week’s readings and issues before you come to discussion. They will not receive individual letter-grades, but they will collectively form a significant part of your participation grade. Some TPs will have an assigned topic, and some will be completely free-form. There is no required length, and you should use the space as creatively as you’d like: raise questions, argue with the authors you’ve read, work through something in the readings that particularly excited or troubled you, etc. You should be careful and thoughtful in your writing and show that you’ve done the assigned reading. Avoid thinkpieces that merely state “XYZ was interesting.” Wherever possible, cite the course materials. (Check out the thinkpiece rubric for a guide to what you should be shooting for.) Aside from that, the format is up to you. Be creative. Take risks. Use The Force.

You’re not required to respond to other students’ posts, but please feel welcome to!

To do well in the course, you must:

1. Come to class. Attendance will form a significant part of your grade, and The Management will be practicing Random Acts of Attendance-Taking. More on this later.
2. Complete the readings by the time indicated in the syllabus! Stay awake during class! Come to class having thought about the material, made notes of what interested or perplexed you, and ready to actively discuss it with your instructor and colleagues! Laugh at The Management’s jokes!
3. Submit thoughtful weekly thinkpieces, thoughtfully, to WebCT on time (and thoughtfully). Avoid, “I thought Woman Wang was cool. The End.” kinds of thinkpieces. They need not be more than a paragraph or so, but some brain-muscle into it.
4. Complete all of the written assignments on time: the four short quizzes, a take-home midterm examination, and a final portfolio assignment.

The grading will be assessed as follows:

Participation online and in class (including thinkpieces and attendance): 30%

Quizzes (map quiz, date quiz, and 2 reading quizzes): 20%

Take-home midterm exam: 25%

Final portfolio, revision of 5 thinkpieces plus introduction: 25%

Unknown

• Susan Whitfied, Life Along the Silk Road
• Jonathan Spence, The Death of Woman Wang
• Mark Elliot, Emperor Qianlong: Son of Heaven, Man of the World
• Joanna Waley-Cohen, The Sextants of Beijing

Smell

Fishy

• No readings

Musk

• Susan Whitfied, Life Along the Silk Road: “The Merchant’s Tale” (27-54), “The Soldier’s Tale” (55-75), “The Horseman’s Tale” (76-94),
• Valerie Hansen, The Open Empire, “Chapter 5: China’s Golden Age (589-755)” 191-291

Week 2 Thinkpiece due

Camphor

• Susan Whitfied, Life Along the Silk Road: “The Princess’s Tale” (95-112), “The Courtesan’s Tale” (138-154), “The Dancing Horses of Xuanzang’s Court” (123-124)

Incense

• Han Yu (768-824), “A memorial on the Relic of the Buddha” (355-358)
• Ballads and Stories from Dunhauang (1078-1110)
• Susan Whitfied, Life Along the Silk Road: “The Monk’s Tale” (113-137), “The Nun’s Tale” (155-173), “The Artist’s Tale” (206-222)

Week 3 Thinkpiece due

Perfume

• No reading due, but will read sections from Tang poets in class

In class: Map Quiz

Taste

Sweet

• Hansen, “Chapter 7: Coming to Terms with Money: The Song Dynasty (960-1276)”, 260-297
• Li Qingzhao’s Epilogue to Records on Metal and Stone (591-596)
• Hong Mai, “Women and the Problems They Create” (164-168)

Week 4 Thinkpiece due

Bitter

• Su Shi (1037-1101), “Parable of the Sun” (388-389)
• Zhu Xi (1130-1200), Conversations with his Disciples (172-177)
• Wang Anshi selections (609-628)

Drunken

• Meng Yuanlao, A Dream of Splendors Past in the Eastern Capital 1117-1125 (405-422) or “The Attractions of the Capital” (178-185)
• Ouyang Xiu (1007-1072), “An Account of the Pavilion of the Drunken Old Man” (613-614)
• Su Shi, Shi Cang-shu’s “Hall of Drunken Ink, 1068” (640-641)

Week 5 Thinkpiece due

Salty

• Hansen, “Chapter 9: The Mongols ca 1200-1368” (334-367)

Sour

• Ni Zan, Cloud Forest Hall Collection of Rules for Drinking and Eating (selection, 444-455)
• A Soup for the Qan (selection)

In Class: Reading Quiz 1

Week 6 Thinkpiece due

Sound

Clang Clang

• Hansen, “Chapter 10: Continuing the War Against the Mongols: The Ming Dynasty 1368-1644” (368-407)

Tick Tock

• No readings due

Week 7 Thinkpiece due

Clap Clap

• Schools and Civil Service in the Ming Dynasty (494-504)
• Wang Yangming (1472-1529), “Inquiry on the Great Learning” (458-460)
• Notes and letters of Wang Yangming and Li Zhi (256-262)

Sing Sing

• Feng Menglong, Preface to the Mountain Songs (539-542)
• Tang Xianzu, Peony Pavilion (selections)
• Li Yu, Silent Operas (selections

Touch

Wet

• No readings due

Week 9 Thinkpiece (on Jonathan Spence) due

Sharp

• Jonathan Spence, The Death of Woman Wang

Hard

• Qing examinations (120-128)
• Benjamin Elman, A Cultural History of Civil Examinations in Late Imperial China, Ch. 6 (295-370)

In class: dynastic dates quiz

Smooth

• Joanna Waley-Cohen, The Sextants of Beijing, Chapters 2 & 3

Week 11 Thinkpiece Due

Sight

Body

• No readings due, look at the Manchu Anatomy and Kangxi in class

Line

• No readings due, look at Qing court painters in class

Week 12 Thinkpiece (on Mark Elliott) due

Color

• Mark Elliott, Emperor Qianlong (selections)

Shine

• No readings due, Hay and Cahill and objects

In class: reading quiz 2

Conclusion

• Joanna Waley-Cohen, The Sextants of Beijing, Chapter 4