Course Description
An examination of the interaction of material and monetary exchange and Chinese literary, visual, and performance culture.
Additional Requirements for Graduate Students:
Graduate students will complete additional readings and a
substantive research paper. Graduate students choose a topic for
research in consultation with the instructor. For graduate
credit, students are required to produce a substantive research
paper of publishable quality based on appropriate primary and
secondary source materials. Additional reading for graduate
students (reading not assigned to the undergraduates in the
course) will vary depending on the student project and will be
selected in consultation with the instructor. Typically, reading
runs to several hundred pages and completed research papers are
about 20-30 pages in length. In addition, graduate students do a
formal oral presentation of the results of their research to the
class as a whole.
Athena Title
Business in China
Semester Course Offered
Offered fall
Grading System
A - F (Traditional)
Course Objectives
Through an exploration of literary, philosophical, religious, and historical materials,students will become familiar with core conceptions about business and the function of trade in traditional and modern China. Centering on critical exploration of cultural productions, including text, performance, visual arts, and film, students will be expected to analyze and produce well-founded arguments using diverse sources.
Topical Outline
Possible units for this course include: 1) the image of the merchant from early to modern times, 2) philosophical and ethical dimensions of trade in China, 3) the impact of material and monetary exchange on the production of literary, dramatic, and visual works, 4) conflicting models of trade in 20th-century China.