Course Description
Major sources, ideas, and institutions of Chinese tradition.
Athena Title
INTRO CHINESE CIV
Prerequisite
Permission of Honors
Semester Course Offered
Offered every year.
Grading System
A - F (Traditional)
Course Objectives
This course is designed to introduce students to major sources, ideas, and institutions of Chinese tradition. In general students will be expected to: 1. read a wide range of primary and secondary sources critically 2. polish skills in critical thinking, including the ability to recognize the difference between opinion and evidence, and the ability to evaluate--and support or refute--arguments effectively 3. write papers using processes that include discovering ideas and evidence, organizing that material, and revising, editing, and polishing the finished papers
Topical Outline
1. Shang Oracle Bone Inscriptions 2. Zhou Political Theory and Rhetoric: The Book of Documents 3. Ancient Chinese Poetics 4. Intellectual Foundations 5. The Qin Dynasty: Legalism in Action 6. Han Historiography: Sima Qian’s Records of the Grand Historian 7. Han Thought and Literature: Cosmic Kingship and Imperial Autocracy 8. The Age of Disunion: Daoism as Salvationist Religion 9. The Age of Disunion: Medieval Poetics 10. Chinese Buddhism: The Heart Sutra and The Lotus Sutra 11. The Splendors of Tang Poetry 1: Wang Wei and Li Bai 12. Late Tang Thought: Nativism and Xenophobia 13. Northern Song Thought: Reforming Idealism 14. Southern Song Thought: True Way Learning 15. Song Poetry and Prose 16. Yuan Drama and Poetry: Voices Calling from the Street 17. Ming Thought: Thought in Action 18. Ming Fiction: Comic Buddhist Epic and Scathing Social Satire 19. Qing Fiction and Memoirs: Self-Consciousness 20. The Late Nineteenth Century: The Imperial Order in Collapse 21. The Early Twentieth Century: Reconstructing Culture and Nation 22. Competing Visions of Modern China: Chinese Nationalism and Maoism
Syllabus