Sukhee Lee
Course proposal for Fall 2010
Tentative Title:
Chinese Renaissance: History of China, 1000-1400
The Chinese civilization is the oldest civilization in the world that still exists today. But its
glorious, long history has also been interpreted as a sign of its fundamental stagnation. The
German philosopher Hegel, for example, once described China as “the empire of duration.” But
the very fact that the Chinese empire continued to prosper for such a long period shows that its
history underwent a series of significant transformations to adjust to the change of time. One of
the most important of all is what scholars call the Tang-Song transition, which has been thought
to be the beginning of its “early modern” era. The period witnesses the end of medieval
aristocracy, the restructuring of imperial power vis-à-vis society, and the growth of vernacular
culture. Woodblock printing, sailor’s compass, and gunpowder were invented in China during
this period. The commercialization of the economy and the urbanization of society that took
place in this period were unprecedented not only in China but also in the rest of the world.
Moreover, against the prevalent Buddhist and Daoist philosophies, a new, radical
reinterpretation of Confucian classics appeared and eventually established itself as a new state
orthodoxy that lasted for 700 years until the early 20th century. In this class, we explore social,
cultural, and intellectual changes of this important period in Chinese history.
This course is designed as a 300-level history course. Through the course, students are
expected to read about 80 to 100 pages a week and to develop a skill of thinking through
primary sources and of evaluating the quality of scholarly works. Some knowledge of Chinese
history will definitely help, but is not imperative. Those who are not familiar with basic narrative
of Chinese history during this period are strongly encouraged to read Frederick Mote’s Imperial
China.
books to be purchased
William Theodore de Bary et al., Sources of Chinese Tradition, vol. 1, 2nd edition (New York:
Columbia University Press, 2000)
*Jacque Gernet, Daily Life in China on the Eve of the Mongol Invasion, 1250-1276 (Stanford:
Stanford University Press, 1962)
Dieter Kuhn, The Age of Confucian Rule: The Song Transformation of China (Cambridge:
Harvard University Press, 2009)
*Morris Rossabi, Khubilai Khan: His Life and Times (Berkeley: University of California Press,
1988)
*Sarah Schneewind, A Tale of Two Melons: Emperor and Subject in Ming China (Indianapolis:
Hackett, 2006)
Books under asterisk (*) are for book review
Grading
Class attendance and participation
10%
1
Weekly response paper (based on an analysis of primary texts assigned)
20%
Two book reviews (double-spaced, typed, and 5-7 page)
20% each
Choose two books from below
1. Jacque Gernet, Daily Life in China on the Eve of the Mongol Invasion, 1250-1276
2. Sarah Schneewind, A Tale of Two Melons: Emperor and Subject in Ming China
3. Morris Rossabi, Khubilai Khan: His Life and Times
Final exam
30%
Weekly Schedule
Week 1 Issues and Perspective
Week 2 The Tang-Song Transition
Robert Hartwell, “Demographic, Political, and Social Transformations of China, 750-1550,”
Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 42.2 (1982): 365-442.
Peter Bol, Neo-Confucianism in History (Cambridge: Harvard University Asia Center, 2008),
Chapter 1 “The New World of the Eleventh Century: 750 and 1050 Compared.”
**selected primary sources will be added later.
Week 3 “Medieval” Economic Revolution in China: Commerce and Urbanization
Mark Elvin, The Pattern of the China’s Past (Stanford: Stanford University, 1973): 113-178.
Shiba Yoshinobu, Commerce and Society in Sung China (Ann Arbor: The University of
Michigan, 1970): 202-213
Week 4 Reform and Its Critics
James T. C. Liu, Reform in Sung China: Wang An-shih (1021-1086) and His New Policies
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1959): 80-113.
Peter Bol, “Government, Society, and State: On the Political Visions of Ssu-ma Kuang and
Wang An-shih,” in Ordering the World: Approaches to State and Society in Sung Dynasty
China, ed. Robert P. Hymes and Conrad Schirokauer (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1993): 128-192.
Week 5 Examinations and Orthodoxy
John Chaffee, The Thorny Gate of Learning in Sung China, 2nd edition (Albany: The State
University of New York Press, 1995),157-181.
Peter Bol, “Examinations and Orthodoxies: 1070 and 1313 Compared,” in Culture and State in
Chinese History, ed. Theodore Huters et al. (Berkeley: The University of California Press,
1997): 29-57.
Benjamin Elman, “Political, Social, and Cultural Reproduction via Civil Service Examinations in
Late Imperial China,” The Journal of Asian Studies 50.1 (Feb., 1991): 7-28.
Week 6 Rethinking Conquest Dynasties
Herbert Franke and Denis Twitchett, “Introduction,” in Cambridge History of China vol. 6 Alien
regimes and border states, 907-1368 (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1994):
1-42.
John Dardess, “Did the Mongols Matter? Territory, Power, and the Intelligentsia in China from
the Northern Song to the Early Ming,” in The Song-Yuan-Ming Transition in Chinese
History, ed. Paul Jakov Smith and Richard von Glahn (Cambridge: Harvard University Asia
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Center, 2003): 111-134.
Week 7 Law and Order: Ideal and Practices
Miyazaki Ichisada, “The Administration of Justice during the Sung Dynasty,” in Essays on
China’s Legal Tradition, ed. Jerome Cohen et al. (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1980)
Paul Heng-chao Ch’en, Chinese Legal Tradition under the Mongols: The Code of 1291 as
Reconstructed (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979): 41-98.
Selections from The Enlightened Judgments: Ch’ing-ming chi The Song Dynasty Collection
(Albany: The State University of New York Press, 1999)
Week 8 The Family
Denis Twitchett, “The Fan Clan’s Charitable Easte, 1050-1760,” in Confucianism in Action, ed.
David Nivison and Arthur Wright (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1959): 97-133.
Patricia Ebrey, trans. Chu Hsi’s “Family Rituals”: A Twelfth-Century Manual for the Performance
of Cappings, Weddings, Funerals, and Ancestral Rites (Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 1991) “Introduction.”
John Dardess, “The Cheng Communal Family: Social Organization and Neo-Confucianism in
Yuan and Early Ming China,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 34 (1974): 7-52.
Week 9 Gender
Patricia Ebrey, “Gender and Sinology: Shifting Western Interpretations of Footbinding, 13001890,” in Women and the Family in Chinese History (London: Routledge, 2003): 194-219.
Bettine Birge, “Chu Hsi and Women’s Education,” in Neo-Confucian Education: The Formative
Stage, ed. Wm. Theodore de Bary and John W. Chaffee (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1989): 325-361.
Bettine Birge, “Women and Confucianism from Song to Ming: The Institutionalization of
Patrilineality,” in The Song-Yuan-Ming Transition in Chinese History, 212-40.
Week 10 Technology and Warfare
Mark Elvin, The Pattern of the Chinese Past, 179-199.
Peter Lorge, War, Politics and Society in Early Modern China 900-1795 (New York: Routledge,
2005), 39-118.
Week 11 Art and Literature
Susan Bush, The Chinese Literati on Painting: Su Shih (1037-1101) to Tung Ch’i-ch’ang (15551636) (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1971), 118-150.
Michael Fuller, “Pursuing the Complete Bamboo in the Breast: Reflections on a Classical
Chinese Image for Immediacy,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 53.1 (Jun., 1993)
Alice Wen-chuen Cheang, “Poetry, Politics, and Philosophy: Su Shih as the Man of Eastern
Slope,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 53.2 (Dec., 1993)
Week 12 Intellectual Movement of Neo-Confucianism
Wm. Theodore de Bary, “A Reappraisal of Neo-Confucianism,” in Studies in Chinese Thought,
ed., Arthur F. Wright (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1953): 81-111.
Daniel K. Gardner, Learning to Be a Sage (Berkeley: The University of California Press, 1990):
3-81.
Week 13 Social Agenda of Neo-Confucianism
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Richard von Glahn, “Community and Welfare: Chu Hsi’s Community Granary in Theory and
Practice,” in Ordering the World, 221-254.
Peter Bol, Neo-Confucianism in History, 218-269.
Week 14 New Forms of Local Religion
B. J. ter Haar, The White Lotus Teachings in Chinese Religious History (Honolulu: University of
Hawaii Press, 1999), 16-63.
Richard von Glahn, The Sinister Way: The Divine and the Demonic in Chinese Religious
Culture (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004), 130-179.
Week 15 The Yuan-Ming Transition
Edward Farmer, “Social Regulations of the First Ming Emperor: Orthodoxy as a Function of
Authority,” in Orthodoxy in Late Imperial China, ed. Kwang-ching Liu (Berkeley: University
of California Press, 1990):103-125.
John Dardess, “Confucianism, Local Reform, ,” in Yuan Thought
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