This semester Dr. Thomas Lee of City College (and of course the GC) will be offering a survey course on "pre-modern" Chinese History. Those of you are interested please register early so we can be certain that the course will run. Below is a preliminary syllabus.
Hist. 77900 - History of Pre-Modern China
Instructor: Thomas H. C. Lee, (City)
Ph.D. Program, The Graduate Center, CUNY
We shall use the following two textbooks:
Conrad Schirokauer: A Brief History of Chinese Civilization
Patricia B. Ebrey: Cambridge Illustrated History of China
de Bary ed.: Sources of Chinese Tradition, vol. 1
A student typically will be expected to read about 80 to 100 pp. per week.
This Survey of Chinese history will concentrate mainly on intellectual and cultural aspects of Chinese history from the beginning of its written records to the end of the Ming Dynasty (mid-seventeenth century). There will be fourteen meetings. The class will be a mixture of lectures and discussions. Each week, the instructor will do a one-hour lecture, to be followed by another for discussion.
There will be a mid-term of about 45minutes. The students will be tested of basic knowledge of Chinese history, with 25 multiple-choice questions. This will make up 25 % of your overall grade. Students are required to submit a proposal-outline of the final paper by Tuesday, April 19 and submit the completed paper by Tuesday, May 17th (last class day). This will make up 50% of your final grade.
Performance in the class will make up 15% and attendance 10% of the final grade.
SYLLABUS for Spring 2005
February 1: Introductory Remarks; Salient Features of the Chinese Civilization:
February 8: Ancient China:
Legends of Ancient Chinese History
The Significance of the “Sandai”
The Creation of the Chinese “State”
February 15: Confucius and the Formation of the Chinese Culture:
Confucius: the man and the thought
The Analects: the book and the heritage
February 22: Mencius and Xunzi:
The men and the books
The idea of “human nature” (xing) in Ancient China
The problem of “materialism”
March 1: Other Ancient Chinese Thinkers (III):
Laozi and his book
Zhuangzi, skepticism, and escapism
The Daoist tradition
March 8: Other Ancient Chinese Thinkers (II):
Mozi’s thought, Mozi’s Ai (love) and Christian love compared
The Legalists/fajia
The Naturalists/Yinyangjia and the idea of “Five Phases” (Wuxing)
March 15: Also the Other Ancient Chinese Ideas:
Shangdi and God
The Ideas of Resonance/Correlation
The Formation of Chinese Confucian Classics
March 22: The Qin and Han Empires:
Political and social history
Filial piety and its significance in Chinese society
Han Confucianism and education
April 4: The Period of Disunity:
Political and social history
The Introduction of Buddhism and its influences
