HSTAS 452

Chinese History to 1276

Instructor: Patricia Ebrey

Office: 112A Smith 685-1528

Office hours: Wednesday 1:30 to 3:30 or by appointment

Email: ebrey@u.washington.edu

This lecture-discussion class will cover Chinese history from the beginning through the Song dynasty, with more time devoted to the later period. Intellectual, social, cultural, and political history will all be treated, though not equally for all periods. About one-third to one-half of the time will be devoted to discussion of assigned readings. Students will be divided into groups, each of which will be responsible for organizing discussion of one set of readings.

Grades will be based on two quizzes (identifications and short answer questions), two papers, and participation in discussion. The final grade will be the average of the grades for the two essays, two quizzes, and class participation (that is, each will count for 20% of the grade).

Required texts available in the bookstore:

Conrad Schirokauer and Miranda Brown, A Brief History of Chinese Civilization (2^nd ed., 2006)

Packet of readings for sale at UW bookstore

Papers

The first paper (4-6 pages) asks you to analyze the approaches of historians to China through the Han period on the basis of the assigned readings. You are encouraged to keep a journal of your reading as you go along so that you can cite examples from a large share of the readings. Questions to keep in mind as you read are: What questions does the author ask? How does he or she go about trying to answer them? What kinds of sources are used most extensively? You should keep your eyes open to differing perspectives, including differences in assumptions. In the essay, you can bring in examples from the textbook as well as the more scholarly works, and should aim to demonstrate that you have done the readings thoughtfully and are able to read one text against another. The essay will be graded on both how well it is written and the command of the material that it demonstrates

The second paper asks the same question of post-Han through Song period and can be somewhat longer (5-8 pages).

Week 0 9/27 Introduction

Week 1 10/2 Neolithic, Shang, and Zhou Periods

Schirokauer and Brown, 3-35

David Keightley, “Early Civilization in China: Reflections on How It Became Chinese,” in Heritage of China (University of California Press, 1990), 15-54.

Thorp and Vinograd, “The Late Bronze Age: Eastern Zhou,” in Chinese Art and Culture (Abrams, 2001), 89-117

10/4 Confucius

Selections from Sources of Chinese Tradition (Columbia University Press, 1999), pp 45-63

Benjamin I. Schwartz, The World of Thought in Ancient China (1985), pp. 56-134.

Week 2 10/9 Mozi, Mencius

Schirokauer and Brown, 35-45

Selections from Hawaii Reader in Traditional Chinese Culture (University of Hawaii Press, 2005), 51-62.

10/11 Daoism

Selections from Sources of Chinese Tradition (Columbia University Press, 1999), pp. 76-111.

A. C. Graham, Disputers of the Tao (1989), pp. 170-234.

Week 3 10/16 Xunzi, Legalism, and Qin

Schirokauer and Brown, 46-55

Selections from Hawaii Reader in Traditional Chinese Culture (University of Hawaii Press, 2005), 121-29, 137-46.

Lothar Ledderose, “A Magic Army for the Emperor,” in Ten Thousand Things (Princeton University Press, 2000), 51-73.

No class on 10/18

Week 4 10/23 Han Dynasty

Schirokauer and Brown, 54-81

Michael Loewe, Imperial China (Praeger, 1966, George Allen and Unwin, 1965), 150-85

10/25 Xiongnu

Barfield, Perilous Frontier (Blackwell, 1989), 1-84

Week 5 10/30 Han Thought and Religion

Grant Hardy, Worlds of Bronze and Bamboo: Sima Qian’s Conquest of History (Columbia UP, 1999), xi-60.

11/1 Buddhism

Schirokauer and Brown, 85-88

T. H. Barrett, “Religious Traditions in Chinese Civilization: Buddhism and Taoism.”Heritage of China (University of California Press, 1990), pp. 138-63

“The Earliest Tales of the Bodhisattva Guanshiyin,” in Religions of China in Practice (Princeton University Press, 1996), 82-96.

Week 6 11/6

First Quiz Paper 1 due

11/8

Six Dynasties

Schirokauer and Brown, 88-105

Albert Dien, “Yen Chih-t’ui (531-591+): A Buddho-Confucian,” in Confucian Personalities (Stanford University Press, 1962), 43-64, 328-334.

The Family Instructions for the Yen Clan, trans. Teng Ssu-yu (Leiden: Brill, 1968), 1-21, 137-52.

Week 7 11/13 Early Tang

Schirokauer and Brown, 107-123

David A. Graff, Medieval Chinese Warfare, 300-900 (Routledge, 2002), 183-226.

11/15 Late Tang

Schirokauer and Brown, 123-48

Denis Twitchett, “Merchants, Trade and Government in Late T’ang.” Asia Major N. S. 14.1 (1968.): 63-95.

Week 8 11/20 Song and Economic Growth

Schirokauer and Brown, 137-48

Robert Hartwell, “A Revolution in the Chinese Iron and Coal Industries in the Northern Sung, 960-1126 A.D.” Journal of Asian Studies 21.1(1962):153-62.

“Recollections of the Northern Song Capital,” in Hawaii Reader in Traditional Chinese Culture (University of Hawaii Press, 2005), 405-22.

Week 9 11/27 The Examination System,

James T. C. Liu, “An Early Sung Reformer: Fan Chung-yen,” Chinese Thought and Institutions (University of Chicago Press, 1957), 105-31.

Chaffee, Thorny Gates of Learning (Cambridge University Press, 1985), pp. 3-65, 157-81.

11/29 The Song Literati and Political Culture

Schirokauer and Brown, 148-67

Patricia Ebrey, “Women, Money, and Class: Sima Guang and Song Neo-Confucian Views on Women,” in Women and the Family in Chinese History (Routledge, 1992), 10-38.

Charles Hartman, “Poetry and Politics in 1079: The Crow Terrace Poetry Case of Su Shih,” CLEAR 12 (1990):15-44.

Week 10 12/4 Song Intellectual History

Wing-tsit Chan, “Chu Hsi’s Completion of Neo-Confucianism,” in Chu Hsi: Life and Thought (The Chinese University Press, 1987), 103-38.

Daniel Gardner, The Four Books (Hackett, 2007), 107-29.

12/6 Second Quiz FINAL ESSAY DUE

Study Guide

Terms/names to know for the first quiz

Analects Ancestor worship bodhisattva Book of Documents Book of Songs Changan Chu Confucius Daoism Dong Zhongshu Duke of Zhou Eastern Zhou Emperor Wu Eunuchs Filial piety First Emperor of Qin Five Agents Five Relationships

Former Han Four Noble Truths Great Wall Han Feizi Lao Zi Later Han Legalism Li Si Liu Bang Luoyang Mahayana Mandate of Heaven Mencius Mo Zi Oracle bones/divination texts qi Qin ren

Shang bronzes Shang dynasty shi Sima Qian Son of Heaven Songs of Chu Spring and Autumn Period Wang Mang Warring States Period the Way (Dao) Western Zhou Xiongnu Yellow Turbans Zhang Qian Zhou dynasty Zhuang Zi

Sample short answer questions for the first quiz:

1. What features of early Chinese civilization did China acquire from beyond East Asia?

2. Discuss the place of Heaven in early Chinese thought.

3. What are the main questions Confucius addressed? What are some examples of ones he did not address?

4. How valid or useful is it to talk about “Daoism”? How much do the Zhuangzi and the Laozi have in common?

5. What elements in Xunzi’s thought can be considered a response to a) Daoism, b) Mohism, c) Legalism, d) Mencius?

6. How is it that law has such a good name in Western civilization and such a bad one in Chinese?

7. How much of what occurred during the Qin should be attributed to the megalomania of the First Emperor?

8. What are the most important differences between Han institutions and Qin ones?

9. Which features of Buddhism were most foreign to prior Chinese experience?

10. Given that Confucianism was such a useful ideology for rulers, why did Chinese rulers become major patrons of Buddhism?

Terms/names to know for second quiz

An Lushan Bodhidharma Champa rice Chan Cheng brothers Cheng Yi Dunhuang Emperor Xuanzong Empress Wu Emperor Huizong Equal field system Examination system Fan Zhongyan Five Dynasties Han Yu Hangzhou Huineng

Kaifeng Jin dynasty Jinshi Jurchen Kaifeng karma Khitan li and qi Liao dynasty Neo-Confucianism New Policies Nine Rank System Northern Dynasties Northern Wei Northern Song Pure Land Salt monopoly

Sima Guang Southern Dynasties Southern Song Su Shi Sui dynasty Tang Tangut Three Kingdoms Turks Uighurs Wang Anshi Xianbei Xuanzong Xuanzang Yang Guifei Zhu Xi

Sample questions:

1. Imagine you are a Confucian-educated Chinese advisor to one of the early Northern Wei rulers. How would you try to convince him to adopt various Chinese bureaucratic practices? 3. What are the major differences between the Han and the Tang periods?

2. What does the story of Empress Wu reveal about the Tang government and power structure?

3. What are the most important ways in which the Liao and Jin states differed from tribal confederacies like the Xiongnu?

4. Would the economic changes of the Song period have likely improved the lives of ordinary people?

5. What explanation can you offer for the intensity of factional strife in the Northern Song?

6. Why do historians see the late Tang as a major turning point in Chinese history?

7. What was particularly new about Neo-Confucianism or the Learning of the Way?