Winter 2005
HSTAS 551
Field Course in Chinese History to 1276
Instructor:
Patricia Ebrey
112A Smith, 685-1528
Office hours: Tuesday, 3:30 to 4:30, Wednesday 1:00 to 2:00, or by appointment
The goal of this “field” course is to help you gain familiarity with the English-language scholarship on the Tang and Song periods, especially the scholarship since 1980. We begin by taking a look at three of the most important scholars active earlier, in the 1960s and 1970s, and discuss the issues and approaches that engaged them and how those changed over time. Next we turn to subfields, in each case reading two or three articles together and taking quick looks at the listed books marked with asterisks, which are on reserve in the Asian Library (plan to spend about 20 minutes with each book).
All of the articles for common reading are in a packet available at Rams.
Assignments:
1. Bibliographical essay on a field of scholarship, either as broad as the topics in the syllabus, or somewhat narrower (such as economic history or intellectual history), but not too narrow (not studies of Zhu Xi or studies of Fujian). The topic must be approved in advance, if possible by the second week. The aim of the bibliographical essay is to assess the state of scholarship in the field, the dominant approaches or theoretical frameworks, the key issues, the most influential books or articles, and so on. DO NOT LIMIT YOURSELF TO THE BOOKS LISTED UNDER A TOPIC BELOW, BUT DEVELOP YOUR OWN READING LIST, INCLUDING ARTICLES AND POSSIBLY OLDER WORKS IF NEEDED TO UNDERSTAND MAJOR CONTROVERSIES. Bring copies of your reading list to distribute to the class on the week you make your oral presentation. Target length: 15-20 pages. Oral presentation of the main themes of the report in the appropriate week. Target length: 15 minutes.
Grading: Participation in class discussions 25%
Two oral book reports 25%
Bibliographical essay 50%
Week 1 Jan 6 Introduction
Week 2 Jan 13 Founders of the field: Denis Twitchett
BRING CHOICES FOR ORAL BOOK REVIEWS AND BIBLIOGRAPHICAL
ESSAY
“Chinese Social History from
the Seventh to the Tenth Centuries: The Tunhuang Documents and Their
Implications.” Past and Present 35 (1966): 28-53.
“The Composition of the Tang Ruling Class.” In Arthur F. Wright and Denis C. Twitchett, ed. Perspectives on the T’ang. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1973.
“Criminal Procedure in T’ang China,” with Wallace Johnson, Asia Major 6.2 (1993), 113-46.
Week 3 Jan 20 Founders of the field: James Liu 劉子健
“Eleven-Century Chinese
Bureaucrats: Some Historical Classifications and Behavioral Types.” Administrative
Science Quarterly 4.2 (1959): 207-26.
“Yüeh Fei (1107-1141) and China's Image of Loyalty.” Journal of
Asian Studies 30.2 (1972): 291-97.
“Polo and Cultural Change: From T'ang to Sung China.” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 45.1 (1985): 203-24.
Week 4 Jan 27 Founders of the field: Robert Hartwell
“A Revolution in the Chinese Iron and Coal Industries During
the Northern Sung, 960-1127.” Journal of Asian Studies 21.2(1961-1962):
153-62.
“Historical Analogism, Public Policy, and Social Science in
Eleventh- and Twelfth-Century China, 750-1350.” The American Historical
Review 76 (1971): 690-727.
“Demographic, Political, and
Social Transformations of China, 750-1550.” Harvard Journal of Asiatic
Studies 42.2 (1982): 365-442.
Week 5 Feb 3 Religion and Ritual
Common reading:
Levering, Miriam. 1999. “Miao-tao and Her Teacher Ta-hui.” In Peter N. Gregory, and Daniel A. Getz, ed., Buddhism in the Sung. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.
Teiser, Stephen F. 1993. “The Growth of Purgatory,” in Patricia Buckley Ebrey and Peter Gregory, ed. Religion and Society in T’ang and Sung China. University of Hawaii Press. 115-45.
Books on reserve:
Weinstein, Stanley. 1987. Buddhism Under the T’ang. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Teiser, Stephen F. 1988. The Ghost Festival in Medieval China. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
*Hansen, Valerie. 1990. Changing
Gods in Medieval China, 1127-1276. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
*Ebrey, Patricia Buckley, and Peter Gregory , ed. 1993. Religion and Society in T’ang and Sung China.. University of Hawaii Press.
Dudbridge, Glen. 1995. Religious Experience and Lay Society in T’ang China: A reading of Tai Fu’s Kuang-I chi. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Gernet, Jacques. 1995. Buddhism in Chinese Society: An Economic History from the Fifth to the Tenth Centuries. Trans. Franciscus Verellen. New York: Columbia University Press.
Kieschnick, John. 1997. The Eminent Monk: Buddhist Ideals in Medieval Chinese Historiography. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.
Gregory, Peter N. and Daniel A. Getz. 1999. Buddhism in the Sung. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.
*Davis, Edward L. 2001. Society and the Supernatural in Song China. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.
*Hymes, Robert. 2002. Way and Byway: Taoism, Local Religion, and Models of Divinity in Sung and Modern China. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Kieschnick, John. 2003. The Impact of Buddhism on Chinese Material Culture. Princeton: Princeton University Press
Von Glahn, Richard. 2004. The Sinister Way: The Divine and the Demonic in Chinese Religious Culture. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Ning Qiang. 2004. Art, Religion & Politics in Medieval China: The Dunhuang Cave of the Zhai Family. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.
Week 6 Feb 10 Intellectual and cultural history; the intersection of literature and history
Common reading:
Owen, Stephen. 1986. “The
Snares if Memory,” in Remembrances. The Experience of the Past in Classical
Chinese Literature. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Pp. 80-98.
Lee, Thomas H. C. 2004. “History, Erudition and Good Government: Cheng Ch’iao and Encyclopedic historical Thinking,” in Thomas H.C. Lee,, ed., The New and the Multiple: Sung Sense of the Past. Hong Kong: Chinese University of Hong Kong Press. 163-200
Books on reserve:
Hartman,
Charles. 1986. Han Yu and the T’ang Search for Unity. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
*McMullen, David L. 1988. State
and Scholars in T'ang China. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
De Bary, Wm. Theodore and
John Chaffee, eds. 1989. Neo-Confucian Education: The Formative Stage.
Berkeley: University of California Press.
*Bol, Peter K.
1992. "This Culture of Ours":
Intellectual Transitions in T'ang and Sung China. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Chen, Jo-shui. 1992. Liu Tsung-yuan and Intellectual Change in
T’ang China, 773-819. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Tillman, Hoyt Cleveland. 1992. Confucian Discourse and Chu Hsi’s Ascendancy. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.
Barrett, T. H. 1992. Li Ao: Buddhist, Taoist, or Neo-Confucian?. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Egan, Ronald C. 1994. Word, Image, and Deed in the Life of Su Shi. Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University.
Wyatt, Don J.
1996. The Recluse of Loyang: Shao
Yung and the Moral Evolution of Early Sung Thought.
Walton, Linda A. 1999. Academies
and Society in Southern Sung China. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.
DeBlasi, Anthony. 2002. Reform
in the Balance: The Defense of Literary Culture in Mid-Tang China. Albany: SUNY Press.
Lee, Thomas H.C., ed. 2004. The
New and the Multiple: Sung Sense of the Past. Hong Kong: Chinese University
of Hong Kong Press.
Week 7 Feb 17 Political, institutional, and diplomatic history
Common reading:
Herbert Franke. 1974. “Seige
and Defense of Towns in Medieval China.” In Chinese Ways in Warfare.
eds. Frank A. Jr. Kierman, and John King Fairbank, 151-201. Harvard East Asian
Series, 74. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Pan Yihong. 1997. “Marriage
Alliances and Chinese Princesses in International Politics from Han Through
T’ang.” Asia Major 3rd ser. 10:95-131.
McKnight, Brian E. 1987. “From Statute to Precedent: An Introduction to Sung Law and Its Transformation.” In Law and the State in Traditional East Asia, ed. Brian E. McKnight. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. Pp. 111-31.
Books on reserve:
Twitchett, Denis. 1979. The Cambridge History of China, vol. 3 Sui and T’ang China, 598-906, Part 1. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Morris Rossabi, ed. 1983. China Among Equals: The Middle
Kingdom and Its Neighbors, 10th-14th Centuries. ed. Berkeley, Los Angeles
and London: University of California Press.
*Wechsler, Howard. 1985. Offerings of Jade and Silk. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Lo, Winston. 1987. An
Introduction to the Civil Service of Sung China, with an Emphasis on Its
Personnel Administration. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.
Tao, Jing-shen. 1988. Two Sons of
Heaven: Studies in Sung-Liao Relations. Tucson: University of Arizona
Press.
Smith, Paul. 1991. Taxing
Heaven's Storehouse: Bureaucratic
Entrepreneurship and the Sichuan Tea and Horse Trade, 1074-1224. Cambridge,
Mass.: Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University.
*Brian McKnight. 1992. Law and Order in Sung China.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Twitchett, Denis. 1992. The Writing of Official History
Under the T’ang. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Franke, Herbert, and Denis Twitchett, ed. 1994. The
Cambridge History of China, Vol. 6, Alien Regimes and Border States, 907-1368.
Cambridge, Eng.: Cambridge University Press.
Davis, Richard L. 1996. Wind Against the Mountain: The
Crisis of Politics and Culture in Thirteenth-Century China. Cambridge:
Harvard Council on East Asian Studies.
Chaffee, John W. 1999. Branches
of Heaven: A History of the Imperial Clan of Sung China. Cambridge: Harvard
University Asia Center.
*Graf, David A. 2002. Medieval Chinese Warfare, 300-900.
London: Routledge.
Week 8 Feb 24 Bureaucratic careers, elite studies
Common reading:
Hartman, Charles. 1990. "Poetry and Politics in 1079: The Crow Terrace Poetry Case of Su Shih." CLEAR 12:15-44.
Hymes, Robert P. 1986. “Marriage, Descent Groups, and the Localist Strategy in Sung and Yuan Fu-chou,” in Patricia Buckley Ebrey and James L. Watson, eds., Kinship Organization in Late Imperial China 1000-1940. Berkeley: University of California Press. Pp. 95-136.
Books on reserve:
*Chaffee, John W. 1985. The Thorny Gates of Learning in Sung China: A Social History of Examinations. Cambridge University Press.
*Hymes, Robert P. 1986.
Statesmen and Gentlemen: The
Elite of Fu-chou, Chiang-hsi, in Northern and Southern Sung. Cambridge and
New York: Cambridge University Press.
Davis, Richard L. 1986.
Court and Family in Sung China, 960-1279: Bureaucratic Success and Kinship Fortunes for the Shih of
Ming-chou. Durham: Duke University Press.
Herbert, P.A. 1988. Examine the Honest, Appraise the Able. Canberra: Australian National University Faculty of Asian Studies.
*Hymes, Robert and Conrad Schirokauer, eds.1993. Ordering
the World: Approaches to State and Society in Sung Dynasty China. Berkeley:
University of California Press.
*Bossler, Beverly J. 1998. Powerful Relations: Kinship, Status, and the State in Sung China (960-1279). Cambridge: Harvard Council on East Asian Studies.
Week 9 Mar 3 Attention to place// long term perspectives
Common reading:
Shiba Yoshinobu. 1975. “Urbanization and the Development of Markets in the Lower Yangtze Valley.” In Crisis and Prosperity in Sung China, ed. John Haeger. Tuscon: University of Arizona Press.
Richard von Glahn, “Towns and Temples: Urban Growth and Decline in the Yangzi Delta, 1100-1400,” in The Song-Yuan-Ming Transition in Chinese History, ed. Paul Jakov Smith and Richard von Glahn. Harvard Asia Center, 2003.
Books on reserve:
Von Glahn, Richard.
1987. The Country of Streams and
Grottoes: Expansion, Settlement, and
the Civilizing of the Sichuan Frontier in Song times. Harvard East Asian
Monographs, 123. Cambridge, Mass.: Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard
University.
Clark, Hugh R. 1991. Community,
Trade, and Networks: Southern Fujian Province from the Third to the Thirteenth
Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Xiong, Victor Cunrui. 2000. Sui-Tang
Chang’an: A Study in the Urban History of Medieval China. Ann Arbor: U. of
Michigan Center for Chinese Studies.
*So, Billy K. L. 2000. Prosperity,
Region, and Institutions in Maritime China: The South Fukien Pattern, 946-1368.
Cambridge: Harvard University Asia Center.
Sen, Tansen. 2003. Buddhism,
Diplomacy and Trade: The Realignment of Sino-Indian Relations, 600-1400. Honolulu:
University of Hawaii Press.
*Smith, Paul Jakov and Richard von Glahn, eds. 2003. The Song-Yuan-Ming Transition in Chinese History, Harvard Asia Center, 2003.
Week 10 Mar 10 Women, Family, and Kinship
Common reading:
Bossler, Beverly. 2002. “Shifting Identities: Courtesans and Literati in Song China.” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies. 62.1:5-37.
Ebrey, Patricia Buckley. 2003. “Women, Money, and Class: Sima Guang and Song Neo-Confucian Views on Women.” In Women and the Family in Chinese History. London: Routledge. Pp. 10-38.
Books on reserve:
Chung, Priscilla Ching. 1981. Palace Women in the Northern Sung 960-1126). Leiden: E. J. Brill.
Ebrey, Patricia Buckley. 1984b. Family and Property in Sung China: Yüan Ts’ai’s Precepts for Social Life. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
*Ebrey, Patricia Buckley. 1991. Confucianism and Family Rituals in Imperial China: A Social History of Writing About Rites. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
*Ebrey, Patricia Buckley. 1993. The Inner Quarters: Marriage and the Lives of Chinese Women in the Sung Period. Berkeley: University of California Press.
*Tung, Jowen R. 2000. Fables for the Patriarchs: Gender Politics in Tang Discourse. Lantham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.
*Birge, Bettine. 2002. Women, Property, and Confucian Reaction in Sung and Yuan China (960-1368). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Ebrey, Patricia Buckley. 2002. Women and the Family in Chinese History. London: Routledge.
Exam week Monday March 14. Bibliographical essay due by 3 PM in Ebrey’s mailbox in the History office.