Fall, 1999

 

Literati Culture in Northern Song China

HSTAS 560

Monday, 3-4:50 in Smith 309

 

Instructor: Patricia Ebrey

Office: 203C Thomson Hall

Email: ebrey@u.washington.edu

Office Hours: Friday 10-12

Phone: 685-1528

 

 

Books ordered:

Chaffee, John W. 1985. The Thorny Gates of Learning in Sung China: A Social History of Examinations. Cambridge University Press.

Egan, Ronald C. 1994. Word, Image, and Deed in the Life of Su Shi. Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University.

Other readings are available in a packet for sale at Rams.

Requirements:

Students will be expected to attend regularly, to have read the assigned readings carefully enough to engage actively in discussion, and to periodically lead discussion. Assigned reading has been kept to a minimum so that students will be able to devote at least half their time to their research project, which should be on a topic closely related to the theme of this course. The research project will involve three components, a 4-5 page analytical review of a relevant book (with a ten minute presentation in the class), the selection of a Chinese text to present in class, and a research paper that draws on varied sources. The target length of the research paper is 15-20 pages. To the extent possible, students will select a Chinese text for the same week they present the book report.

Readings have been selected primarily from works published since 1990, so that this course will help students keep up with recent scholarship. Bibliographies in these works will give guidance to earlier scholarship, much of which remains of major importance and should be used in the research paper.

Grading:               Class participation, 25%; book review, 25%; research paper, 50%

                             

 

Week

1             9/27                      Introduction

2             10/ 4                     Literati and the Examinations

Read: Chaffee 1985

SUBMIT CHOICE FOR BOOK REPORT

3             10/11                    The Case of Su Shi, I

               Read: Egan, pp. 3-206

4             10/18                    The Case of Su Shi, II

                              Read: Egan, pp. 207-381

SUBMIT TOPIC FOR RESEARCH PAPER WITH SHORT BIBLIOGRAPHY

5             10/25                    Literati as Confucians: Politics and Philosophy

Read:     Hartman, Charles. 1990. "Poetry and Politics in 1079: The Crow Terrace Poetry Case of Su Shih." CLEAR 12:15-44.

Bol, Peter K. 1992. "For Perfect Order: Wang An-shih and Ssu-ma Kuang," in "This Culture of Ours": Intellectual Transitions in T'ang and Sung China.

Possible Book reports:

Don J. Wyatt, 1996. The Recluse of Loyang: Shao Yung and the Moral Evolution of Early Sung Thought.

Bol, Peter K. 1992. "This Culture of Ours": Intellectual Transitions in T'ang and Sung China.

6             11/1                      No Class

7             11/8                      Literati as Connoisseurs, Collectors, and Critics

Read: Bush, Susan. 1971. The Chinese Literati on Painting: Su Shi (1037-1101) to Tung Ch'i-ch'ang (1555-1636), pp. 1-82.

Harrist, Robert E. Jr. 1995. "The Artist as Antiquarian: Li Gonglin and His Study of Early Chinese Art," Artibus Asiae 55:237-80.

Possible Book reports:

McNair, Amy. 1998. The Upright Brush: Yan Zhenqing's Calligraphy and Song Literati Politics.

Sturman, Peter. 1998. Mi Fu: Style and the Art of Calligraphy in Northern Song China

8             11/15                    Literati as Artists: Calligraphy, Painting, and Poetry

Read: Richard Edwards, "Painting and Poetry in the Late Sung," in Words and Images, ed. Wen C. Fong

Sargent, Stuart H. 1992. "Colophons in Countermotion: Poems by Su Shih and Huang T'ien-chien on Paintings." HJAS 52:263-302.

Possible Book reports:

Robert E. Harrist, Jr. 1998. Painting and Private Life in Eleventh-Century China: Mountain Villa by Li Gonglin

Fuller, Michael. 1990. The Road to East Slope: The Development of Su Shi's Poetic Voice.

Bickford, Maggie. 1996. Ink Plum: The Making of a Chinese Scholar-Painting Genre.

Liu, David Palumbo-Liu. 1993. The Poetics of Appropriation: The Literary Theory and Practice of Huang Tingjian.   

9             11/22                    Literati and Religion

Read:     Gimello, Robert M. 1992. "Chang Shang-ying on Wu-t'ai Shan," from Susan Naquin and Chün-fang Yü, eds., Pilgrims and Sacred Sites in China.

Baldrian-Hussein, Farzeen. 1997. "Taoist Beliefs in Literary Circles of the Sung Dynasty—Su Shi (1037-1101) and his Techniques of Survival," Cahiers d'extreme-asie 9:15-53.

 

Possible Book reports:

Beata Grant,1994. Mount Lu Revisited: Buddhism in the Life and Writings of Su Shih.

 

OR

Literati as a Social and Political Elite

Read: Hymes, Robert P. 1986. "Marriage, Descent Groups, and the Localist Strategy in Sung and Yuan Fu-chou," in Ebrey and Watson, eds., Kinship Organization in Late Imperial China, 1000-1940.

Possible book reviews:

Bossler, Beverly J. 1998. Powerful Relations: Kinship, Status, and the State in Sung China (960-1279).

10           11/29                    Presentation of Papers

11           12/6                      Presentation of Papers

 

Final versions of papers due12/13 in Ebrey's mailbox in 411 Thomson by 4:30.