Chinese History

I’ll be in my office in the morning from 10-12 on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, and Friday afternoon until about 3. If you want to pick up graded tests and papers, that’s the time to do it. If you want to check your grade, you can come in, or send me an email.

If you want your graded final back, you can give me a self-addressed stamped envelope with your final, or come get it in the Fall — I don’t throw these things away for years.

Remember: your final essays are due in my office or at Yummy Buffet no later than 12:30 pm on Thursday the 14th.

The third set of short essay questions, Due May 7th, is here.

The final exam questions are here.

Also, by popular demand, the final exam will be collected at lunch at Yummy Buffet, May 14th at 12:30.

By popular demand, we will again be having class next Tuesday at Hunan Village on Broadway, at the usual time. We will discuss some of the poetry — which we’ve been letting slide a bit in class — as well as neo-Confucianism (see also Alan Baumler’s comment on Zhu Xi), and I will answer any questions you have about the essay assignments due next Thursday (4/9).

Just a reminder that class on Thursday the 19th will be at the usual time — 12:30-1:45 — but will be held at the Hunan Village restaraunt in the 800 block of North Broadway.

Well, better safe than sorry!

I thought about trying to compress two days into one, but I think it makes more sense to take advantage of the catch-up day I put into the schedule. We’ll have to make some room during our regular classes to talk about the essay assignments, and make sure we stay on schedule!

I have updated the reading and assignment schedule accordingly. Hope you’re all warm and safe, and see you Thursday!

The Early China course covers from the age of antiquity up to 1700. Obviously, I’ll have to supplement the text a bit with lecture on the Ming-Qing transition. Feel free to purchase these texts in advance from anywhere. Just make sure you get the right edition on the last one.

• Valerie Hansen, The Open Empire: A History of China to 1600, paper, 0-393-97374-3, 2000, W.W. Norton&Co
• Burton Watson, The Columbia Book of Chinese Poetry: From Early Times to the Thirteenth Century, paper, 0-231-05683-4, 1984, Columbia UP
• Ray Huang, 1587, A Year of No Significance : The Ming Dynasty in Decline , paper, 0300028849 , 1982, Yale UP
• Jacques Gernet, Daily Life in China, on the Eve of the Mongol Invasion, 1250-1276. , paper, 0804707200 , 1962, Stanford UP
• Ivanhoe and Van Norden, Readings in Classical Chinese Philosophy , 2nd edition, 2006, Hackett.

If you look at the header, you’ll see links for Chinese History Resources, including a chronology of the Cold War which might be useful later this semester. Also, the link for Modern China (Fall 2008) contains the current schedule (I will update as necessary), as well as links to assignments like the essays

This blog will be my space for posting resources, assignments and other material for my Chinese history courses at Pittsburg State University.