Courses

History 130

Introduction to Chinese Civilization: Traditional China

(Asian Studies 101s) A survey of the social, political, and cultural world of premodern China. Emphasis will be placed on the evolution and contrasts of elite and popular culture and the nature of change in an agrarian state. Readings will be drawn from Confucian, Taoist, and Buddhist traditions, classical poetry and fiction, and the history of social and political movements.

(Asian 102) Studies the transformation of traditional China into a revolutionary society in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Topics include rural control and peasant rebellion, the synthesis of Chinese political systems with ideas and institutions from the West, development of capitalism and its fate, and the changing role of foreign powers in Asia.

History 133 Japan Since 1600

(Asian Studies 133f) This course examines Japan's emergence in the nineteenth century from more than 200 years of self-imposed isolation, the process of political and economic modernization, and the attempt to find a secure and significant place in the Western-dominated world of the twentieth century. It focuses on the formation of a modern state, industrialization, Western imperialism and the rise of pan-Asianism, the Great Depression and the rise of military government in the 1930s, postwar Japan under U.S. military occupation, and problems of rapid economic growth in recent years.

An introduction to Korean history since the fourteenth century. After a brief introduction to geography and premodern cultural forms, the course will survey the evolution of the Yi dynasty (1392-1910) in the religious, intellectual, and socioeconomic realms. The second half will focus on Korea's interaction with the Euro-American powers and the rising Japanese empire (nineteenth and twentieth centuries). We will examine the devastating effects of imperialism, colonial occupation, civil war, and long-term division, which have also enabled rapid economic development since the 1960s.

History 296

Women in History Women in Chinese History

This course is designed for in-depth exploration of women's experiences and their roles in various cultures and societies.

(Asian Studies 296s; Women's Studies 200s) An exploration of the roles and values of Chinese women in traditional and modern times. Topics will include the structure of the family and women's productive work, rules for female behavior, women's literature, and the relationship between feminism and other political and social movements in revolutionary China. Readings from biographies, classical literature, feminist scholarship, and modern fiction.

History 301 Colloquium Nationalism and Nation-Building in East Asia

(Asian 331) China, Japan, and Korea were all well-organized states and societies in the nineteenth century, when the full impact of Euro-American imperial power arrived in East Asia. From that time until the present, all three have gone through painful and conflicted transformations to establish themselves as modern nation-states. This colloquium will focus on the current secondary literature on nationalism and nation building within an explicitly comparative framework, using material from all three East Asian cultures.

History 331 Asian History Imperial Japan

Research Seminar: A 300-level class requiring students to engage in primary and secondary source research in the history of particular times and places, resulting in a substantial piece of historical writing.

(Asian 331) A research seminar on Japan's imperial venture from its inception in the early Meiji period to the end of World War II. The enormous territory covered by the Japanese empire at its height--from Alaska to New Guinea, from the Central Pacific to Burma--requires us to consider a bewildering variety of local situations, indigenous peoples, and specific adaptations of Japan's imperial style and organization. We will also focus on the importance of Japan's military establishment and on war making as a crucial part of the empire-building process. Students will write two brief essays and a substantial final essay based on research in primary and secondary sources.