Week 15 (Dec. 6 – Dec. 10)

Table of contents

To do and Schedule of the Week

Reminder

  • The 5-15 report is due on Sunday every week; did you remember to send it in? Just a Google Doc shared with me will do!
  • Find all the Project and Time management info in the tab “Course Resources“.

Good to know

Let me know when your project is “done and done” and make sure it’s shareable with others – you want to celebrate with the class what you learned!

Feel the need to do something extra?

  • “Gardening” in our Zotero group library, e.g.
    • clean up the metadata (meaning: make sure author, title, publisher, links etc. are correct)
    • add notes for the entries (in particular if you used them)
    • add tags for the entries
    • delete duplicate entries
    • you can even write a short blog post documenting your work in the Zotero group library (add to category HST269)
  • Leave additional comments in Hypothes.is on blog posts and projects from fellow students
  • Add extra posts to your blog about premodern-China related news or internet finds (add to category HST269)

Upcoming assignments

  • Sun. Dec. 12: Third and final reflection
  • Project(s): due at least 24 hrs before final check in
  • Mon-Tue-Wed Dec. 13-15: Third and final check in via Zoom, when we agree on your final grade for the course.

By Tuesday, 3.30PM

Prepare for class/read:

Everybody works through the following materials, and then picks one of the three options:

  • “Chapter 1: Rise and Fall of the Chinese Empire.” Michael Dillon. China : A Modern History,13-28. London: I.B. Tauris, 2010.
    • Ebook Trexler
    • Get your basics straight with this quick tour of Early and High Qing history (before things start to go down hill, but that’s for another course: HST271)
  • Carter, James. “Lord Macartney, China, and the Convenient Lies of History”. Supchina, Sept. 8, 2020.
  • Slides (illustrations and background info)

Option A: Manchu conquest

  • Struve, Lynn A. Voices from the Ming-Qing Cataclysm: China in Tigers’ Jaws. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993.
    • PDF
    • Primary source, an eye witness account of the conquest of Yangzhou, a wealthy city in the Yangzi River delta. It would be useful to compare this with the account of the
    • Note: contains graphic descriptions of violence

Option B: Gender in late Qing China

  • Shen, Fu. Six Records of a Floating Life. Trans. by Leonard Pratt and Chiang Su-hui. Penguin Classics. Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England: Penguin, 1983.
    • Shen Fu and his wife Chen Yun were married twenty-three years, but had known each other from childhood.
    • This is a tender portrait of relations between husband and wife.

Option C: What Europe knew about Qing China

  • Du Halde, J.-B. The General History of China : Containing a Geographical, Historical, Chronological, Political and Physical Description of the Empire of China, Chinese-Tartary, Corea and Thibet. Done from the French of P. Du Halde. Ecco Database. London: Printed by and for John Watts, 1736.
    • ebook Trexler: vol. 2, vol. 3, vol. 4
    • Volumes 2, 3 and 4 contain the most interesting sections about Chinese customs and habits. (Volume 1 is “dry” Chinese history.)
    • Pick one (small) section from Vol. 2, 3 or 4 and make a three-sentence summary of the contents. Then describe your reaction to it: do you think the Westerners understood what was going on? How would this information influence how Westerners (including Macartney) see the Chinese?
    • If you need some assistance to get into this text, here’s a video walk through

By Thursday, 3.30PM

Wow – final session of the semester already?? We will do course evaluations and share progress with the un-essays. Be there or be square! Imaginary cookies available 🍪

1. Course evaluations

You get a grade at the end of the semester, but you also get a chance to share anonymously your evaluation of our teaching. These matter to me, and your other instructors, and perhaps you don’t know why, so I thought I’d explain more in a little video I made last year. (Nothing has changed: we’re still teaching our socks off, the issues are still issues).

Please fill out: course evaluation

2. Project updates

Share your progress on your project, and let’s solve any issues you encounter!

By Sunday, 11:59PM

1. Project update

If your project is not done yet, please share what you have and what your plan for completion is. Have a plan to have your project done 24hrs before your final check in with me. This gives me time to look through your project.

2. Final reflection

WHAT
  • 500-750 words
  • thinking about the course as a whole (look back through the course materials)
  • Pick two of the following prompts to engage with:
    • What do you think is the most important thing you learned in this course, and why do you think so? Why do you think more people ought to know about this?
    • This course carries a DE/HDGE General Academic Requirement. Do you think you earned it? Why (not)?To help you answer that question, here’s the description from the Course Catalog: “HDGE courses across the curriculum aim to broaden and deepen students’ understanding of human difference and to develop the intellectual and civic skills students require for participation in an increasingly diverse and interconnected world.”
    • reflect on your learning process during the course of the semester. How have you grown as a historian? How have your research skills and historical insights changed in the past few months? How do you think differently about your engagement with the past in general, or with China’s history more specifically? What will you take with you to future courses, about handling sources, dealing with multiple perspectives, about project management,…?
    • imagine you are interviewed five years from now for your dream job (which likely has nothing to do with Chinese history!); the interviewer sees on your transcript you took HST269: Intro to Traditional China, and they ask: “Oh, what did you learn in that course?” What is your answer? Why?
HOW

Submit as a Google Doc shared with suggesting/commenting access for Dr. D, or a blog post in category HST269 if you prefer.

WHY

The end of the semester is a good time to stop and reflect on how far you’ve come, but also on how you can use the knowledge you gathered here (about yourself and about the topic) and apply it outside the confines of this course.

Slides

Tuesday: Qing China: Return of the Jurchen

Looking ahead

Next week is finals week: if you are on top of your work and submit your project and reflection on time, all you need to do is your final check-in and you’re done for this course!!

Where to get help