Lectures: MW 8:00, Chafee 273
Recitations: 01: W 3:00 Washburn 208 02: W 4:00 Washburn 309 03: F 8:00 Washburn 219
Website: Accessible via WebCT; see instructions on p. 3
Office: Washburn Hall 217D (mailbox in Washburn Hall 113)
Office hours: M 1:30-3:00, W 10:00-11:30, Th 1:30-3:00, and by appointment
Telephone: 874-4091 (office); 789-6639 (home; to 9:00 pm) E-mail: <tgeorge@uri.edu>
Course Description
A broad overview of the cultures and histories of East Asia. Emphasis on society, culture, philosophy, and religion, especially as they relate to and influence contemporary developments. Lectures, discussions, and readings in primary and secondary sources.
Objectives
Students will gain a general understanding of Chinese, Japanese, and Korean culture and history. They will find news of current events in East Asia and understand them in cultural and historical context. They will find books on East Asia on subjects that interest them, read them critically, and compare and review them in clear and thoughtful prose. Familiarity with ways in which universal human problems have been addressed by East Asian civilizations&emdash; for over 2,000 years arguably the world's most successful civilizations&emdash;will enrich students' lives and broaden their perspectives on themselves and their world.
Requirements
Class Participation: Attend every class on time. Actively discuss lectures and readings in the context of the larger themes of the course. Pass quizzes. Post weekly comments on readings and topics to course website bulletin board (see website information on p. 3) by 9:00 pm every Tuesday. Submit suggestions (2 multiple choice and 2 essay questions) for mid-term and final exams, due Feb. 19, Mar. 5, Apr. 9, and Apr. 30. 15% of course grade.
News Reading Reports: 2 reports, 1 double-spaced page each, due Feb. 26 and Apr. 28. For each, read an article on East Asia from the New York Times, Washington Post, Christian Science Monitor, or Wall Street Journal. At the top of your report, give bibliographic information: author, article title or headline, newspaper title, date, and page. Write one short paragraph summarizing the article, and one longer paragraph explaining how your study of East Asian history helps you understand it. Staple a copy of the article to your report. For the first report, find an article in a printed or microfilm version of the newspaper. For the second, find an article on the Web from one of these newspapers. 10% of course grade.
Comparative Book Review: 6-8 double-spaced pages, due Apr. 23. Book choices due Mar. 3; draft first paragraph due Apr. 2. Peer groups: names and book choices to be posted Mar. 31, comments on drafts due Apr. 18. Instructions on pp. 3-5. 25% of course grade.
Mid-Term Exams: Feb. 24, Mar. 17, and Apr. 14. May include multiple choice, matching, short answer (identify and give significance), map, and essay questions. 25% of course grade.
Final Exam: Friday, May 16, 8:00-10:00 am, Chafee 273. 25% of course grade.
Readings
For sale at the URI bookstore and at Rhode Island Book Company. The Murphey text, and the Nelson and Peebles collection from which most of the selections in the reader are taken, are also on reserve in the library. Read critically, asking how readings, lectures, and videos relate to each other. Take notes on main ideas&emdash;merely underlining or highlighting is not effective.
Murphey, Rhoades. East Asia: A New History. 2nd ed. New York: Longman, 2001.
History 171 Spring 2003 Course Reader (a custom-made Harcourt Brace World Cultures Resource Series Reader). Note: All but two of the selections in this reader are from Lynn H. Nelson and Patrick Peebles, eds., Classics of Eastern Thought (out of print but on reserve).
Policies and Notes:
Grade scale: A, 93-100; A-, 90-92; B+, 87-89; B, 83-86; B-, 80-82; C+, 77-79; C, 73-76; C-, 70-72; D+, 67-69; D, 63-66; F, 62 or below.
Please communicate with the instructor privately and promptly, at the beginning of the course, if you have any special needs for class, assignments, or examinations.
Attendance&emdash;on time&emdash;is mandatory and is part of your grade for class participation. Except in cases of documented medical or family emergencies, university-approved activities, and religious observances, there will be no excused absences or extensions of deadlines. Documentation must be submitted in writing in advance of the absence (if planned), or as soon as possible afterward (if due to an emergency).
Written assignments will not be accepted if they do not meet the format and length requirements specified, if they are hand-written, or if the pages are not stapled together.
Late assignments will be penalized one full grade per class day. An A paper due Monday but turned in on Wednesday will therefore receive a grade of B.
Cheating (getting or giving help during exams) and plagiarism (using someone else's words or ideas without giving proper credit) are serious offenses and will be dealt with according to university regulations. Penalties can include failure on the exam or assignment, failure in the class, and suspension or expulsion from the university.
Help with writing is available at the Writing Center, Independence Hall 313, 874-4690; <http://www.uri.edu/artsci/eng/wrtcnt.html>. All students are strongly encouraged to use it.
Help with study skills, including reading, note taking, and time management, is available at the Learning Assistance Network, Roosevelt Hall B101, 874-2367; <http://www.uri.edu/univcol/learning/index.html>
Names and Romanization:
Chinese, Japanese, and Korean names are given with the family name first.
The Murphey text uses the pinyin system for writing Chinese in Roman letters, and I will use this system in class and on handouts. In pinyin the name of the author of The Art of War is written as "Sunzi." The same name, pronounced the same way, is written "Sun Tzu" in the older Wade-Giles system, used in our reader. See the note and tables in Murphey, pp. xvii-xx.
Course Website
On the HIS171 website (accessible using WebCT) are this syllabus, lecture outlines, all handouts including study guides for exams, a bulletin board for announcements and discussions, and a page of useful links. Self-introductions are due to the website bulletin board Jan. 24, and bulletin board postings commenting on weekly readings and topics are due by 9:00 pm every Tuesday from Jan. 28.
Go to URI's WebCT home page at <http://webct.uri.edu>, read the instructions for logging on, click on "Log on to myWebCT," and follow the instructions. (The instructions tell you to change your password once you log on. Write down this new password. Once courses are added to your "myWebCT" home area, you will access all of them using only this logon ID and password, and no one can find your password if you lose it.)
Next, add HIS171 to your myWebCT home area. Click on "Add Course," go to HIS171, and click on "HIS171." On the following screen, do not fill in the blanks for User Name and password, just click on "Register." To keep this website accessible only to students in HIS171, this self-registration will be disallowed after Feb. 4.
Once you have a myWebCT account and have added HIS171 to it, access the HIS171 home page from your myWebCT home area by clicking on "HIS171."
If you have problems:
1) Make sure you read, understand, and follow all instructions here and on the web pages. Remember that case matters for your WebCT ID and password.
2) Get help from the links on the URI WebCT home page.
3) Contact or visit the Office of Information Services Help Desk: URI Library LL19, 874-4357 option 1, <helpdesk@uri.edu>, <http://www.uri.edu/ois/iits/iits.help.desk.html>.
4) Get help from Prof. George during office hours or at another time you arrange.
Comparative Book Review
The Paper
6-8 double-spaced, stapled pages, due Apr. 23. This must be a critical, comparative book review, not a research paper. If your introduction and conclusion are about the books, you are on track.
Choose two non-fiction books (no survey texts) on any aspect of the history or culture of East Asia to review together. They should be on similar, but not necessarily identical, topics that interest you. The following sources can help you find books:
o suggestions for further reading in our texts and in other books on China, Japan, and Korea
o bibliographies in The Cambridge History of China and The Cambridge History of Japan
o Association for Asian Studies. Bibliography of Asian Studies. Published volumes cover books and journals published through 1991. URI does not subscribe to the up-to-date online version.
o Tsien, Tsuen-Hsuin, comp., China: An Annotated Bibliography of Bibliographies (1978)
o Hayford, Charles, comp., China (Clio World Bibliographical Series, vol. 35) (new ed., 1997)
o Shulman, Frank Joseph, Japan (Clio World Bibliographical Series, vol. 103) (1989)
o Dower, John W., and Timothy S. George, Japanese History and Culture from Ancient to Modern Times: Seven Basic Bibliographies (2nd ed., 1995)
o Hoare, J. E., comp., Korea (Clio World Bibliographical Series, vol. 204) (1997)
o Kim, Han-Kyo, ed., Studies on Korea: A Scholar's Guide (1980)
o librarians and/or your instructor
Submit your choice of two appropriate books in writing by Mar. 3. This is worth 5% of the grade for the paper. Discuss your plans and the appropriateness of your books with Prof. George, and order any books you may need to get via inter-library loan, well before this date.
Submit a draft of your first paragraph by Apr. 2. This is worth 5% of the grade for the paper. Include your title, bibliographic information on your two books, and your introductory paragraph. This introduction should briefly tell the reader what the books are about, give at least a hint of what you think of them, and explain how your review will be organized.
Begin planning early&emdash;allow extra time to get books via inter-library loan, to get help from the Writing Center, to read thoughtfully, to write carefully, and to re-think, rewrite, and polish.
Give your paper an original, meaningful title&emdash;not simply "A Review of X and Y."
After the title, before the text of your review, give the basic bibliographic information for each book: author, title, place of publication, publisher, year of publication. In your review, use footnotes or endnotes as appropriate. Number your pages (except for the first). A good source for help with format is: Rampolla, Mary Lynn, A Pocket Guide to Writing in History (3rd ed., 2000).
There must be no plagiarism. Penalties for plagiarism can include a grade of F for the assignment, a grade of F for the course, and suspension or expulsion from URI. If you use anyone else's words or original ideas, do so carefully and only when appropriate, use quotation marks if you are quoting, and give proper credit in a footnote or endnote.
Your paper must do three things. You may do each in a separate section of the paper, or you may find ways to blend these together, but you must do all three of these:
1) Give a) a summary or description (short), and b) an evaluation (longer; most important) of each book. Who is the author and why did she or he write this book? What questions are raised, and how well are they answered? What is the thesis and how well is it supported? In other words, what is the author's main point, and is he or she persuasive? (This is the most important part of your evaluation.) What questions ought to be addressed but are not? What sources are used, and how? How do these books compare with others on the topic? Did the books add to or change your understanding?
2) Compare the two books. What similarities and differences do you find in their subjects, arguments, evidence, and conclusions? Do they support, supplement, or contradict each other? Are both worth reading? By whom? Should they be read together?
3) Make it clear whether you agree or disagree with the main arguments of the books.
Of these components of your review, 1) b) (evaluating the books) is by far the most important.
This exercise should make it clear to you that the writing of history is not simply a process of presenting "facts." It involves the discovery, selection, and interpretation of facts in order to construct and support an argument. This is a subjective process, and is never final. Historians often disagree over interpretations, over what facts are relevant, and even over what constitutes a fact. Pay particular attention to dates of publication, and find information about the authors. All authors are to some extent products of their own times and experiences. Try to understand why they hold the opinions they do, and why you hold yours.
Peer Groups for Comparative Book Review
1. By Mar. 28, form a peer group of three or four students and meet to tell each other about the books you are reading. (There are no recitation meetings Mar. 26 and Mar. 28.) Choose one person in your group to post a message to the course website bulletin board, by 9:00 pm Mar. 31, listing the people in the group and the authors and titles of each person's books. This posting is worth 5% of the grade for the paper.
2. By Apr. 2, give each person in a your group a copy of your draft first paragraph due that day to Prof. George.
3. By Apr. 14, give each person in your group a complete first draft of your comparative book review. (You are not required to show Prof. George your draft, but you are welcome to do so.) Meet by Apr. 18 to discuss each other's drafts. (There are no recitation meetings Apr. 16 and Apr. 18.) At or before this meeting, give each person in your group some specific comments and suggestions on each of the following aspects of their draft: 1) a) their description and b) evaluation (most important) of each book and its author, 2) their comparison of the two books, 3) their writing and format. (If anyone in your group has not given you a complete first draft by this date, send them a message reminding them of this, and send a copy to Prof. George.) Send Prof. George one e-mail message (not a bulletin board posting) including all of your comments on the drafts by all members of your group (your comments on their papers, not their comments on yours) by Apr. 18. These comments are worth 5% of the grade for the paper.
Major Periods of Chinese History
Shang ca. 1600-1027 B.C.E. Tang 618-907
Western Zhou 1027?-771 B.C.E. Northern Song 960-1125
Eastern Zhou 771-256 B.C.E. Southern Song 1127-1279
Warring States 403-221 B.C.E. Yuan (Mongols) 1279-1368
Qin 221-206 B.C.E. Ming 1368-1644
Han 206 B.C.E.&endash;8 C.E., 25-220 C.E. Qing (Manchus) 1644-1912
N-S disunion 220-589 ROC 1912-
Sui 589-618 PRC 1949-
Major Periods of Japanese History
Jömon ca. 12,000-300 B.C.E. Ashikaga/Muromachi 1336-1573
Yayoi ca. 300 B.C.E.-250 C.E. Tokugawa/Edo 1600-1868
Kofun ("tomb") ca. 250-6th century C.E. Meiji 1868-1912
Nara 710-784 Taishö 1912-1926
Heian 794-1185 Shöwa 1926-1989
Kamakura 1185-1333 Heisei 1989-
Major Periods of Korean History
(old) Choson ca. 4th century-108 B.C.E. Choson (Yi) 1392-1910
3 Kingdoms ca. 350-688 C.E. Japanese colony 1910-1945
Silla 688-918 ROK (South) 1948-
Koryo 918-1392 DPRK (North) 1948-
Week 1 Introduction
W Jan. 22 Course Overview
Recitation discussion: What is East Asia, and why study it?
Before class, read Murphey, pp. 1-19.
F Jan. 24 On or before this date, register on the HIS171 website and post a self-introduction to the website bulletin board. This counts as a quiz.
Week 2 Early China and Korea: Civilization, Thought, and Empire
Before Monday's class, read Murphey, pp. 20-28, 30-75, 174-178.
M Jan. 27 China from the Stone Age to Confucius
Beginning this week, post comments to the website bulletin board by 9:00 pm every Tuesday. These postings are required; responding to other class members' postings is optional and encouraged.
W Jan. 29 Warring States, Qin, and Han China / Early Korea
Recitation Before class, read and prepare to discuss the following selections from the course reader: The Book of Songs, The Art of War, The Analects, "The Confucian Tradition in Chinese History," Tao Te Ching (Daodejing in pinyin), The Classic of Filial Piety. For each, know who wrote it, when and where it was written, why it was written, and why it is important. Be prepared to point to specific evidence in each reading (not the editors' introductions) to support your answers. Bring the book to class.
Week 3 Sui, Tang, Song, and Yuan China; Silla and Koryo Korea: Reunification, Flowering, Invasion
Murphey, pp. 76-121, 179-181
M Feb. 3 China and Korea Fragmented and Reunified / Buddhism
W Feb. 5 Song and Yuan China
Recitation reader: "Sermon at the Deer Park," The Pure Land Sutra, "Peach Blossom Spring," Cold Mountain poems
Week 4 Ming and Qing China: Imperial Splendor, Prosperity&emdash;and Decline?
Murphey, pp. 122-164
M Feb. 10 Ming and Early Qing China
W Feb. 12 Internal Decay in China
Recitation reader: Inquiry on the Great Learning, Journey to the West, The Scholars
Week 5 Early and Classical Japan
Murphey, pp. 28-30, 188-208
Tu Feb. 18 Prehistory: When Did Japan Become Japanese?
W Feb. 19 Sinicization and Indigenization in Japan: The Nara and Heian Periods
suggestions for midterm due (2 essay and 2 multiple choice questions)
Recitation discussion: When did China become Chinese? Korea Korean? Japan Japanese?
Week 6 Japan's Middle Ages
M Feb. 24 midterm exam #1 (essay)
Murphey, pp. 209-227
W Feb. 26 Kamakura and Muromachi Japan: The Middle Ages
first news reading report due (see instructions on p. 1: 1 double-spaced page, 2 paragraphs, bibliographical info at top, photocopy of article stapled to paper)
Recitation discussion: Japanese adoptions and adaptations from China
Week 7 Japan in the Tokugawa Period / Choson Korea
Murphey, pp. 181-187, 247-261
M Mar. 3 Centralized Feudalism in Tokugawa Japan
book choices for comparative book review due
W Mar. 5 Urban Culture in Tokugawa Japan / Confucianism in Choson Korea
suggestions for midterm due (2 essay and 2 multiple choice questions)
Recitation reader: "The Social Environment of Tokugawa Kabuki," The Treasury of Loyal Retainers
Week 8 19th Century East Asia: Encounters with Imperialism
M Mar. 17 midterm exam #2 (objective)
Murphey, pp. 164-167, 262-283
W Mar. 19 Encounters with Imperialism: China and Japan
Recitation discussion: Why did Japan respond more successfully than China and Korea to the imperialist challenge?
Week 9 Japan's Transition to Modernity
Murphey, pp. 286-303
M Mar. 24 Early Meiji Japan: The "Period of Possibilities"
W Mar. 26 Imperial State and Society: Meiji, Taishö, and Early Shöwa Japan
Recitation No class this week&emdash;peer groups organize and meet on or before Mar. 28.
Week 10 Imperial Japan and the Asia-Pacific War / The End of Imperial China
Murphey, pp. 283-285, 323-341, 351-382
M Mar. 31 Imperial Japan and the "Dark Valley" of Militarism and War
postings of peer group member names and books due to website bulletin board
W Apr. 2 Escalating Change in China
draft first paragraph of comparative book review due to peer group members and to Prof. George
Recitation No class this week&emdash;work on paper and review for exam (and see below).
Th Apr. 3 Optional viewing of propaganda film Know Your Enemy: Japan (Frank Capra, 1945), 7:30-9:00 pm, Washburn 111.
Optional extra credit assignment; up to 10 points to be added to total score on midterm exams. Watch Know Your Enemy: Japan (shown 4/3, 7:30 pm, Washburn 111), or one of the following films, and submit a one-page response by April 11: Biruma no tategoto (The Burmese Harp, Ichikawa Kon, 1957), Nobi (Fires on the Plain, Ichikawa Kon, 1959), Hotaru no haka (Grave of the Fireflies, Takahata Isao, 1988). The Burmese Harp and Fires on the Plain are on reserve in the URI library media room.
Week 11 Nationalists and Communists in China / Colonial Korea
Murphey, pp. 304-308, 342-351, 383-396; reader: "A Madman's Diary," Family, "On the People's Democratic Dictatorship"
M Apr. 7 Chinese Nationalists and Communists / Korea under Japan
W Apr. 9 video: The Battle of China
suggestions for midterm due (2 essay and 2 multiple choice questions)
Recitation No class this week&emdash;use time for paper and to review for exam (see below).
F Apr. 11 Optional review session, 8:00-8:50 am, Chafee 273. Actual questions from midterm exam #3 will be presented!
optional film response paper due
Week 12 China under Deng Xiaoping
M Apr. 14 midterm exam #3 (objective and short answer)
complete draft of comparative book review due to peer group members
Murphey, pp. 396-408
W Apr. 16 China under Deng, 1976-1989: Four Modernizations or Five?
Recitation No class this week&emdash;peer groups meet to discuss drafts on or before Apr. 18.
F Apr. 18 comments on draft book reviews due to peer group members and by e-mail to Prof. George (<tgeorge@uri.edu>)
Week 13 Postwar Japan and Korea
Murphey, pp. 409-429
M Apr. 21 Early Postwar Japan and Korea
W Apr. 23 The Japanese "Economic Miracle" and Slump
comparative book review due
Recitation reader: Ikiru, "Bird of Passage"
Week 14 Contemporary East Asia
Murphey, pp. 429-433, 443-447
M Apr. 28 Korea since the Korean War / China since Tiananmen
second news reading report due
W Apr. 30 East Asia in the 21st Century
suggestions for final exam due (2 essay and 2 multiple choice questions)
Recitation discussion: Did the Occupation merely put Japan back on track? Is democracy possible in China? How does postwar Korea compare to China and Japan?
Week 15 Review
M May 5 review
Friday, May 16, 8:00-10:00 am, Chafee 273: Final examination