East Asia Civilization to 1650

(Fall 2017)

Class Meeting Times:
Mondays (M), Wednesdays (W), and Thursdays (Th.), 10:00 – 10:50 AM
Lown 2 / Instructor: Xing Hang
Office hours: Olin-Sang 118, (M and W) 3:30 – 4:30 PM, or by appointment
Telephone: 781-736-2361
Email:
Teaching Assistants:
Dana Fischer
Office hours: TBD / TBD

Course Description and Objectives

The course provides a thematic and chronological survey of the diverse geographic and cultural units that collectively form what we call East Asian civilization. In particular, we examine the shared historical experiences of present-day China, Mongolia, Japan, Korea, and Southeast Asia from the beginning of recorded history to the middle of the seventeenth century and beyond. We pay special attention to their interrelationships of political, social, economic, religious, and artistic change, while taking into account the adaptation and development of these broader trends within the unique environment of each regional unit. The course challenges Eurocentric images of a “timeless” and “isolated” East Asian civilization by treating it as an open system with connections that increasingly tied its member entities with one another and with the broader world through time. Students will learn to consider ideals and assumptions vastly different from their own cultural and intellectual traditions. The course also encourages critical thinking through the close reading and analysis of primary sources—the most important tools of historical research—and selected secondary works. The ability to speak, write, and analyze information coherently is a crucial skill that can transfer into students’ careers and other aspects of their lives.

Course Requirements

Success in this four-credit course is based on the expectation that students will spend a minimum of nine hours of study time per week, including the reading of 100 to 150 pages, in preparation for class. Assignments are weighted according to the following categories:

1) Regular lecture attendance and section participation. 30%

Lectures focus upon historical themes and trends that draw upon but go beyond the scope of the assigned readings. Only by showing up can students acquire the basic context for discussions, exams, and the essay.

In addition, students must demonstrate active participation, not just mere presence, to earn full credit. At the beginning of every week, discussion questions based upon the assigned readings and lectures will be posted on LATTE. Students should think carefully over them, and contribute their reflections and insights. Section meetings, held almost every Thursday, serve as the primary venue for sharing thoughts and exchanging ideas. Attendance is thus mandatory in discussion sections. Undocumented absences and/or frequent tardiness will result in a warning, followed by a grade of 0 per missed meeting. Students may also obtain participation credit by offering insights or asking questions during lecture, or posting on LATTE throughout the week if they feel hesitant about speaking up in a classroom setting.

To facilitate lecture comprehension and participation in discussion, students should read the assignments listed under “Readings” in the Course Outline over the week and have completed them all before the next discussion section meeting. They should also download the list of key terms, found on LATTE under each class meeting, and bring it to lectures to facilitate note-taking and comprehension. Lecture PowerPoints will be available as a LATTE link several days after a lecture takes place.

2) Midterm and Final, given on 10/4 and 12/13.45%

The two exams, which are open book and to be completed outside class, will test your knowledge of the material over the semester. The midterm makes up 15% of your final grade, while the semi-cumulative final, emphasizing all material since the midterm, constitutes the other 30%. Both involve the identification of key terms and essay questions aimed at challenging students to evaluate the historical significance of what they have learned in lecture and assigned readings. To prepare, study over the careful notes (hopefully!) you have taken during lectures based upon the list of key terms and discussion questions.

3) Analytical essay, due 11/6.25%

One of the goals of this course is to improve students’ critical thinking and writing skills. Accordingly, they will hand in an 8-10 pages double-spaced paper that involves the analysis and synthesis of primary sources. Students can either work with material from different geographic components of East Asia or a particular area over a long period of time. Detailed instructions will be announced in class.

Technology Policy

I encourage the use of technology in the classroom, a crucial trend in the future of higher education. However, they are not to be abused for purposes unrelated to the class. I reserve the right to restrict or ban their use if necessary.

General Rules

You are expected to be familiar with and to follow the University’s policies on academic integrity (see http://www.brandeis.edu/studentlife/sdc/ai). Faculty may refer any suspected instances of alleged dishonesty to the Office of Student Development and Conduct. Instances of academic dishonesty may result in sanctions including but not limited to, failing grades being issued, educational programs, and other consequences.

No late assignments will be accepted without the prior agreement of the instructor and/or the submission of a valid written explanation.Course overloads and work duties are not acceptable excuses for late assignments or failure to participate fully in other class activities. Late papers will be marked down a letter grade for each day they are late, weekends included.

If you are a student with a documented disability on record at Brandeis University and wish to have a reasonable accommodation made for you in this class, please see me immediately.

Required Reading

All assigned readings, as well as the syllabus, handouts, and classroom resources are available online on LATTE.

Any part of this syllabus is subject to change at the discretion of the instructor. LATTE contains all of the assignments listed below under “Course Outline” and reflects updates and modifications. In cases of conflict, refer to LATTE as a living version of this syllabus.

Course Outline

Week 1
8/30 (W):
8/31 (Th.): / Introduce yourself to us and your fellow classmates on LATTE! (Just click “Introduce Yourself” and select “Add a new discussion topic.” Follow the instructions from there). Please tell us your name, major, year, one or two points unique about you, and what you expect out of the course.
1. Introduction: Defining East Asia and East Asian History
2. The Spatial Setting
Week 2
9/4 (M):
9/6 (W):
9/7 (Th.): / Readings: Chang Kwang-chih, “China on the Eve of the Historical Period,” in Michael Loewe and Edward Shaughnessy (ed.), The Cambridge History of Ancient China: From the Origins of Civilization to 221 BC (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1999), pp. 37-73.
Ian Glover (ed.), Southeast Asia: From Prehistory to History (London: Psychology Press, 2004), pp. 21-67.
Primary Sources: Patricia Buckley Ebrey, Chinese Civilization: A Sourcebook (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1993), pp. 3-16;
William Theodore de Bary (ed.), Sources of East Asian Tradition, vol. 1: Premodern Asia (New York: Columbia University Press, 2008), pp. 485-488.
NO CLASS
3. Prehistory and the Dawn of Civilization
4. Bronze Age Revolution
Week 3
9/11 (M):
9/13 (W):
9/14 (Th): / Readings: Reuven Amitai and Michal Biran, Nomads as Agents of Cultural Change: The Mongols and Their Eurasian Predecessors (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2014), pp. 50-78.
Primary Sources: de Bary, vol. 1, pp. 29-132.
5. Intellectual Ferment, Political Consolidation
6. Xiongnu and Imperial China: The Struggle for Wealth and Power
7. DISCUSSION
Week 4
9/18 (M):
9/20 (W):
9/21 (Th): / Readings: Kenneth R. Hall, A History of Early Southeast Asia: Maritime Trade and Societal Development, 100-1500 (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2011), pp. 37-101;
Christopher Beckwith, Empires of the Silk Road: A History of Central Eurasia from the Bronze Age to the Present (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2009), pp. 78-92.
Primary Sources: David J. Lu, Japan: A Documentary History (New York: M. E. Sharpe, 1997), pp. 1-20;
“Economics and Trade,” “Ma Yuan’s Administration,” “Governing the South,” “Society and Culture,” “The Trung Sisters,” in George E. Dutton, Jayne S. Werner, and John K. Whitmore (ed)., Sources of Vietnamese Tradition (New York: Columbia University Press, 2012), pp. 15-16, 20-22, 25-27, 56-57;
de Bary, vol. 1, pp. 491-496.
8. Routes on Land and Sea
9. Political Consolidation on the Peripheries
10. NO CLASS
Week 5
9/25 (M):
9/27 (W):
9/28 (Th): / Readings: Karl Friday (ed.), Japan Emerging: Premodern History to 1850 (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2012), pp. 89-107;
Wang Zhenping, Tang China in Multi-Polar Asia: A History of Diplomacy and War (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2013), pp. 11-96.
Primary Sources: de Bary, vol. 1, pp. 264-269, 497-507;
“Philosophy and Religion,” in Dutton et al., pp. 16-19.
11. Triumph of Buddhism
12. A Multipolar Order
13. DISCUSSION
Week 6
10/2 (M):
10/3 (T, Brandeis Thurday):
10/4 (W):
10/5 (Th.): / Readings: Wang, pp. 138-190;
Hall, pp. 103-133.
Primary Sources: Ebrey, 116-136;
Lu, pp. 69-71.
14. From Tibet to Srivijaya: State Formation along the Silk Road
15. DISCUSSION
16. MIDTERM DUE
The Age of Aristocratic Splendor
NO CLASS
Week 7
10/9 (M):
10/11 (W, Brandeis Thursday):
10/12 (Th.): / Readings: Friday, pp. 166-176.
Primary Sources: de Bary, vol. 1, pp. 534-540;
Sem Vermeersch (trans.), A Chinese Traveler in Medieval Korea: Xu Jing’s Illustrated Account of the Xuanhe Embassy to Koryo (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2016), pp. 72-80, 145-151, 154-163, 206-236;
Lu, pp. 81-101.
17. Medieval Korea and Japan
18. DISCUSSION
19. NO CLASS
Week 8
10/16 (M):
10/18 (W):
10/19 (Th): / Readings: Valerie Hansen, Open Empire: A History of China to 1800 (New York: W. W. Norton, 2015), pp. 258-297;
Hall, pp. 159-210.
Primary Sources: Ebrey, pp. 139-171;
“The Southern Land,” “Economics and Trade,” “Ethnic Relations,” in Dutton et al., pp. 33, 41-43, 81-88.
20. China among Equals
21. The Classical Empires of Southeast Asia
22. DISCUSSION
Week 9
10/23 (M):
10/21 (W):
10/22 (Th): / Readings: Lo Jung-pang, China as a Sea Power, 1127-1368 (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2011), pp. 71-89, 125-138;
Hall, pp. 211-252;
Friday, pp. 177-199.
Primary Sources: de Bary, vol. 1, 351-360, 540-549;
Ebrey, 178-185.
23. Maritime Reorientation
24. Korea and Japan: The Shift to Militarism
25. DISCUSSION
Week 10
10/30 (M):
11/1 (W):
11/2 (Th.): / Readings: Timothy May, The Mongol Conquests in World History (London: Reaktion Books, 2013), pp. 81-171.
Primary Sources: Kurtis R. Schaeffer, Matthew Kapstein, and Gray Tuttle (ed.), Sources of Tibetan Tradition (New York: Columbia University Press, 2013), pp. 328-345.
26. The Precocious Mongols and Their Rise to Power
27. Eurasian Integration
28. DISCUSSION
Week 11
11/6 (M):
11/8 (W):
11/9 (Th.): / Readings: Lo, pp. 161-209;
Louise Levathes, When China Ruled the Seas (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1994), pp. 57-86, 107-136.
Primary Sources: Lu, pp. 149-160.
29. The Ming Order in East Asia
30. Chinese Withdrawal from the Sea
31. DISCUSSION
Week 12
11/13 (M):
11/15 (W):
11/16 (Th.): / Readings: David Kang, East Asia before the West: Five Centuries of Trade and Tribute, pp. 54-138;
Friday, pp. 299-308.
Primary Sources: de Bary, vol. 1, pp. 566-567, 573-594.
32. ESSAY DUE
Challenges to the Ming Tributary System
33. Triumph of Neo-Confucianism
34. DISCUSSION
Week 13
11/20 (M):
11/22 (W):
11/23 (Th.): / Readings: Timothy Brook, Vermeer’s Hat: The Seventeenth Century and the Dawn of the Global World (New York: Bloomsbury Press, 2008), 84-116, 152-184.
35. The Power of Silver
NO CLASS
NO CLASS
Week 14
11/27 (M):
11/29 (W):
11/30 (Th.): / Readings: JaHyun Kim Haboush, The Great East Asian War and hte Birth of the Korean Nation (New York: Columbia University Press, 2016), pp. 73-120;
Adam Clulow, The Company and the Shogun: The Dutch Encounter with Tokugawa Japan (New York: Columbia University Press, 2013), pp. 205-255.
36. An East Asian World War
37. Competitive Quest for Maritime Dominance
38. DISCUSSION
Week 15
12/4 (M):
12/6 (W):
12/7 (Th.):
12/13 (W): / Readings: Beckwith, pp. 222-231;
Robert Batchelor, London: The Selden Map and the Making of a Global City, 1549-1689 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013), pp. 1-27, 152-195.
39. The Grand Retrenchment
40. Calm before the Storm
41. Looking Back, Looking Forward
FINAL EXAM DUE