Zhuangzi

We will be looking at the history of Early China from the dawn of time to the end of the Tang Dynasty (960 A.D.) This includes China's axial age, the age when most of what we now know as Chinese culture was created. This is the age of pretty much all the greatest Chinese philosophers, many of the most important and colorful figures of Chinese folklore and history, and the both of the dynasties from which China takes its name. We will look closely at the foundations of the Chinese political and social systems and their philosophical underpinnings. Most of China's greatest thinkers wrestled with the question of how to create a stable system during this period. They also thought a great deal about the position and meaning of the individual in these systems, so we will have to deal with some fairly fundamental questions about human existence. We will also look at the period of China's closer contact with the outside world from the Han dynasty on.
In addition to having lots of interesting stuff to talk about, this will be a class where you will be able to work directly with original sources. In any sort of modern history students are usually far removed from the original sources; there are simply far too many of them, and history can be approached only through the works of others. Many of the sources for this period have been translated, and will be available for you to work with.

Professor Alan Baumler 222 Keith Office phone 357-2573 Office Hours MWF 10:30-11:30, 1:00-2:00 and by appointment.

E-mail baumler@iup.edu

Books

Victor H. Mair, trans. Wandering on the Way: Early Taoist Tales and Parables of Chuang Tzu. Hawaii U.P. 1994.
Sarah Allen The Way of Water and Sprouts of Virtue. SUNY Press, 1997.
Charles Holcombe The Genesis of East Asia 221 B.C.-A.D. 907. Hawaii U.P. 2001.
Stephen F. Teiser The Ghost Festival in Medieval China. Princeton U.P., 1988.

Web page
There is a web page for this class at www.chss.iup.edu/baumler/index.html In addition to copies of the syllabus and links to the source readings there are of other goodies. There are some other good things on the web, such as a Timeline of Chinese History

Readings
These are the readings for the class. I will try to keep to this schedule, but we will probably get ahead or behind at times. It is important to have the readings done by the beginning of the week we will be discussing them, first because there may be a quiz on them, and second because you will not be able to participate in the discussion if you do not. As this is a three-hour class there will be a regular reading discussion each week. The secondary things are fairly straightforward, but the source readings can be more complex. Here is an introduction to reading original sources.
Note that while I have assigned sections of the various books at various different times it is probably best to just read them straight through and then review the appropriate pages before coming to class.

Study questions
These questions are intended to help you organize your thinking. There will be a lot of information presented in this class but the point is not simply to memorize a lot of facts, it is to be able to explain things and answer questions. These are examples of the type of questions that I expect you to be able to answer, and these are more or less the questions that will be on the exams. It will help a lot if you look at these questions and try to answer them as you do the reading for a section. If you still can't answer these questions after you have done the readings and we have discussed them in class you have a problem and need to come talk to me.

1/14 Geography and the Neolithic age
Who gets to be Chinese? Hunters and gatherers. Neolithic revolution. Pots. Yangshao culture. Erlitou and Erligang. The majesty of civilization. Mobilization of labor. Social stratification. Xin'gang and regional variations. Xia, Shang, and Zhou. Anyang. The king and the ancestors. Oracle bones and bronzes.

Reading from Robert Bagley "Shang Archeology" in Loewe and Shaughnessy ed. Cambridge History of Ancient China. Cambridge, 1999 pp.165-175.

-Why is the use of archeological evidence problematic? What sort of questions can we and can we not answer with it?
-Was Anyang a city? A palace? How was it connected to places outside Anyang?
-What relationship do Erlitou, Erligang and Anyang have to each other?
-What role did the ancestors play in the Shang system? Be sure to consider both the religious and the political system.

1/21 Collapse of the Shang and the Zhou Mandate
A shamanistic state. The Anyang network. Kings and their relatives and the universe. Court and proto-bureaucracy. Covenants and texts. The ritual revolution. Mandate of Heaven and the ancestors

-Why are the Houma covenants so important? What sort of sources are used to study this period in general?
-Who are the shi at this point, and what do they do?
-What is a dynastic transition? Why, according to the Zhou, did this one happen?
-Why did the Zhou decline?

Readings from the Classic of History , Declaration to Kang , Declaration Concerning Drunkenness
"The Warrior Aristocracy" from Mark Lewis Sanctioned Violence in Early China

1/28 Sunzi, Confucius, and the age of the consultants
The centralized state. The new military and the experts. Texts and their power. Rise of the centralized state. Bureaucracy and power.

-What was new about the army? Why is the Art of War such an important text?
-Who were the shi? What did they do? What does it mean to call them a class?
-How did Confucius and Laozi respond to the intellectual challenge of the time? What was the big question everyone was trying to answer?
-What is a junzi for Confucius? How do you get to be one and why to they matter so much?
-What were the classics? How did they develop and why did they matter?
-Why was ritual important? Who were the ru?

Metal-bound box from the Classic of History; Chapters 28-31 from Wandering on the Way (The Yangist chapters) and chapters 8-11 (Laozi chapters). Selections from Analects ; Confucius-The Secular as Sacred. Harper, 1972 pp.1-17. Laozi

Sunzi - Art of War (optional)

2/4 The Legalists and the practices of the new states.
The state and war, taxes, and agriculture. Choosing men of talent. Defining talent. Reasons for Legalist success. Mencius and Xunzi and the Confucian response.

-How do Legalists recommend the rulers govern the people? How should they govern their own officials?
-Why, according to the Legalists, is centralization good? How are they like the Daoists?
-How did Mencius respond to the challenges of the time? Was he more successful that Confucius? What was his relationship to Confucius and the Confucian school?

Chapters 6, 16, and 17 from Annals of Lu Buwei Mencius ; Xunzi

2/11 Zhuangzi and escape
Zhuangzi the text and the man. Hermits, magicians and lunatics. Daoist religion, medicine, and the body.

-All the other classical philosophers were concerned with restoring order. What does Zhuangzi think of this?
-How would you tie Zhuangzi to the traditions of shamanism and the later religious Daoists?

-Wandering on the Way, chapters 1-7 (inner chapters)

2/18 The Outcome of Classical Chinese Philosophy
The Classics, Warring schools, textual exegesis, and sprouts of virtue. Rhetoric, logic, and debate.

-Does it really make sense to divide the thinkers of the Warring States into schools?
-Why is Allen so hung up on water?
-What are the most important shared ideas of the various thinkers? Who shared them?

-Allen, Way of Water entire.

2/25 Qin and Han Empires
Qin and the new imperial system. Laws and ritual. The Han state and feudalism.

-Why do we call China China?
-Did Han really reject Qin legalism?
-Explain the deal between the Han court and the shi. Why is this a symbiotic relationship?
-What was the proper relationship between the Chinese court and the rest of Asia? How did the tribute system work?

Read Holcombe Genesis of East Asia cpt 2 and 3. Start reading Han Social Structure.

Mid-term exam (take-home)

3/11 Han society and the shi
Salt and Iron. Redressers of Wrongs and the behavior of the elite.

-How did a shi family function away from court?
-How would you describe the Han economy? What impact did state policy have on the economy in the Fomer and Later Han?
-What is a Redresser of Wrongs? How do they fit into Han society and the Chinese tradition of moral behavior?

Continue with Han Social Structure

3/18 Han Synthesis
Rulers and the universe. Creating a history and a culture. Yin and Yang, history and the dynastic cycle. The court, the Imperial clan and the eunuchs. Wang Mang, classicism, and factions.

-What was wrong with eunuchs (besides the obvious) and women?
-How was the fall of the Han different from the dynastic transitions we have looked at before? What is a secret society?
-What is the Han synthesis? Why did I call Sima Qian and Dong Zhongshu the outcome of classical Chinese thought?

Han readings from DeBarry

3/25 Barbarian invasion
Red eyebrows and Yellow Turbans. Period of division and a wider Asia. Northeners and Southerners and the problem of Sinification.

-Were the states of this period barbarian or Chinese?
-What is Neo Daoism? Why did it appeal to the elite? Why does it matter?

-"Ge Hong's Autobiography" From Patricia Ebrey Chinese Civilization: A Source book 2ed ed. Free Press, 1993.
-Robert Holcombe. The Genesis of East Asia, cpt 4, 5

4/1 Buddhism
The Buddha, the dharma and the sangha. Converting the Chinese. The transmission and production of Buddhist knowledge.

-What is Buddhism? Is it a religion?
-How did Buddhism get to China, and how did this process change it? What did the Chinese want from Buddhism?
-What is Chan? Is it Daoism or Buddhism?
-How did Buddhism function as a religion? How similar was it to Taoism in this respect?

Teiser, Ghost Festival, 1-112

4/8 Tang (and Sui) Unification
Imperial rule. Changan, cultural capital, and the imperial bureaucracy. The Grand Canal and the move to the South. Vietnam and Korea.

-How were the Tang emperors different from emperors before them?
-What is cultural capital? How did emperors and others get it?
-What role did commerce play in the transformation of Tang China?
-How did Chinese civilization spread to the South? What did the Tang state have to do with this?
-Why did Vietnamese, Koreans and Japanese borrow so much from China? Why did they call themselves Zhongguo ren?

Holcombe, cpt 6,7,9

Papers due 4/15

4/15 China under the Tang
Popular and elite culture. Popular religion, Buddhism, and the family. Printing and the new world of the late Tang

-How valid is the distinction between elite and popular culture?
-How Buddhist is the cosmology of the Mu-lien story?
-Why is printing so important?

Teiser 113-end. Mu-lien story from Mair Tunhuang Popular Narratives

4/22 The light of Asia
Economic and social transition. Paddies, canals and iron. Social climbing. The restaurant business.

-Why is the Tang such a popular dynasty? What makes a dynasty or a country great?
-What is the Tang-Song transition?
-What were the exams? Why were they such a big deal for the emperor and the shi?

A reading from Schaffer Golden Peaches of Samarkand. Paper presentations.

Final Exam

Grades

1000 total points

Quizzes 100 pts
Mid-term 250 pts
Paper 350 pts
Paper presentation 50 pts
Final Exam 250 pts

900-1000 pts A
800-899 pts B
700-799 pts C
600-699 pts D
500-599 pts F

Quizzes
There are a total of 100 quiz points available for this class. You can get some of them from the in-class quizzes and other assignments, but you can also get quiz points for writing up something about one of our readings or giving a brief presentation to the class. You should all come talk to me some time during the first few weeks to figure out what you are going to do. You can keep turning things in until the last day of November, so everyone should get 100% on this part of the grade.

Source paper
Each of you will write a short (10+ page) paper analyzing one chunk of an ancient Chinese text. You can pick whatever you want, but some things will be easier than others. Analects, as an example, is very hard to work with because of the way it is put together. What you do with this text depends on what it is. No matter what you are working on you will want to explain what the text is saying, i.e. give a brief summary of its contents. Then you need to explain what we can learn from this text. This will of course depend on what sort of text you are working with. If it is one of the outer chapters from Zhuangzi it would probably be something about Daoist philosophy. If it is from Three Kingdoms it would probably be something about classical ideas of heroism. If it is from Water Margin it would probably be something about popular culture, or maybe about how much Chinese outlaws can drink. You should come talk to me about what you are thinking of doing, and should also come talk to me after you have read your selection. If you are not sure what to do you might want to look at this Early China Bibliography

-Attendance policy-- You are paying for the classes, feel free to show up or not.

-Academic dishonesty-- All students are required to abide by the University's policies on Academic Integrity, as found in the catalogue.