CHINA IN THE WESTERN IMAGINATION

HI 3203

Mr. Joe Eaton

St. Gregory’s University

Fall 2001

 

wjeaton@sgc.edu

http://intranet.sgc.edu/People/Faculty/wjeaton/

Phone: 878-5183

Office: 313 Administration Building

 

Office hours: Monday 12:45-3:30, Wednesday 12-1, Thursday 10:45-12 (unless faculty meeting), and by appointment.  My teaching schedule is listed on my office door.  You may also meet me before or after class.  Please feel free to call or send an email if none of these times is good for you. 

 

An office conference with me will be required around mid-term.  More details will be announced.

 

Please, no food or drink in the classroom.  H₂O allowed.

 

Late assignments will be penalized.

 

Make-Up Examinations: Make-up examinations are both burdensome on me and unfair to the remainder of the class, and for both reasons are not readily given.  Exceptions for good cause are allowed, but you should be prepared to provide written verification of any incident preventing you from not taking an exam on the designated day.  Make-up exams tend to be more difficult because the person has had an opportunity to study longer than his or her classmates.

 

Course description: This course examines images of China in major works of Western fiction, non-fiction, and cinema, both European and American.  Particular concern is given to how images of China have evolved over time during changing historical circumstances from classical times to the present. 

 

I believe that we will see that Western images of China are often self-referential but also reflect real events in China and East Asia generally.  The West is the subject of the course; China is the object.  You will learn not only about a specific area of Western intellectual history but also about general events in Chinese history, particularly during the Yüan, Ming, and Qing dynasties as well as the Republic of China and People’s Republic of China.  The Western images of China that we encounter are not often subtle; we need to keep an open mind as well as we view very contemporary, and often transitory images.  I do expect you to become a “China Watcher” of sorts.  Please be on the look out for images of China and Taiwan in contemporary media and entertainment.

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Required Books (all available in bookstore).  Failure to procure required books will result in loss of class participation points.  Continued failure to procure required books may result in expulsion from class.

 

Kristoff, Nicholas and Sheryl Wudunn, China Wakes: The Struggle for the Soul of a Rising

Power, New York: Vintage, 1995   ISBN 0679763937

 

Mann, James, About Face: A History of America’s Curious Relationship with China, from

Nixon to Clinton, New York: Vintage, 2000 ISBN 0-679-76861-0

 

Mosher, Steven, Hegemon: China’s Plan to Dominate Asia and the World, San Francisco:

Encounter Books, 2001 ISBN 1893554406

 

Mungello, D.E., The Great Encounter of China and the West, 1500-1800, Lanham,

Course Outline (Subject to change):

 

Course week #:

 

1 – Introduction

 

2 – Early Images, the Romans, Franciscans, & Marco Polo

Reading: Monday, August 27, “Introduction” to Colin Mackerras, Western Image of China (handout)

Catholic era in China discovery

Reading: Wednesday, August 29, D.E Mungello, The Great Encounter of China and the West, 1500-1800, pp. 1-55

 

3 – (Labor Day) Confucius and Europe

Reading: Wednesday, September 5, Mungello, The Great Encounter 59-80

 

4 - Chinoiserie in gardens, art, porcelain &

The Enlightenment and China;

Reading: Monday, September 10, Francois Quesnay, “Despotism in China” & Oliver Goldsmith, “Citizen of the World” (handouts); Mungello, The Great Encounter 83-98

 

5 – Nineteenth Century Decline of the China Image & Improving Images in the 20^th Century

September 17, Movie: Pearl Buck’s “Good Earth” (Best Picture 1937)

 

6 - Communism in China, 1930’s

Reading: Monday, September 24, Edgar Snow, “Red Star over China” (1938) (handout)

 

7 – Who Lost China? The Creation of the PRC and the 1950s

Readings: TBA

 

8 - MID-TERM EXAMINATION, October 8

 

9 – China and the Intellectuals

Readings: Monday, October 15, Excerpts from Jann Myrdal, “China: The Revolution Continued,” (1970), Lorenz Stucki, “Behind the Great Wall: An Appraisal of Mao's China,” (1965), Felix Greene, “Awakened China: The Country Americans Don't Know,” (1961), Shirley MacLaine, “You Can Get There from Here,” (1975)

 

10 – China and Tibet

Movie: October 21, “Seven Years in Tibet” (Brad Pitt, 1997)

China Chic – China and Western Fashion

 

11 & 12

Readings: James Mann, “About Face,” pages TBA

 

13 & 14

Tiananmen Square and its Aftermath

Readings: Kristoff and Duwunn, “China Wakes,” pages TBA

 

15

China as a Threat &

The Taiwan Alternative

Steven Mosher, “Hegemon,” pages TBA

 

16

TBA

Major Project due December 3

 

Method of Evaluation:                   Points:

Major Project                                   100

Exam – October 8                           100                            

Final Exam                                      100

Attendance, class participation   100

 & Occasional pop quiz

 

Grading Scale 90-100% A, 80-89% B, 70-79% C, 60-69% D, 59% and below F

 

Additional papers/quiz may be assigned if reading/attendance is perceived by the instructor to be less than adequate.

 

The research project will deal with a topic that you have chosen but which I have approved.   The project itself will likely be a research paper, content-based website, or lengthy annotated bibliography and will be due December 3.

 

The following is a list of some very preliminary list of project subjects.  Any of these topics will need to be further defined.  You may find another topic.  This list is not meant to limit the choice of topics:

 

Ancient trade with China.

Jesuit attempts in China and the Rites controversy.

Japan's relationship to the China/West relationship.

Western images of Chinese women.

Confucius in the Western imagination.

China's image traced in a particular magazine (i.e. Time, Newsweek, National Geographic, Nation, etc.).

The role of one particular person in creating Western images of China (i.e. Polo, Ricci, Quesnay, Delano, Luce).

The relevance of Edward Said's theories of Orientalism to Western perceptions of China.

Chinatowns in the United States.

Perceptions of the Chinese military.

Chinoiserie (i.e. clothes, visual arts, gardens, Eastern spirituality).

The role of China in the Enlightenment.

The impact of Chinese science on the West.

Protestant missionaries in China.

Chinese Communism and left intellectuals in the West.

Western intellectuals and perceptions of Chinese population.

Western anti-Communism and the PRC.

Taiwan and the PRC - competing images.

China in Western theatre.

Hong Kong/Macao turnovers.

Australian perceptions of China.

Perceptions of the 50th anniversary of the PRC.

Perceptions of Chinese economic potential.

The human rights question and China.

Perceptions of Chinese art/aestheticism.

American policy regarding Taiwan.

Western adoptions of Chinese infants.

Western women and China.