Heritage and Innovation

Heritage and Innovation

Fall 2008
GCHI 212
2 Credits, 9 weeks - Thursdays, 2-5pm
Lecturer: Zhan Tianxiang

Course Description:
The course will survey traditional Chinese culture by way of introduction to the city and people of Hangzhou. The student will be challenged to explore the city as text, with the aim to better understand the relationship between people and place over time. The course will focus on the role of Hangzhou in Chinese history and fiction and the unique contributions its residents have made to the development of Chinese culture, from the growth of the silk and tea trade, and traditional Chinese medicine to art and architect.

The course is designed as an introduction to traditional Chinese culture and will focus on exploring the historical sites, figures and discovering the legends and poems associated with the city of Hangzhou. Students are expected to grasp the brief history of the city, and to become familiar with certain aspects of Chinese culture. By attending lectures, reading the assigned texts and suggested reading materials, and participating in field visits, students will come to understand important characteristics of traditional Chinese culture. The instructor will emphasize themes of traditional Chinese family values and education throughout the course.

This course will be composed of weekly lectures and excursions within Hangzhou and immediate surrounding areas. Class lectures by the instructor will supplement assigned readings to provide complementary perspectives and insight. Fieldtrips will be an important part of this course since the subject is the city in which we live, but due to logistical requirements some field trips may not related directly to the course content for the unit under discussion that week and subjects from multiple units may be combined during one field trip.


COURSE REQUIREMENTS
Students must attend every lecture and field trip totaling 20 contact hours between faculty and students. Students must write one 2000 words research paper and three 1000 word response papers.

COURSE SCHEDULE
Unit One: History of Hangzhou
This unit will explore the early location of Hangzhou and its role in cultural and economical development, from the early Hemudu civilization, to capital of the Buddhist Wuyue Kingdom to the capital of China during the Southern Song Dynasty.

1) September 11, Thursday, at the center
2) September 18, Thursday, Lecture will be held at Wansong Academy. Meeting at the main gate of YuQian campus, Zhejinag University, at 1：45 pm, then taking bus to Wangsong Academy
3) September 25, Thursday, Field visit to Hangzhou Museum with lecture in QianWangShi. Meeting at the main gate of campus at 1:30pm.

Unit Two: Famous Persons and Places
This unit will explore the famous persons associated with a Hangzhou and their roles and contributions to Chinese culture, from General Yue Fei, Yu Qian to the famous governor of Hangzhou during the Tang and Song dynasties, Bai Juyi and SuShi, to such modern revolutionary thinkers Lu Xun and Zhang Taiyan. We will also explore famous sites in Hangzhou and their place in traditional Chinese arts and literature and how they have been memorialized in poetry, calligraphy and painting, and in such famous stories as the Legend of White Sanke.

1) October 9, Thursday, Field visit to HuQingYuTang Traditional Chinese Medicine
Museum. The lecture will be conducted inside the museum.
2) October 16, Thursday, Field visit to Yue Mausoleum and Zhejiang Museum. The lecture will be held in the museum.
3) October 23, Thursday, at the center

Unit Three:
This unit will explore the function of traditional family values and education in China and their changing roles in modern times, including the role of filial piety and loyalty to the states, the imperial exam and the college entrance exam, and the cultivation of the self through health and artistic expression.

1) November 13, Thursday, at the center
2) November 20, Thursday, at the center
4) November 27, Thursday, at the center

Note: Field trips may be changed or replaced according to weather conditions and
Schedule conflicts.

INDICATIVE READINGS1)
John King Fairbank and Merle Goldman, China: A New History (Enlarge Edition), Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1998
2) Wm. Theodore de Bary, Wing-tsit Chan, and Burton Watson, ed. Introduction to Asian Civilization, Sources of Chinese tradition, Vol. 1, Vol. 2. Columbia Press, 1960
3) Carolyn Brown Heinz, Asian Cultural Tradition, Waveland Press, 1999.
4) Burton Watson, trans, The Columbia Book of Chinese Poetry, Columbia University Press, 1984.
5) Craig Clunas, Oxford History of Art: Art in China, Oxford University Press, 1997.
5) Alfred Murck, Poetry and painting in Song China: The Subtle Art of Dissent. Harvard University Asia Center, 2000.
6) Ronald C. Egan, Word, Image, and Deed in the Life of Su Shi, Harvard yen-ching Institute, 1994.
7) Paul S. Ropp, ed., Heritage of China: Contemporary Perspectives on Chinese Civilization, University of California Press, 1990.

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