Asian Languages & Civilization 172 - History of Modern China: Troubled Transformations from the Tea Trade to Tiktok

(Offered as HIST 172 and ASLC 172.) This survey offers students a deep historical perspective on today’s China and Chinese society. It examines the matrix of the internal and external forces and movements that have shaped modern China from the mid-nineteenth century to the present. During this period, people in China have experienced the most tumultuous and traumatic events in its transformations toward modernity; few countries have gone through as many dramatic changes as China in the last two centuries.  We will study China’s modern transformations by exploring a series of momentous events, including the Opium War, the Taiping Rebellion, the collapse of the imperial system and the Republican Revolution, the “New Culture Movement,” Communist revolution, World War II, the Chinese Civil War, the founding of the People’s Republic of China, the Korean War, the Great Leap Forward, Mao’s Cultural Revolution, post-Mao economic reform, the Tian’anmen protests, and China’s recent development as a rising global superpower. Through examining these events, we will explore important themes such as China’s troubled transformation from an empire to a nation-state, the rise of new Chinese cultures, gender and family revolutions, economic and industrial modernization, student activism, and China’s changing relationship with the outside world. Readings, which include a wide variety of documents such as religious and revolutionary tracts, eyewitness accounts, memoirs, letters, and fiction, are supplemented by interpretive essays and videos. Two class meetings per week.

Spring semester. Professor Qiao.

How to handle overenrollment: ASLC and History majors will have priority.

Students who enroll in this course will likely encounter and be expected to engage in the following intellectual skills, modes of learning, and assessment: Close analysis of historical evidence, which may include written documents, images, music, films, or statistics from the historical period under study. Exploration of scholarly, methodological, and theoretical debates about historical topics. Extensive reading, varying forms of written work, and intensive in-class discussions.