Week 7: End of Empire and Revolution

This week we say goodbye to Imperial China (for real!) and we enter one of the most confusing, but also most fascinating eras of modern Chinese history: the Republic (1912-1949). Get ready to consult the Timeline and Map (part 3/layer 3) under General Resources a lot.

Slides
Readings and class details
Assignments
Extra Credit Tasks
Where to Get Assistance?

Slides

Readings and class details

Wednesday

Ettinger 204, 9.30AM

Moïse Edwin E. Modern China: A History Third ed. Harlow, England: Pearson/Longman, 2008.
- Ebook Trexler: pp. 34-46.
- This is a recap, but will be useful to remind ourselves of how we got to this point!

Then also pick one Exploration Pack for this session:

Exploration Pack 1: Qiu Jin: Feminist, revolutionary, woman

Qiu Jin was a female revolutionary who put her male counterparts to shame! You also learn from her story a lot about what ailed the Qing, and the revolutionaries in general. (Mentioned in textbook chapter 10, but worth a little detour this week)

Autumn Gem. Produced by Adam Tow. Directed by Adam Tow. Kanopy, 2009.
- Online Video, 53 mins
- Click on “show more”, note at the bottom of the summary the link to “supplementary materials” which has a handy “study guide”, full of useful background information.
“The Beheaded Feminist: Qiu Jin”. In The Red Brush: Writing Women of Imperial China. Edited by Wilt Idema and Beata Grant, 767-808. Harvard East Asian Monographs, 231. Cambridge: Harvard University Asia Center, 2004.
- PDF
- Note: I marked off 3 sections with red brackets to focus on (starting on p. 780, 786, 796) but I gave you the entire chapter to provide background, in case you want the additional info.
- Should we describe Qiu Jin as a feminist, or as a revolutionary? What in her writings points you to one or the other of these labels?

Exploration Pack 2: The Chinese labor force at the European front

Xu, Guoqi. Strangers on the Western Front: Chinese Workers in the Great War. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2011. (ebook Trexler)
- Read chapter 6 “Strangers in a Strange World: Chinese Lives in Europe”.
- Please note that some of the quotes use language we now consider offensive.
- How does this compare with the experience of the Chinese laborers in the US (where the Chinese Exclusion Act was still in operation; remember, it was not rescinded until 1943)
Photo gallery (slides) (Gdrive link): cemetery in Noyelles-Sur-Mer (France).
- Note that most of the Chinese laborers buried here died after the armistice of Nov. 11, 1918, due to the Spanish flu.

Friday:

Ettinger 204, 9.30AM

Basic Set

Mitter, Rana. Modern China: A Very Short Introduction. Very Short Introductions. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008.
- Ebook Trexler, read pp. 34 – 39 (Chapter 2, start at “The Crisis of the Republic”, end before “The Northern Expedition”)
- This provides the necessary background information in a nutshell

Exploration Pack 1: Plain Textbook

Spence, Jonathan D. The Search for Modern China. Third ed. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2013.
- Chapter 13 (“A Road is Made”)
13.1: Chen Duxiu: “Call to Youth”; In The Search for Modern China: A Documentary Collection. Third ed. Edited by Janet Chen et. al. W. W. Norton & Company, 2014.
- Chen Duxiu: PDF

Exploration Pack 2: May Fourth Movement and beginnings of Communism in China

Sun Yatsen. “The Three People’s Principles” in Sources of Chinese Tradition: From 1600 through the Twentieth Century, Vol. 2, 202-205. Edited by Wm. Th. de Bary and R. Lufrano. Columbia Univ. Press, 2001. (PDF)
- Sun’s legacy is claimed by both the Nationalist (Guomindang or GMD /Kuomintang or KMT) party and the Communist Party (CCP)
Lu Xun, “Diary of a madman”. Translated by William A. Lyell. In Diary of a Madman and Other Stories. University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu, 1990. (PDF)

Exploration Pack 3: Taiwan

Caroline, Ts’ai Hui-yu. “Shaping Administration in Colonial Taiwan, 1895–1945.” In Taiwan Under Japanese Colonial Rule, 1895-1945: History, Culture, Memory, Edited by Ping-hui Liao and David Der-wei Wang, 97-121. New York: Columbia University Press, 2006.
- Questions: What were the obstacles Japan had to overcome in ruling its first foreign colony? Was it successful? Why (not)? Where could Taiwanese people find ways to resist the colonization?
- This type of text tries to convince you of an argument: can you summarize in three sentences what the “pitch” is the author makes? What do they want you to accept as true? –> that will help you through the text.
14.1: “A Patient Named Taiwan.” In The Search for Modern China: A Documentary Collection. Third ed. Edited by Janet Chen et. al. W. W. Norton & Company, 2014.PDF
- Note: This piece was written by a Taiwanese-Chinese person, in Japanese.
A Chat with the Governor-General About Discontinuing Chinese Columns in Daily Newspapers.” In The Columbia Sourcebook of Literary Taiwan, edited by Sung-sheng Yvonne Chang, Michelle Yeh and Ming-ju Fan. Columbia Univ. Press, 2014.PDF
- In this short interview, you read the Japanese view of Taiwan within the greater Japanese empire.

Assignments

1. Reminder: Weekly Blog post (content week 6)

5 points, due Mon. Feb. 27, 11:59PM

Write a blog post exploring themes or ideas based on your reading. You do not need to have all the answers. In fact, learning to ask good analytical or research questions is a skill you can develop during the semester. Remember the description of the assignment from the syllabus.

Length: approx. 400 words. excl. list of materials consulted.
Add the list of materials consulted at the end of the post, in Chicago notes and bibliography style.
- TOP TIP: Just copy the bibliography information from the Reading list from last week’s webpage, do not add the descriptive notes I provide for your information.
Add the words “Week 6” in the title.
- Please use this exact phrase, so your post will show up in the blog stream.
Indicate which Exploration Pack you chose (if applicable)
Include a relevant image, and add a caption with the source/credit, and an Alt text description
Post on your website, and add to the category hst271.

When you’re done, read this declaration carefully and then fill out the Canvas quiz to collect your points.

Declaration
– I wrote a post of approximately 400 words in response to the readings.
– I included the bibliographic references for the materials I used for my post.
– I indicated which Exploration Pack I chose.
– I included an image, and I provided a caption and credit (source), and an Alt text description for the image.
– I use the words Week 6 in the title, and added the post to category hst271

2. Second Show and Tell project

20 points, due Tue Feb. 28, 11:59PM

Find all the details on the dedicated webpage (this helps me to keep the weekly schedule a bit more clutter-free).

If you used your Free Pass for the first Show and Tell project, you MUST complete the remaining four!

3. Hypothes.is: comments on Week 6 posts

3 points, due Wed. March 1 by 11.59pm.

Below you find links to three blog posts from your fellow students. If one of the websites is your own, or it is twice the same person’s, refresh the page, and you should get new sites. [posts coming on Tuesday]

Post 1:
Post 2:
Post 3:

Leave feedback, questions, thoughts, insights about the contents of the posts of your fellow students using Hypothes.is group HST271. You can ask for clarifications, point out similarities and differences with the material you covered, or with your interpretation. This should encourage you to nose around in the other materials you did not read in the first round.

Use tags in Hypothes.is: question: If you have a question (obvious); answered: if you gave an answer to a question; info: if you provide more information, looking up additional facts, drawing on knowledge from other classes; and other tags you can think of. This will help us to navigate more quickly to the questions that still need answering.

Use the “Architect’s Model” of giving feedback, and engage with concrete issues. Go beyond “Yeah, I agree,” “I like” or “I think the same”, and instead explain why you have that reaction, or if you disagree, you can try to persuade the original poster of your idea or interpretation.

Remember that Hypothes.is allows for hyperlinks, e.g. to materials that support your argument, or you can include pictures (memes! [yes, there she is again]), videos etc. that help the original poster to learn more.

When you’ve commented on three posts, read this declaration carefully, and then fill out the Canvas quiz to collect your points.

Declaration
– I commented on three fellow students’ posts on the readings from Week 6 using the group HST271.
– I made sure to leave substantial comments that move the discussion forward and help to create better insights, and go beyond a “nice” or “great”.
– I left comments that I would like to receive myself: thoughtful, helpful, kind, but also pointing out errors so they can be fixed.

4. Weekly Blog post (content week 7)

5 points, due Mon. March 6, 11:59PM

Length: approx. 400 words. excl. list of materials consulted.
Add the list of materials consulted at the end of the post, in Chicago notes and bibliography style.
- TOP TIP: Just copy the bibliography information from the Reading list on this webpage, do not add the descriptive notes I provide for your information.
Add the words “Week 7” in the title.
- Please use this exact phrase, so your post will show up in the blog stream.
Indicate which Exploration Pack you chose (if applicable)
Include a relevant image, and add a caption with the source/credit, and an Alt text description
Post on your website, and add to the category hst271.

When you’re done, read this declaration carefully and then fill out the Canvas quiz to collect your points.

Declaration
– I wrote a post of approximately 400 words in response to the readings.
– I included the bibliographic references for the materials I used for my post.
– I indicated which Exploration Pack(s) I chose.
– I included an image, and I provided a caption and credit (source), and an Alt text description for the image.
– I use the words Week 7 in the title, and added the post to category hst271

Extra Credit tasks

EC7-1. Rewrite a blog post

2 points, due by Sunday, March. 5, 11.59pm

Unhappy about a post you wrote? Feeling you can do better now than a few weeks ago? Had a bad week and rushed to get it in but now you’re ready to do something you can be proud of? Now you can rewrite that post and get some extra credit for it!

Pick one post from a previous weeks (not the Cat post) and use the comments you received, and your new insights, to rewrite it.
Add a brief paragraph at the end explaining how you rewrote the post: which comments did you address, how did you go about the process (e.g. starting from new blank page vs. tinkering; focusing on structure or word choice or adding/correcting facts,…), and what you learned through the process of rewriting.
tag the post with extra, and add “rewrite” to the title
- (Note: it should already be in the category hst271)

Read the following Declaration carefully, and then head on over to Canvas to collect your points in the Declaration Quiz:

Declaration
I selected a post from a previous week and rewrote it, using feedback and insights I gained since writing it.
I added a brief paragraph at the end explaining what I did to rewrite the post, and what I learned about rewriting
I added the tag extra to the post, and added the word rewrite to the title.
I made sure the post is still in the category hst271.

EC7-2: Down the Rabbit Hole

3 points, due by Sunday March. 5, 11.59pm

Are you curious? Can you spend hours on internet following one link after another trying to get to the bottom of something? Did you know you can now also get some extra credit for this?

Pick a topic, placename, object, book or person connected to our readings from this week, and follow your curiosity “down the rabbit hole”, like Alice in Wonderland. Then share in a blog post with us where you went, and what you found. Your post does not have to be very long: 250 words should work; more is fine if you went on a deep dive, of course. Here’s what to include:

What in the course materials this week got you inspired to go down the rabbit hole?
Include as hyperlinked text the websites you visited, and what you learned there.
Include an image, with caption giving credit for the image.
You may also critique the sources you find, in particular if you have your doubts about their reliability, or you come across conflicting interpretations. Which one did you side with, and why?
Add the post to category hst271, use the title template “Down the rabbit hole: [insert subject]”, and add the tag extra.