Show and Tell 1

“Conquest and Consolidation (1600-1800)”

As we reach the end of the first module/part of Chinese history, you get a chance to showcase what you learned so far. There are many different ways you can do that: traditional, scholarly, or more creative and interpretive. As long as you can share your project digitally with your colleagues in the course, the sky is the limit (more or less).

Table of Contents

• Details: what, when, where, how
• Topics and guidelines
• Suggestions for format
• Rubric and self-assessment
• List of primary sources

Details: what, when, where, how

WHEN: due by Tue, Feb. 7, 11.59pm

WHAT: showcase something you learned about Chinese history for the time period 1600-1800, i.e. course content at the end of week 3.

WHY: This gives you a chance to look back and consolidate what you learned so far. Perhaps you now see connections you did not spot initially (maybe as the result of browsing through your classmates’ posts?), or you have changed your opinions, or discovered a new source, or followed up on a question and want to share?

HOW:

• Create a blog post, and share a link to the project. (If it’s a text-based Show and Tell, you can of course submit it as the blog post.)
• Use the words “Show and Tell 1:” in the title of the post; you can further customize the title by adding a title that will draw the reader in.
• Add the post to the category hst271.
• Submit your link in the Canvas assignment
• Most importantly: add a brief self-assessment in the submission comments:
  • What did you do well? What do you want to improve on in a rewrite, or in the next assignment?
    • The Rubric (found below) is a soulless check list, so in the submission comments you get a chance to wax lyrical about what you put into the project, and what you hope the reader gets out of it. If need be, I can help you get that out even more in a “rewrite & resubmit” (–> that is a real thing professional academics do, join the club!)
  • Suggest a grade out of 20 points.

Topics

Here’s a suggested list of topics, but please ping me a message on Discord or talk with me if you have a cool idea and are not sure if it will fit. I’ll do my best to help you make it work!

• Manchu origins, ethnicity, or customs
• Anything connected to late Ming Chinese culture and society
• An important event or person, or a social, cultural trend during the reign of one of the first emperors of the Qing (incl. Qianlong)
• A close reading/analysis of a primary source text or bringing texts in dialogue (suggestions and links below)
• An improved/new layer 1 of the Map or Timeline from the course (first come, first served basis)
• …

Suggestions for formats

• An analytical blog post: you analyze a set of materials drawn from the course materials, looking for connections, changes, continuities within the section covered and (once we are beyond the first Show and Tell) across more than one section.
  • 800 words (±10%, excl. notes and bibliography)
  • It’s not a summary.
  • I encourage you to bring in additional scholarly materials. Otherwise you have to do a very deep analysis of what we covered in class/readings.
  • You bring a new insight through a focused look at a particular aspect of the course materials covered so far: this post is more than the sum of its parts.
  • OPTION: You can also do this as a voiced-over power point slide deck, voice-thread, or other video/spoken assignment.
• An encyclopedia entry (as blog post): you explain in detail an aspect of this part of Chinese history that you found fascinating, but we did not explore in great detail in class.
  • You add at least two sources that were not in the class readings yet. (Note: you can use the Optional Extras/background)
  • You introduce new information and new details on something connected to the history of China (1600-1800).
• A small digital humanities project, for instance:
  • A detailed timeline (TimelineJS) [e.g. a specific event instead of covering the years 1600-1800]
  • A Storymap
  • A Twine-story
  • A Twitter-thread (series of tweets on a single topic)
  • An short audio podcast episode (± 5min, scripted)
  • A brief video documentary (± 2-3 min)
• Current event in historical context: China is in the news all the time, and many of the topics have a much longer and complex historical background than journalists explain in their pieces. Use a current news topic as a jumping off point, and dive deeper into the historical connection.
  • 800 words (±10%, excl. notes and bibliography)
• Primary source analysis
  • Do a deeper dive into a longer source and explore it as a historian would: how does the document/cultural artifact help you understand the history? OR
  • Use two or more primary sources and put them in dialogue, and show how a historian can use these to deepen our understanding of Chinese history. You can trace a genre or topic in time, or you can put two sources from the same time period in dialogue.
  • 800 words (± 10%;  excl. footnotes and bibliography)
  • You can find a list below
• Examples of creative projects from previous editions of the course:
  • informative click bait, review of a scholarly article, a twitter thread,…
  • a talkshow with impersonations of historical figures
  • Google slide presentations with voice over or presenter notes
  • Prezi presentation
  • script for a play
  • art work, with guided notes explaining the connection to history.
• Other ideas? Let me know! We can discuss what would work.

Rubric and self-assessment

How to assess your own work? Let’s agree on the following basics. Your work scores high when it displays characteristics that are the result of a resounding yes to the following statements:

• I leaned into my curiosity to get to the bottom of a question I had, or a topic I wanted to learn more about – within the timeframe specified for this particular Show and Tell.
• I made sure my contribution helps my fellow students understand a particular aspect of Chinese history better, and is more than a summary of content we covered in class.
• I hit the word count (±10%, excl. notes and bibliography) if I follow a model suggested by Dr. D
  • OR
• I consulted with Dr. D on the suitability and feasibility of a creative or digital project as an equivalent amount of work
• I added footnotes in Chicago Notes and Bibliography style for all information I used, not only for paraphrases and quotations. [See the FAQ on this webpage, scroll down a bit]
• I added a list of works consulted (aka a “bibliography) in Chicago Notes and Bibliography style
• I checked the public-facing presentation of my work (blog post or other) looks professional, and is to the best of my ability free from factual errors, grammar and spelling mistakes.
• I made sure to add hyperlinks and Alt Text where applicable.

Primary source suggestions

In addition to the materials we already covered in the course, and those readily available in the Documentary Collection (Chen, Janet Y, Pei-kai Cheng, Michael Elliot Lestz, and Jonathan D Spence. The Search for Modern China: A Documentary Collection. Third ed. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2014), I gather here some longer-form sources you may want to explore.

• Tang Xianzu, The Peony Pavilion: Mudan Ting. Chinese Literature in Translation. Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 1980. [e-book])
  • What is it? The libretto of a Kun-style “opera”. This particular play was extremely popular in the late Ming.
  • You can find any number of excerpts of performances on YouTube, e.g. this selection from a search I did. (Unfortunately we no longer have the fantastic performance from the MetMuseum’s Chinese garden)
• Cao Xueqin, Story of the Stone, Vol. 1: The Golden Days, transl. by David Hawkes. Harmsworth: Penguin Books, 2006: Chapters 1-5. (PDF text – PDF with solution to the riddles)
  • What is it? The opening chapters of The Dream of the Red Chamber as Spence translates the Chinese title Honglou Meng in his Chapter 5. (Hawkes’ translation uses an alternative title.) It is one of the greatest novels in the world- I encourage you to read the entire book (five volumes in total), some day in the near future. It will be worth it. Once the “supernatural” elements are out of the way, it describes the life and times of the son of a wealthy family in eighteenth-century China.
• Shen, Fu. Six Records of a Floating Life. Trans. by Leonard Pratt and Chiang Su-hui. Penguin Classics. Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England: Penguin, 1983. (PDF)
  • What is it? The translation of the four surviving chapters of Shen Fu’s memoir. This gives you a good sense of the ups and downs, pleasures and disappointments in the life of a member of the “gentry” class in late Qing China.
• Image galleries for the Summer Palace (“Garden of Perfect Brightness” Yuanming yuan):
  • Gallery with Essay 1
  • Gallery with Essay 2
  • What is it? This website combines essays and visual information in various ways. Explore at the top menu under “Garden of Perfect Brightness I and II” You can use both types of information, and the image galleries provide excellent primary sources of Western and Chinese images of the Summer Palace. Use for analysis or for inspiration if you are an artist or want to curate an online exhibition. These two galleries show the Garden/Summer Palace at the height of its glory. Keep the Gallery from essay 3 for the next Show and Tell.

• Locate in the library:
  • Lynn A. Struve, Voices from the Ming-Qing Cataclysm: China in Tiger’s Jaws. New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1993: Chapters 1-6.
    • What is it? Translations of eyewitness accounts of the upheaval, and other primary source documents from the Ming-Qing transition. You may already have read the “Diary of Ten Days in Yangzhou” in week 2. But wait! There’s more!
  • Spence, Jonathan D. Emperor of China: Self Portrait of Kʻang Hsi. New York: Vintage Books, 1975, Chapters 2-5 (pp. 25-139 in this edition)
    • What is it? Spence uses a variety of documents to weave together a “self-portrait” of one of the most important emperors of the Qing (read the Introduction for an explanation of his method).