Woman Warrior/Dragon Empress
Women, Gender and the State in Chinese History
HIST 452, Spring 2008, Thursday 1:10, Acland Seminar Room
Ruth Dunnell, Seitz 04, x5323
Office hours: Mon 2-4:00 pm, Tues 2:00-4:00 pm, Fri 9-10 am or by appointment
This Course:
Images of tiny-footed Chinese women before the 20th century revolutions used to symbolize an entire history of female oppression for women everywhere, and for Chinese modernizers in particular. Yet the quasi-historical Hua Mulan (4th century) and the much demonized Dowager Empress Ci Xi (Tz’u-Hsi, 1835-1908) embody two of the ancient and persistent legends of powerful Chinese women. Other mythic types in this gallery include the femme fatale who causes the collapse of dynasties, the Iron Girls of modern China’s Cultural Revolution, or the female scholar who disguises herself as a man to take the imperial civil service examinations in her husband’s place. HIST 452 will explore the origins of these enduring and popular legends of women, as well as the social and political realities that called them into being and perpetuated them. The class will analyze memoirs, documents, artifacts of visual and material culture, and the various multimedia forms in which Chinese women have found representation through the centuries up to the present. Students will make a presentation on a topic of their own choice, as well as participate in a seminar research project on Ci Xi, the last Manchu empress who dominated power and politics at the Qing (Ch’ing) court in the late 19th and early 20th century. The course has no prerequisites and assumes no prior knowledge of Chinese history.
Texts for purchase:
Francesca Bray, Technology and Society in Ming China (1368-1644)
Jonathan Spence, The Death of Woman Wang
Dorothy Ko, Every Step a Lotus: Shoes for Bound Feet
Shen Fu, Six Records of A Floating Life
Ida Pruitt, A Daughter of Han, The Autobiography of a Chinese Working Woman
Susan Brownell and Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom, Chinese Femininities Chinese Masculinities
You will be referred occasionally to other readings on reserve in the library, in Seitz House, on ERES or online. The course ERES password is yin.
Evaluation (assignment guidelines follow below):
Reading memos: 35% 7 @ 50 pts each350 pts
Portfolio paper: 15% 150 pts
Seminar project:30%300 pts
Participation:20% 200 pts
Weekly Schedule
Week 1Introduction: Warrior Woman
1/17Feng Lan, “The Female Individual and
the Empire: A Historicist Approach to
Mulan and Kingston’s Woman Warrior,”
Comparative Literature 55:3 (Summer, 2003),
229-245. (JSTOR)
Week 2The Virtue: Filial Piety
1/24Sources:
1. Ban Zhao, “Admonitions for Women” (Nujie)
And for discussion of Ban Zhao’s life and writings
2. Under Confucian Eyes, ch. 3, “The Book of Filial Piety for Women,” in Susan Mann et al, ed., Under Confucian Eyes (2001) (Reserve)
3. Introduction to Liu Xiang, Lienu zhuan (Biographies of Exemplary Women, 1st cent. BCE)
(the text is only in Chinese so far.)
4. The short Confucian text of “The Great Learning (Daxue)”
5. 24 Stories of Filial Devotion (comic book version, on Seitz Reserve)
Scholarly Interpretation:
Keith Knapp, “Reverent caring: the parent-son relationship in early medieval tales of filial offspring,” in Alan K. L. Chan & Sor-hoon Tan, eds., Filial Piety in Chinese Thought and History (2004), 44-62 (in Moodle)
Reading Memo 1
Week 3Virtues: Family, Household & Labor
1/31Sources:
1. Yan Zhitui, (531-591), “The House Instructions of Mr. Yan (Yanshi jiaxun),” in Sources of Chinese Tradition, vol. 1, 2nd edn., comp. Wm. Theodore De Bary & Irene Bloom, 541-546 (Reserve/handout)
2. “Family Instructions of the Miu lineage,” in Patricia B. Ebrey, Chinese Civilization, A Sourcebook (1993) (Reserve/handout)
Ebrey, Visual Sourcebook. Take the Homes tour:
Scholarly Interpretation:
Bray, Technology and Society in Ming China (1368-1644), entire
Reading Memo 2
Week 4Virtue and the State
2/7Jennifer Holmgran, “The Economic Foundations of Virture: Widow-Remarriage in Early and Modern China,” The Australian Journal of Chinese Affairs, No. 13 (Jan, 1985), 1-27. (JSTOR)
OR Bettine Birge, “Women and Confucianism from Song to Ming: The Institutionalization of Patrilineality,” in Paul Jakov Smith et al., eds., The Song-Yuan-Ming Transition in Chinese History (2003), 212-240 (instructor copy).
Spence, Death of Woman Wang
Reading Memo 3
Week 5Gendered Bodies: Law, Medicine & Reproduction
2/14In Brownell & Wasserstrom: Theiss, “Feminity in Flux” Sommer, “Dangerous Males” & Furth, “Blood, Body and Gender”
Reading Memo 4
Week 6Footbinding in late imperial China
2/21Ko, Every Step a Lotus
H-ASIA discussion of footbinding
Reading Memo5
Week 7Autobiography: One Man’s Story
2/28Shen Fu, Six Records of a Floating Life
Spring Break
Week 8Autobiography: One Woman’s Story
3/20Pruitt, Daughter of Han
Reading Memo 6
Week 9Modern Marriages
3/27 In Brownell & Wasserstrom: Mann, “Grooming a Daughter for Marriage,” & Glosser, “The Truths I have Learned”
Portfolio Paper presentations
Week 10Gender at the Margins: Prostitutes and Bandits
4/3In Brownell & Wasserstrom: Hershatter, “Modernizing Sex, Sexing Modernity” and Ownby, “Approximations of Chinese Bandits”
Portfolio paper presentations
Primary Source Research Workshop
with Nina Clements, LBIS consultant: tba
Week 11Women Rulership in China
4/10Yang Lien-Sheng, “Female Rulers in Imperial China,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 23 (1960-61), 47-61 (JSTOR)
Sue Fawn Chung, “The Much Maligned Empress Dowager: A Revisionist Study of the Empress Dowager Tz’u-Hsi (1835-1908), Modern Asian Studies 13:2 (1979), 177-196 (JSTOR)
Evelyn Rawski, “Ch’ing Imperial Marriage and the Problems of Rulership,” in Marriage and Inequality in Chinese Society (Reserve)
Reading Memo 7
Week 12Empress Dowager Ci Xi
4/17Princess Der Ling, Two Years in the Forbidden City
OR Katherine A. Carl, With the Empress Dowager of China (New York, 1905, Kessinger rpt.) (Reserve/order?)
Weeks 13Empress Dowager Ci Xi
4/24Individual readings & research progress
Week 14Seminar Project Discussion
5/1Critique drafts
Assignment Guidelines:
1. Reading Memos: Email your memo as a Word file to the class by Wednesday, 5 pm. Two pages, incorporating the following:
* Argument: what main points do the authors make? Note passages (give page number!) where you think the author most clearly states key ideas. (Applies to both primary & secondary readings)
* Documentation & plausibility: what evidence does the author use to document the points being made? Does the author make a persuasive case? (Applies to secondary reading)
*Issues posed: what questions or issues do the readings raise for discussion?
*Personal response: What do you think about the source or issues raised in it? What else have you read or experienced that relates to the topic and helps you to understand it?
2. Portfolio Paper & Presentation: Due either week 9 or 10to present your researchto the seminar
Consult with me about your proposed topic before spring break. You will choose one article from Brownell & Wasserstrom, and two more articles (or chapters in edited volumes) by at least 2 different authors, or a book on the same general topic. Your paper should discuss your readings in 5-7 pages (1250-1750 words), and will be submitted in the week of your presentation (week 9 or 10).
3. Seminar project: Studies on the Empress Dowager Ci Xi
This project will be the focus of the seminar work for the final four weeks of class, and of a workshop in the library with Nina Clements, date & time tba. Based on readings done throughout the semester and on individualresearch assignments, each student will contribute a paper of 12 to 15 pages in length (excluding endnotes and bibliography). We will discuss the project and individual papers throughout the semester. Please follow either the Kate Turabian or MLA style manual. Use 12-pt font and 1 inch margins. Final polished versions of the papers will be due no later than Friday May 9 by 10 am.
4. Participation & class conduct:
Weekly attendance, active and informed contribution todiscussion, presentations & critiques are minimum expectations for students enrolled in a seminar. Responsibility in finding and completing assignments in time, considerate and thoughtful exchanges with fellow students and the instructor all create the atmosphere and substance of a seminar=s learning environment. ATTENDANCE IS MANDATORY and very important. If for any reason you expect to miss a class, please let me know in advance and come to see me as soon as possible afterward. Missing more than one class will make it difficult for you to pass the course. By all means come speak with me if you feel uncomfortable about any aspect of the seminar or class discussions.
DISABILITIES: "If you have a physical, psychological, medical or learning disability that may impact your ability to carry out assigned course work, I would urge that you contact the Office of Disability Services at 5453. The Coordinator of Disability Services, Erin Sa1va (), will review your concerns and determine, with you, what accommodations are appropriate. All information and documentation of disability is confidential."
ACADEMIC HONESTY: ACADEMIC HONESTY: Please review the discussion of plagiarism and academic honesty in the Course of Study:
( Copying others' work in any form, including paraphrasing (too closely and/or without attribution) constitutes plagiarism, the same as using another person’s exact words without quotation marks. Collaborating on assignments, unless so instructed, constitutes academic dishonesty. Serious consequences will ensue, so please take note of the above.