For precise schedule of offerings see department catalog during pre-enrollment week each semester.

This seminar offers an overview of selected types of documents foundational to research projects in late imperial and Republican Chinese historical studies. It pays attention to those institutions that produced and archived these materials and asks: How does information circulate in the various systems of communication? What are the salient features of the mutual constitution of knowledge and institutions? What are the transformative moments in the articulation of information needs? Included among the topics will be studies of Qing government documents and compilations at various levels (palace memorials, local gazetteers, county archives, official compilations [shilu, shilüe], bibliographies and genealogies) and their 20th-century counterparts, variations, and extensions with an emphasis on the first half of the century. Students are encouraged to explore via online access the presidential libraries of Chiang Kai-shek and Chiang Ching-kuo including the newly released/forthcoming diaries encompassing the periods 1917-1972 and 1935-1985. All students are expected to lead weekly seminar discussions, make regular library visits, and familiarize themselves with documentary sets, reference sources, and database collections. Written assignments, with further instructions to follow, will include the following: Students should submit, before the first meeting of class, a preliminary statement about an area of research focus; Regular assignments will include two response papers, each of 5-7 pages, translation exercises every other week, and bCourses contributions to the Discussions section; A term paper, in 35-40 pages, is due at the end of the semester. This paper should be a bibliographical essay about primary sources, that speaks to the student’s selected area of research interest. This paper is expected to lend itself to the writing of a 285F paper at a later time.

Repeat Rules