Texts of the Qing Metropolis

Texts of the Qing Metropolis

History 282A

Wednesday, 3:00-5:50 pm

Humanities A56



Andrea S. Goldman

Office: 5355 Bunche Hall

Phone: (310) 825-3368

Email: goldman@history.ucla.edu

Office hours: Fridays 12:30-2:00, and by appointment

Course Website: http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/09W/hist282a-1





Course Description:

This is the first quarter of a two-quarter research and reading seminar in Chinese language source materials generated in and reflecting life in the Qing capital of Beijing. Topics covered will include court documents, guidebooks to the imperial capital, memoirs and casual jottings (biji), fiction, writings about metropolitan theater culture, performance scripts of drama and other narrative arts, and visual representations of the capital. The weekly readings will be paired with scholarly writings that make use of or cast light upon the source document under evaluation. The major paper assignment for the first quarter of the seminar will analyze a set of primary documents related to late imperial and/or modern Chinese urban history, but need not be focused on the city of Beijing or on the texts read in common. During the second quarter, students will develop a research paper based on their chosen set of primary documents. Knowledge of modern and classical is Chinese required for this course.



Expectations & Assignments:

Students will be expected to come to class prepared to go over translations of the primary sources during each weekly session. Please bring two copies of your weekly translations to the class – one to be turned in, and the second to mark up during the class sessions. About two-thirds of each session will be devoted to translation and discussion of the target primary source; the remaining time will be devoted to analysis of the secondary sources assigned for the week and discussion of bibliographic tools and sources for Sinological research. Class participants will take turns introducing the bibliographic genre of the week (following the chapters from Wilkinson). Students will be responsible for a short (2-3 pp.) bibliographic report on the topic for the weeks for which they lead off the discussion. A written version of these reports should be posted on the class website as a reference for fellow students. A longer final paper (approx. 15-20 pp.) will be due at the end of the quarter. This paper should analyze a set of primary source documents of the student’s choice.



[Grading criteria: class participation – 20%; weekly translation exercises – 45% (5% each); 2 class reports/short (2-3 pp.) papers – 10% (5% each); final paper – 25%.] Weekly attendance is expected. Auditors welcome so long as they keep up with the weekly readings/translations and participate every week.



Available for Purchase:

Endymion P. Wilkinson, Chinese History: A Manual (Cambridge: Harvard University Asia Center, 2000 revised edition). ISBN: 0674002490.



Recommended:

Harriet T. Zurndorfer, China Bibliography: A Research Guide to Reference Works about China Past and Present (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1999). ISBN: 0824822129.



*All other readings for the course will be available online via the course Website.





January 7: Week One – Introduction



Wilkinson, “Language,” 17-61.

East Asian Library Visit at 4:30 pm.





January 14: Week Two – Imperial Court Documents



Selected readings in Qing court documents – The Veritable Records (Shilu 實錄). Selection One, Selection Two.



Supplementary reading in Beatrice S. Bartlett, Monarchs and Ministers: The Grand Council in Mid-Ch'ing China, 1723-1820 (Berkeley, 1991), 8-11 & 17-64; Silas H. L. Wu, Communication and Imperial Control in China: Evolution of the Palace Memorial System, 1693-1735 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1970), 27-65 & 107-123; Knight Biggerstaff, “Some Notes on The Tung-hua lu and The Shih-lu,” HJAS 4.2 (1939): 101-15.



Wilkinson, “Dictionaries,” 65-94, 514-42 & 865-72.





January 21: Week Three – Guidebooks to the Imperial Capital



Selected readings in Zhu Yizun 朱彝尊, Rixia jiuwen kao 日下舊聞考 [Front Matter] [juan 55]

and Wu Changyuan 吳長元, Chenyuan shilue 宸垣識略.



Supplementary reading in Susan Naquin, Peking: Temples and City Life, 1400-1900 (Berkeley, 2000), 451-88 and Benjamin Elman, From Philosophy to Philology: Intellectual Aspects of Social Change in Late Imperial China (Harvard Council on East Asian Studies, 1990), xix-xxii & 38-85.



Wilkinson, “People,” 95-129 & “Geography,” 139-69.



Maps





January 28: Week Four – Memoirs and Biji, part 1



Readings from Zhaolian 昭璉, Xiaoting zalu 嘯亭雜錄;

and Zhao Yi 趙翼, Yanpu zaji 簷曝雜記.



Supplementary reading in Tobie Meyer-Fong, Building Culture in Early Qing Yangzhou (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003), 25-127.



Wilkinson, “Chronology,” 170-98 & 564-75.





February 4: Week Five – Memoirs and Biji, part 2



Readings from Ji Yun 紀昀, Yuewei caotang biji 閱微草堂筆記;

and Chong Yi 崇彝, Dao Xian yilai chaoye zaji 道咸以來朝野雜記.



Supplementary reading: Kent Guy, The Emperor’s Four Treasuries: Scholars and the State in the Late Ch’ien-lung Era (Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard, 1987), 38-56; Leo Chan, The Discourse on Foxes and Ghosts: Ji Yun and Eighteenth-Century Literati Storytelling (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1998), 1-37.



Wilkinson, “Telling the Time,” 199-223 & 922-26.





February 11: Week Six – Metropolitan Fiction



Selected readings in Chen Sen 陳森, Pinhua baojian 品花寶鑒.



Supplementary reading: Keith McMahon, “Sublime Love and the Ethics of Equality in a Homoerotic Novel of the Nineteenth Century: Precious Mirror of Boy Actresses,” Nan Nü 4.1 (2002): 70-109; David Der-wei Wang, Fin-de-Siècle Splendor: Repressed Modernities of Late Qing Fiction, 1849-1911 (Stanford, 1997), 53-71; and Robert Hegel, Reading Illustrated Fiction in Late Imperial China (Stanford, 1998), 72-163.



Wilkinson, “Statistics,” 224-41 & 605-12.





February 18: Week Seven – Huapu (Flower Registers)



Selected readings from Zhang Cixi 張次溪, Qingdai yandu liyuan shiliao 清代燕都梨園史料.



Supplementary reading: Sophie Volpp, “The Literary Circulation of Actors in Seventeenth-Century China,” JAS 61.3 (August 2002): 949-84; Wu Cuncun, Homoerotic Sensibility in Late Imperial China (New York: RoutledgeCurzon, 2004), ch. 5.



Wilkinson, “Guides and Encyclopedias,” 242-48.





February 25: Week Eight – Performance Scripts



Selected scripts from the Zhuibaiqiu 綴白裘, Baiben Zhang 百本張, and Che Wangfu 車王府 collections.



Supplementary reading in Catherine C. Swatek, Peony Pavilion Onstage: Four Centuries in the Career of a Chinese Drama (Ann Arbor: Center for Chinese Studies, University of Michigan, 2002), 101-202.



Wilkinson, “Locating Primary Sources,” 249-83.





March 4: Week Nine – Zidi shu 子弟書 (Scions' Tales)



Selected readings in zidi shu: “Lingguan miao” 靈官廟, “Guang Huguo si” 逛護國寺, “Guaibang lou” 柺棒樓, “Shiwei tan” 侍衛嘆, etc.



Supplementary reading: Mark C. Elliott, “The ‘Eating Crabs’ Youth Book,” in Susan Mann and Yu-yin Cheng, eds., Under Confucian Eyes: Writings on Gender in Chinese History (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001), 263-82; ASG, “The Nun Who Wouldn't Be: Representations of Female Desire in Two Performance Genres of Si Fan,” Late Imperial China 22.1 (June 2001): 71-138; Elena Suet Ying Chiu, “Cultural Hybridity in Manchu Bannerman Tales (Zidishu),” Ph.D dissertation, UCLA, 2007, 1-20.



Wilkinson, “Locating Secondary Sources,” 249-83.





March 11: Week Ten – Visual Representations of the Capital



“Shengchun shiyi dahua” 生春詩意大畫; (JPEG FILE, 12MB- recommend right clicking link and selecting 'Save as')





Supplementary reading in Michael Chang, A Court on Horseback: Imperial Touring and the Construction of Qing Rule, 1680-1785 (Cambridge: Harvard University Asia Center, 2007), 260-365.



Wilkinson, “Libraries,” 311-28 & 665-75.







March 18: Final paper due