This course has been designed toward two principal curricular goals. It offers any student the opportunity to fulfill Colorado College’s Alternate Perspectives C (either Western or non-Western studies) requirement and it presents the student with particular interest in the past with one of several possible pathways into the History major.

• This course will frame four fundamental questions in the development of world civilizations:
• How do the material conditions of human communities frame their activities?
• What notions of authority underlie these communities’ political organization?
• What do different historical cultures understand to be beautiful and meaningful in human experience and creativity?
• How do societal interconnections shape human experience?

In offering students the materials to frame answers to these questions, Culture, Society, and History will address the general shape of some major Eurasian civilizations from antiquity to the twentieth century. Rather than survey these broad culture areas chronologically, however, its readings and discussions will emphasize critical moments in their respective developments, mutual thematic connections, and primary textual and visual sources.

All students will be expected to complete readings before the discussion session for which they are assigned, to participate actively in large- and small-group sessions, and to complete written work--whether in paper or electronic presentation--in a thoughtful and timely fashion. Each week of the course will center on a single theme important for the development of two or more Eurasian civilizations or culture areas in comparison; such focus will encourage students to read critically, and to come to each meeting ready to share individual impressions and interpretations.

The work of this course is designed to achieve these goals. We will benefit from a shared electronic forum where students and faculty may journal, post questions, responses, and file formal assignments where others in the class may look at them with ease. The faculty have selected core readings and set discussion dates to explore in detail the course questions. Students will write four tutorial papers exploring and extending questions on the basis of an examination of these core readings (some as writing emphasis and some, as panel presentations, as public speaking and discussion exercises). Student teams will also investigate the "frames" of major historical periods in "Creating Historical Context" class presentations. Finally, self-selected small groups will research, prepare and present a final assignment, "An exploration in comparative history".

Class sessions will generally be at 9:00 in Palmer 223. Special alternative times are listed in bold face in the schedule below, but all times are subject to change. There will, on average, be two session per week either in the afternoon or evenings (for special lectures, films, performances, library sessions, presentations, food, etc.)

Students should plan to use a minimum of 40 hours a week on this course (about 15 in class and 25 or more outside of formal class sessions). Preparation each night should take 3 to 5 hours with periods of more intensive work when assignments are due. If you give less time to this course you are not doing your part in a team effort to promote your education. Your participation and effort–on e-postings, in class discussion, and especially in graded group work–affect other students; you are not alone in the task of making sense of this huge topic but neither are you independent. More than four unexcused absences from formal class sessions will result in automatic failure in this course.

Assessment:

• 10% of the final grade will depend on library assignment, map quizzes, and written response (e-journaling) to individual readings and discussions
• 15% on attendance and class discussion
• 30% on three formal tutorial essays
• 30% on Creating Historical Context group work
• 15% on final assignment: "An exploration in comparative history"

Letter Grades: It is my job to assess the level of accomplishment of each student in this course. I am delighted to have students take this class on the P/NP track, but do remember that "C-" or lower will register as a NP (no credit) on this track. The following guidelines will help you understand my letter grades on assessed work:

NP -- inadequate mastery of course material; NP can also stem from excessive absences (in general over 4 per block) or plagiarism.

• Random House Publishers, Compact Atlas of World History (1997)
• Lewis & Wigen, The Myth of Continents
• Plato, Last Days of Socrates
  The Mencius
  Song of Roland, trans. R. Harrison
• Parker, The Military Revolution
• Li, The Path of Beauty
• More, Utopia (Penguin edition)
• Defoe, Robinson Crusoe
• Spence, God’s Chinese Son
• Hossain, Sultana’s Dream
• Zamyatin, We
• Chen, Six Chapters of My Life Down Under
• Course Binder (three-ring notebook for photocopies and Historical Context materials)*
• A Visual Sourcebook for Chinese Civilization (CD and on the course webpage)*

PHOTOCOPIED READINGS
to be put in the Course Binder*
(purchase at Department)

• Huang, "Athenian Democracy"
• Waldron, "Chinese Military Strategy"
• Jagchid & Symons, Peace, War, and Trade Along the Great Wall (photocopies)
• Romance of the Three Kingdoms (selections) & Margaret Berry on The Three Ks
• Beardsley, Aesthetics (Plato and Aristotle selections)
• Hawkes, "A Little Primer of Tu Fu" (example poems)
• Deutch, "Bruegel and Ma Yüan"
• Pagden and Houston chapters from Cameron (ed.), Early Modern Europe
• Bray and Wong chapters from Brook & Blue (ed.), China and Historical Capitalism
• Journal of World History (Buck article on Landes, Frank, Wong)
• Primary documents from English Civil War and Taiping Rebellion
• Fanon, Wretched of the Earth (excerpt)
• Visions of Socialism–Lenin, Bukharin, and Mao
• Bain, "Building an Essential World History Tool" (1997)

RESERVE READINGS
(reserve desk, Tutt Library)

• Kishlanski, Societies and Cultures in World History (1995) 5 copies
• "HY104 Document Binder" (one copy of the class photocopies of documents)
• all the course books that Tutt holds
• Smith, Houston, The Illustrated World’s Religions

Monday

• Outline of themes and introduction to tools

• 2PM Outlook Training Session for Electronic Journaling, etc. (Library/TLC)

• Electronic journaling assignment due posted 5 PM:

• Frame a 250/500-word comment on your impressions of the essential differences between Asian and European civilizations. Keep in mind the following principles–no fear, clarity, argument from evidence.

Tuesday

• The Myth of Continents: Who made up "East" and "West"?

• Lewis & Wigen, Myth of Continents, preface, introduction & ch. 1.

• 2 PM LIBRARY SESSION–tools for Creating Historical Context teams

Wednesday

• Moral polity and the role of the sage

• The Mencius

Thursday

• The state in ancient China

• Li, Path of Beauty, ch. 3

• Start CHC group work

Friday

• The human community and the thinking individual

• Plato, Apology & Crito

Monday

• The Polis in ancient Greece

• Huang Yang, (photocopied essay on Greek Democracy)

• continue PTB group work

• 7 PM "Athenian Democracy: A Chinese View" by Professor Huang Yang

Tuesday

• Creating Historical Contexts I: Ancient Greece & China

• Have copies of your group’s materials for CHC ready to hand out in class

Wednesday

• Tutorials (small group meetings) and Video resources

• Make an argument comparing Plato’s and Mencius’ visions of the appropriate role of the thinking person in civic life

• --videos on China & Greece--

Thursday

• Tutorials (small group meetings) and Video resources

• Make an argument comparing Plato’s and Mencius’ visions of the appropriate role of the thinking person in civic life

Friday

• Video Resources & Reading Day (catch up and read ahead!!!)

Monday

• The Military Revolution in Europe

• Parker, The Military Revolution, chs. 1-3

Tuesday

• Lecture: Warfare at two ends of Eurasia in the age of Great Empires

• Parker, The Military Revolution, ch. 4

• Waldron, "Chinese Military Strategy"

Wednesday

• Peace, War, and Trade Along the Great Wall

• Jagchid & Simons, Peace, Ware, and Trade (selections).

Thursday

• Creating Historical Contexts II: Empires & Civilizations of Eurasia

• Have copies of your group’s materials for PTB ready to hand out in class

Friday

• Tutorials/Panel presentations (small group meetings) and Video resources

• Make an argument comparing the nature and significance of warfare in European and Chinese societies.

• Class Videos: "By the Skin of our Teeth" (Kenneth Clark) & "The Tang Dynasty"

Monday

• Lecture: Aesthetic Orders East and West

• Li Zehou, Path of Beauty, chs. 6 & 7

• Beardsley, Aesthetics (Plato and Aristotle selections)

• Short readings to dissect in class: Hawkes’ Tu Fu & other

Tuesday

• The Song of Roland

• The Song of Roland

Wednesday

• Romance of the Three Kingdoms

• Li, Path of Beauty, ch. 10

• Romance of the Three Kingdoms5 (selections)

• Margaret Berry, on the Three Kingdoms

*** BLOCK BREAK ***

Monday

• Varieties of "Early Modernities"

• Daedalus reading TBA

• Afternoon video: "Empires in Collision" & others TBA

Tuesday

• Culture and the Individual in Yuan & Ming Elite Culture

• Li Zehou, Path of Beauty

• Deutch, "Bruegel and Ma Yüan"

Wednesday

• Culture and the Individual in Early Modern Europe

• More, Utopia

• Pagden chapter on new worlds (xerox)

Thursday

• Creating Historical Contexts, pt. III: Early Modern States of Eurasia

Friday

• Tutorials/Panel presentations (small group meetings)

• Make an argument building from a work of art of literary imagination about the ideational structures informing it.

Monday

• Ideology and identity in "East" and "West"

• Lewis & Wigen, Myth of Continents, chs. 2-5

Tuesday

• Markets and Empires: Comparing Economic Development Journal of World History essay by Buck on Landes, Frank, Wong (xerox)

• Houston chapter on early modern European economy (xerox)

Wednesday

• Markets and Empires

• Chapters by Bray and Wong (xerox)

Thursday

• Brave New Worlds I: The White Man’s way

• Robinson Crusoe

• Documents on utopian radicalism from English Civil War

Friday

• Brave New Worlds II: God’s Chinese Son

• Spence, God’s Chinese Son

• Documents from Taiping Rebellion

Monday

Tuesday

• Anti-colonial Utopianism and Rage

• Hossain, Sultana’s Dream

• Fanon, Wretched of the Earth (excerpt)

Wednesday

• Anti-capitalist Utopianism and Rage

• Lenin, State and Revolution (xerox)

• Bukharin and Preobrazhensky, ABC of Communism (xerox)

• Mao, "Report on the 1927 Hunan Peasant Uprising" (xerox)

Thursday

• Dystopias of Western Modernity

• Zamyatin, We

• article TBA on post-Soviet life

Friday

• Dystopias of Asian Modernity

• Chen, Six Chapters of My Life Down Under

• Zhang Xinxin, (short story of post-Mao life)

Monday

• Consultation & Review with instructors (individual group meetings)

• Bain, "Building an Essential World History Tool" (1997)

Tuesday

• Explorations in Comparative History: Class Presentations, I

Wednesday

• Explorations in Comparative History: Class Presentations, II