ASIAN 2231 - [Introduction to China: Imagining China’s Past]

(crosslisted) CAPS 2231
(HST-AS) (HA-AG)

Fall. Not offered: 2024-2025. Next offered: 2025-2026. 3 credits. Student option grading.

This class is one of several topical courses in the Department of Asian Studies that serve as introductory courses to important aspects or themes of Chinese civilization (ASIAN 2230, ASIAN 2231, ASIAN 2232, ASIAN 2233). The course assumes little or no background in the study of China. Students may take more than one of these different courses for credit.

R. McNeal.

This is a course about the power of the past in Chinese historical, literary, religious, and artistic imagination. We will survey notions about China’s past across more than two millennia, from the Bronze age to contemporary times. We will do this by focusing on a handful of literary, philosophical, artistic, and material sources to examine how people have made sense of an found meaning in China’s past. The course assumes little or no background in the study of China. (GE)