Modern East Asian Civilization

History 233
Fall, 2004
MWRF 10:30, Classroom: 317 Fellows

Barry Keenan (Keenan@denison.edu)
Office Hours: MW R 11:30; MW 1:30-2:00; MW 4:00
Office: Fellows 406, ext. 6253

Analyzing non-Western historical change requires awareness of our cultural gap as outsiders. To gain the perspective of native participants will demand understanding their needs on their own terms. This applies to both the elite Confucian culture of East Asia, and to popular peasant traditions.

The clash of East Asian ethical values and political assumptions with those of the West is at the heart of the drama of Modern East Asian history. As the West encroached in the nineteenth century, political and social revolution were spawned in both China and Japan, but at quite different times.

Modern East Asia falls naturally into the following historical sequence:

  1. Foreign Encroachment and Response, 1840-1911
    • China
    • Japan
  2. Rage at Home, 1912-1926
    • China
    • Japan
  3. The People vs. Military Power, 1926-1970's
    • China
    • Japan
  4. Recovery: Economic Growth, 1975-Present
    • Japan
    • China

Required Books

  • Kokoro (Natsume, Regnery)
  • Modern East Asia: A Brief History, (Shirokauer, et al., (Thomson) abbrev. Brief
  • Mao's China and After (Meisner, Free Press)
  • The Pacific War (Ienaga, Random House)
  • Selected Stories of Lu Xun (Lu, Foreign Languages Press)
Not Required:
  • Postwar Japan as History (Gordon, Univ. of California). Multiple copies on reserve.

Course Requirements

In-Class Learning 

You will meet either Thursday or Friday in a small discussion group. This component of your learning asks for your willingness to interact with the ideas in the readings and videos, as well as learn from one another. It will constitute one-fifth of your semester's work. Attendance in discussion groups is mandatory. Occasionally there will be discussion questions to prepare, short feedback papers, or graded written exercises to turn in at your discussion group.

Independent Study Projects

Each student will define a topic for a careful five-page independent study paper. You may choose either China or Japan, or other areas of East Asia for your project. There will be free periods of time in the course in which you are asked to define the topic and submit your findings--and during which there will be no classes. Brainstorm from the beginning of the course what interests you would like to propose. Use the distributed page on defining independent study topics to help you locate bibliography. At least two footnoted sources (beyond required course readings) must be used. Only if an internet source, such as a printable journal, has footnotes may it be used as one of these sources. Encyclopedia articles will not qualify as a footnoted source, but can lead you to such an article or book that can be cited.

Exams:

There will be a one-hour, blue-book exam (October 6, 2004) that will be written in the classroom.

A final course examination on December 16, 2004 that will cover material studied after the hour examination. Both in-class examinations will center on broad essay questions, and include historical significance identifications as well. The essay question is two-thirds of each examination. Two choices of essay topics will be provided by the professor. The historical significance questions can be answered in one or two paragraphs.

For the October 6 hour exam, you also have the option of submitting your own essay topic for approval by email before the examination. If it is broad enough, that topic will be approved by return email before the day you write the essay in class. You will still answer the historical significance questions.

Your final grade will be composed as follows:

20% In-class learning
20% Independent Study Project
30% Hour Examination
30% Final Examination

Electronic Reserves (ERES)

Many required course readings will be on reserve in the library through the on-line reserve system. The access electronic reserve materials for this course, go to a computer and follow these steps with your cursor:


  1. Denison Library Homepage
  2. Library Services: Reserves
  3. Keenan (Under professor's name)
  4. HIST 233 DEN
  5. Password: type: AsiaCiv
  6. Accept (private study use only)
  7. Readings
  8. Click desired document

If you need to rotate the document you see to read it right-side-up, use the rotating tool that is on most menu bars.

You can download a hard copy of any electronic reserve document by CLICKING ON PRINT and ENTER.

PLEASE NOTE: NO WRITTEN WORK WILL BE ACCEPTED BY EMAIL, WITH THE ONE EXCEPTION OF PROPOSED EXAMINATION QUESTIONS.

Syllabus in Detail

The Recent Past and U.S. Policy in East Asia 

1. Opening The Subject: Course objectives (Monday, August 30, 2004)

2. Non-Western Languages De-Mystified (Wednesday, September 1, 2004)
Fill in the blank line in the exercise distributed in the first class, and read the story that has Chinese characters interspersed until it makes sense.
Bring your exercise to class.
Brief, pp.9-11, and preface, xvi-xix (tables of two Romanization systems)

3. Map exercise (Thursday, September 2, 2004)
On your own, complete the distributed map exercise using library reserve books and atlases to help.
Brief, 1-9, 11-18.

4. The Meaning of America Intervening in Vietnam, 1975 (Friday, September 3, 2004)
Brief, 410-419. ERES (Electronic Reserves on-line) (see how to access the electronic reserve at the beginning of the syllabus): "Lessons of an Intractable Conflict,? Eric Bergerud

5. The Meaning of America Not Intervening in China, 1949 (Monday, September 6, 2004)
ERES "The Truman Administration and China, 1945-1949.?
Brief, 299-302.

I. Foreign Encroachment and Response, 1840-1911

China 1840-1895

1. The Manchu Dynasty Power Structure, 1644-1912 (September 8, 2004) Brief, ch.2
ERES: "The Qing Dynasty (1644-1912) Emperors" (distributed).

2. The Opening of China and I Opium (September 9-10, 2004)
ERES: "Imperial China, Part I"
"Imperial China, Part II"
One-page distributed: "Historical Background for Discussion of End-of-Century Foreign Pressure?

3. Population Explosion and Peasant Revolt (September 13, 2004)
ERES: "Peasant Revolts in China, 1840-1949, Part I"
"Peasant Revolts in China, 1840-1949, Part II"

4. The Psychological Defeat of 1895 (September 15, 2004)
Selected Stories of Lu Hsun
Madman's Diary
KUNG I-CHI
Supplementary Reading: Brief, ch.19

5. The 1911 Revolution (September 16-17, 2004)
Selected Stories, "The True Story of Ah Q"
Brief, 195-203
JAPAN 1840-19ll

6. The Tokugawa System (September 20, 2004)
Brief, Ch.4, and pp. 137-138

7-8. The Pressured Opening of Japan to Foreign Trade and the Following Internal Revolution -- Two Meetings

1. Gunboats (September 22, 2004)
Brief, ch.7
ERES: "Sources of Japanese Tradition."
b. Social Revolution (9/23-24)
Brief, 149-161;
ERES: "Peasants, Rebels and Outcasts, Ch.1: Modernization and the Peasants"
9-11. The Strain of Re-defined Values (Three meeings the week of Sept. 27 to October 1st)
Kokoro
Brief, 161-168, 219-130.
In your discussion group bring a one-page essay addressing the question: "In your discussion group bring a one-page essay addressing the question: "In what way are the figures in the novel representative of their times?" This paper will be graded C+/B+/A

12. No Class (October 4, 2004) If you want to pose your own hour examination essay theme by email for approval, send it by email to Dr. Keenan at keenan@denison.edu, by October 4 in the evening. If the topic is not approved (by email October 5), you will select from the choice of essay topics offered by Dr. Keenan in the examination on October 6, 2004.

13. HOUR EXAMINATION October 6, 2004
Review themes for a one-hour examination covering all material in the course up to this date. Dr. Keenan provides two choices of essay topics for you to analyze. The last 1/3 of the time will be dedicated to short answer questions in which you will place specific historical events in their historical context.

II. Rage At Home: 1911-1926

1. Farmers and Labor in the Taisho Era (October 7-8, 2004)
ERES: "Peasants, Rebels and Outcasts," ch.2: Farming and the Farm Life"

2-3. Japanese Encroachment on China, and Taisho Business Cabinets in Japan (October 11 and October 13, 2004)
Brief, 230-242
ERES: "The May Fourth Movement"

4. The Republic of 1911 is Stillborn (October 14-15, 2004)
Mao's China and After, 3-31
Selected Stories of Lu Hsun
"My Hold Home"
"The New Year's Sacrifice"
"Regret for the Past"
"Forging the Swords"

III. The People Vs. Military Power, 1926-1970's

China

1. China's Massive Peasantry (October 18, 2004)
Meisner, chs. 4,7,9
ERES: "Pauper's Coop"

2. The PRC (October 20, 2004)
Meisner, chs. 5,6,8
Suggested Reading: ERES "The Marriage Law of the People's Republic of China"

3. America's Refusal to Intervene in China's Civil War (October 21-22, 2004)
ERES: "The Amerasia Papers, Part I"
"The Amerasia Papers, Part II"

4. Chinese Socialist Transformation (October 28, 2004)
Meisner, chs. 11, 13, 16

5. Women's Status (October 27, 2004)
Meet in the Learning Resource Center, room 102 for this session
ERES: "Feminism and Socialism in China,"
Film: "Small Happiness"

6. Cultural Revolution (October 28-29, 2004)
Meisner, chs. 17-20
ERES: "Resolution on CPC History"

7. The Deng Xiaoping Era (November 1, 2004)
Meisner, chs. 21-24

INDEPENDENT STUDY DAY (November 3, 2004)
On Wednesday this week submit a statement of your tentative topic for your independent study paper with at least one footnoted source topic to Dr. Keenan's office: 406 Fellows. Otherwise no class meetings.

Japan

8. East Asia 1926-1945 (November 4-5, 2004)
Brief, ch.22
Ienaga, The Pacific War, begin.

9-10. Japan in the Pacific War (Two class meetings November 8-10, 2004)
Ienaga, Pacific War

11. Domestic Effects of the War in Japan (November 11-12, 2004)
ERES: Dower, "Japan in War and Peace"

12. Post-war Japan (November 15, 2004)
Dower, "Peace and Democracy in Two Systems" in Gordon, ed. Postwar Japan [Library reserve]
Brief, ch. 24

13. World Power (November 17, 2004)
Cumings, "Japan's Position in the World System," in Gordon, ed. Postwar Japan [Library reserve], pp. 34-64.

14. Women's Status (November 18-19, 2004)
Buckley, "Altered States: The Body Politics of `Being Woman,'" in Gordon, ed.
Postwar Japan [Library Reserve], 347-373

THANKSGIVING November 20-28, 2004

INDEPENDENT STUDY WEEK (November 29, December 1, and December 2-3, 2004)
Complete the writing and bibliography of your project. Meet only for discussion groups, in which you will present the central theme of your paper to your fellow students. Prepare a five-minute presentation. Turn in your paper in discussion group.

Recovery: Economic Growth, 1975-Present

18. Japan (December 6, 2004)
ERES: "The New Matrix of Japan-China Ties"
Bruce Cumings, "Black Rain," distributed

19. China (December 8, 2004)
Meisner, ch. 25
Schoppa, Revolution and Its Past, distributed

20. REVIEW SESSIONS WILL BE HELD IN BOTH DISCUSSION GROUPS (December 9-10, 2004)
This will be the last opportunity to consult Dr. Keenan before the final exam. Course Evaluations filled out these sessions.
Course Evaluations filled out this session.

FINAL EXAMINATION: Meet on Thursday, December 16, 2004 from 9-11 A.M. The examination will only cover the material since the hour examination. There will be essay questions (weighted 2/3rds), and analysis of the historical significance of specific historical events (weighted 1/3), just like the hour examination.