Literature and Science in Early Modern China

Catalog description

This course explores the relations between Chinese literature and the studies of nature and technological know-how from 1368 to 1911. Introducing recent insight in the history of science and technology, the course challenges students to re-define science in the context of the changing Confucian curriculum, the booming market economy, and the multiethnic empire. The course investigates the ways in which the form and content of poetry, novel, and essays transformed because of their appropriation of knowledge about medicine, handicraft, and foreign lands. Topics include: encyclopedia for merchants, carpenters’ spell, autofiction of Confucian engineers, novel medicine, and so on.