China and the West

Catalog description

The relationship between China and the West has long been one of the most important transnational relationships in the world, with far-reaching geopolitical, economic, social, and cultural ramifications. This course examines that relationship by investigating the history of encounters between China and the West from the time of Marco Polo to the era of Xi Jinping, with particular emphasis on the political, social, and economic dimensions of how "China" and "the West" have interacted over the past three centuries. How have European and American writers, travelers, and political figures thought about China over time? How have their Chinese counterparts thought about the West? What have been the dominant narratives about Sino-Western relations, and how do these compare with how China and the West actually interacted? We will cover major topics such as the Opium Wars and Cold War geopolitics as well as more mundane issues, including the everyday lives of foreigners in China and the experiences of Chinese abroad. Using government documents, trade records, memoirs, and other sources, students will come to situate Sino-Western relations in a new historical perspective as they examine the dynamics of transnational interaction and learn to engage with and make sense of multiple worldviews and global contexts. This course fulfills Dietrich College's "Intercultural and Global Inquiry" general education requirement.