Eat, Pray, Ponder: Chinese Intellectual Culture through the Ages

Catalog description

This is a class about what Chinese people think and believe, and how they perceive the society to which they belong. The class will cover a wide range of material from Shang oracle bones, Confucianism, Legalism, Taoism, Buddhism, and various folk religions, to 20th-century debates on Western thought and Communism. This class highlights three general concerns: 1) although we will cover the main categories of Chinese thought (e. g. Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism), we will emphasize the diversity of thought both within and outside those larger categories; 2) we will make clear that people’s beliefs and thought changed frequently over time and space, and 3) we will examine how socio-economic conditions and the media used to convey ideas affect people’s intellectual world and vice versa. No Chinese is required. Pre-requisite: None. Fulfillment: CORE HPC or IPC; GCS Advanced track Language course for Native Chinese Speakers or Chinese History, Society, and Culture; Humanities Introductory course (18-19: survey/topic).