Cultural History of China

Catalog description

Multi-disciplinary approach to the study of Chinese cultural history conceived of as a succession of modes of rationality (philosophical, bureaucratic, and economic processes of rationalization). Focus on the moments of paradigm shift from one mode of rationality to another. For moment, examine cultural facts and artifacts - thought, literature, ritual - in relationship to changing social, political, and economic systems. This semester, focus on the emergence of modern China in the Song-Yuan (960-1368) and of today's China 1850 to the present. How the modern attack on religion, redefined as "superstition", led not only to religious reform movements but also to a society in which science and the nation became the primary value systems promoted by the state.