Classics of Chinese Humanities

[Shelley]

@Ruben von Zwack I am not worried about the 4/6 hours a week that's no problem, I spend more than that already on my Chinese studies one way or another, its really the amount of characters I need that maybe a problem but hey if you don't try you'll never know if you can do it

[Haast]

Thanks for the heads-up on this, abcdefg - while I've never taken one of these online courses before, I've spent a lot of time with Leo Ou-fan Lee's Shanghai Modern.

[abcdefg]

#20 --

I posted it just in case anyone can't find the readings.

 

Appreciate it, Angelina. Thank you!

 

#22 -- @Haast -- "Shanghai Modern" looks like a fascinating book. Shanghai in the 30's must have been quite a place.

 

Did you like the book? How is Professor Lee's writing style? I've slogged through so many books by people who are great scholars but poor writers. Just wondering. Thanks for mentioning it. 

[Haast]

#22 -- @Haast -- "Shanghai Modern" looks like a fascinating book. Shanghai in the 30's must have been quite a place.

 

Did you like the book? How is Professor Lee's writing style? I've slogged through so many books by people who are great scholars but poor writers. Just wondering. Thanks for mentioning it.

 

I liked the book, though if you're looking to dodge intrusions of academic theory you'd be best served sticking to the first third - while it's got a lot of fantastic details and factoids (reproductions of advertisements, chatter about the cinemas/theatres & dancehalls of the time, etc), it's not a popular history. Very readable, though, and he has a passion for the era - I read it amongst a bunch of other books on the period while in a Mu Shiying phase, and IIRC it was my second favourite after Shu-mei Shih's The Lure of the Modern.

I've been meaning to get around to his book on Hong Kong; might see if the local library has it in prior to the course starting.

[Kobo-Daishi]

The course is conducted in English and since there are no prerequisites to taking the course, I suppose all the reading material will be in English or in English translation.

 

And I'm sure they'll provide the reading material since the course is free. Wouldn't make sense to offer a "free" course and then turn around and charge you for the class material.

 

Still, as it says it would be a good idea to get some background on the stuff to be covered so...

 

Lecture one covers the biography of Xiang Yu, 項羽 (项羽), found in chapter 7 of Sima Qian, 司馬遷 (司马迁),'s 史記 or Records of the Grand Historian (or Records of the Historian).

 

 

 

 

 

The entry for "Sima Qian" found in the two volume The Indiana Companion to Traditional Chinese Literature. Note that they use "traditional" characters and Wade-Giles Romanization.

 

 

 

 

 

The entry for the "Shi Ji".

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sima_Qian

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shi_ji

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xiang_Yu

 

For those who'd like to read the chapter in Chinese, it's found at the following link

 

https://zh.wikisource.org/zh-hans/史記/卷007

 

It's in traditional characters. To see it in simplified characters, click on the roll down menu.

 

An excerpt from Burton Watson's Ssu-Ma Ch'ien Grand Historian of China.

 

 

I always thought of myself as being fairly knowledgeable about the history of China, but, I'd never heard of this Xiang Yu before. And he was practically ruler of most of China for a time.

 

Kobo.

[OneEye]

For those who'd like to read the chapter in Chinese, it's found at the following link

 

There's a relevant thread here. That passage was a really entertaining read.

[Kobo-Daishi]

Lecture two cover's Han Yu, 韓愈 (韩愈) 's Yuan Dao.

 

 

The entry for "Han Yu" found in the two volume The Indiana Companion to Traditional Chinese Literature. Note that they use "traditional" characters and Wade-Giles Romanization.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Han_Yu

 

Han Yu's work found at the Wikisource.

 

https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/Author:%E9%9F%93%E6%84%88

 

The text of the Yuan Dao.

 

https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/%E5%8E%9F%E9%81%93

 

https://zh.wikisource.org/zh-hans/%E5%8E%9F%E9%81%93 In simplified.

 

 

The Indiana Companion calls him "comparable in stature to Dante, Shakespeare or Goethe" for his influence on the Chinese literary tradition. He stood for strong central authority in politics and orthodoxy in cultural matters. He was also considered to be among China's finest prose writers, second only to Sima Qian, and first among the "Eight Great Prose Masters of the Tang and Song" (唐宋八大家) in a list compiled by Ming Dynasty scholar Mao Kun (茅坤).^[1]Song Dynasty poet Su Shi praised Han Yu that he had written prose which "raised the standards after 8 dynasties of literary weaknesses" (文起八代之衰).

 

 

 

Kobo.

[Kobo-Daishi]

Lecture three covers three classic texts by Su Dongpo, 蘇東坡 (苏东坡) portraying the famous historical site “Red Cliff”, 赤壁, where the famous Battle of Red Cliffs was fought during the Three Kingdoms period of Chinese history.

 

The entry for "Su Dongpo" found in the two volume The Indiana Companion to Traditional Chinese Literature. Note that they use "traditional" characters and Wade-Giles Romanization.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Su_Dongpo

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Chibi

 

https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/Author:%E8%98%87%E8%BB%BE Su Dongpo's works found at Wikisource.

 

The three "Red Cliffs" texts.

 

https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/%E5%89%8D%E8%B5%A4%E5%A3%81%E8%B3%A6 前赤壁賦

 

https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/%E5%BE%8C%E8%B5%A4%E5%A3%81%E8%B3%A6 後赤壁賦

 

https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/%E5%BF%B5%E5%A5%B4%E5%AC%8C_%28%E8%98%87%E8%BB%BE%29 念奴嬌 .赤壁懷古
 

Kobo.

[Kobo-Daishi]

The fourth and final lecture covers two of Lu Xun, 魯迅 (鲁迅)'s short stories. Diary of a Madman (or A Madman's Diary), 狂人日記 (狂人日记) and The True Story of Ah Q, 阿Q正傳 (阿Q正传).

 

Sorry, no entry from The Indiana Companion to Traditional Chinese Literature. We're now in modern Chinese literature territory.  

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lu_xun

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Madman%27s_Diary

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_True_Story_of_Ah_Q

 

https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/Author:%E9%AD%AF%E8%BF%85 Lu Xun's work found at the Wikisource.

 

https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/%E7%8B%82%E4%BA%BA%E6%97%A5%E8%A8%98 The Diary of a Madman

 

https://zh.wikisource.org/zh-hans/%E7%8B%82%E4%BA%BA%E6%97%A5%E8%A8%98 In simplified Chinese.

 

https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/%E9%98%BF%EF%BC%B1%E6%AD%A3%E5%82%B3 The True Story of Ah Q.

 

https://zh.wikisource.org/zh-hans/%E9%98%BF%EF%BC%B1%E6%AD%A3%E5%82%B3 In simplified Chinese.

 

I think I was once watching PBS (Public Broadcasting Service, our public educational television network here in the states) one time, and they were interviewing the professor when my father told me that he knew Professor Leo Ou-fan Lee when he was in America. I wasn't really paying much attention. Being a kid and all, but, I think it was him.

 

Anyway, I'm re-reading his book Voices from the Iron House: A Study of Lu Xun put out by Indiana University Press.

 

http://www.marxists.org/archive/lu-xun/1918/04/x01.htm English translation of The Diary of a Madman.

 

http://www.marxists.org/archive/lu-xun/1921/12/ah-q/index.htm English translation of The True Story of Ah Q.

 

Kobo.

 

Edit. Added links to the two English translations.

[Tianjin42]

Boom! I am in. I signed up last night ready to go today. Looking forward to working through this with you. 

 

Will try to keep up - I still haven't handed in my book reviews for the programme here on Chinese-forums (just moved house and moved office!) but things should get a little better now. 

 

Thanks for the material already posted up. Yes - getting over the the library might be tricky. Bear in mind that for some of you - many universities now offer good access to Jstor for alumni. For example University of Liverpool notified me and sure enough it has been helpful previously. Not sure how many texts here will be on Jstor but if you graduated from a fairly well-known university you might have access. 

 

List of institutions:

http://about.jstor.org/alumni#Institutions-in-program 

[xuexiansheng]

Just got an email from them. The intro is posted and the 1st lecture should go up on Sept. 3rd. 加油！

[abcdefg]

And I'm sure they'll provide the reading material since the course is free. Wouldn't make sense to offer a "free" course and then turn around and charge you for the class material.

 

@Kobo -- Doesn't look like it, from what I can find this morning. They suggest what we should read, but do not say where to find it online. Would sure be nice, for those of us who are lazy, if the suggested readings could just be clicked as links.

 

Lecture 1: The True Face of Hero

Basic Readings

• Records of the Grand Historian: Han Dynasty I, trans. Burton Watson, New York: Columbia University Press, 1993, pp. 17-48. 
• Sources of Chinese Tradition, compiled by Wm.Theo. De Bary, Wing-tsi Chan, and Burton Watson, 1960, New York: Columbia University Press, pp. 269-275.

Scholarly Studies

• Durrant, Stephen W., 1995, The Cloudy Mirror: Tension and Conflict in the Writings of Sima Qian, Albany: State University of New York Press, Chapter 1 and Chapter 6. 
• Li, Wai-yee, 1994, “The Idea of Authority in the Shih chi (Records of the Historian)”, Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 54, no.2: 345-405. 
• Allen, Joseph Roe, III, 1981, “An Introductory Study of Narrative Structure in Shiji”, Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles, Reviews 3: 31-66. 
• “Records of the Grand Historian” 史記, retrieved on Feb. 07, 2014, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Records_of_the_Grand_Historian. 
• “Xiang Yu” 項羽, retrieved on Feb.07, 2014, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xiang_Yu.

[abcdefg]

I did locate and re-listen to the Laszlo Montgomery podcast on Xiang Yu. Good summary. Here's a link:

 

http://chinahistorypodcast.com/chp-091-xiang-yu

 

Think I remember hearing another one from him on Sima Qian, but can't locate the link just now.

[Tianjin42]

Yes - I doubt those key sources will be provided. So let's see what can be done. 

 

I have just performed a few searches on Jstor through the alumni scheme. Can't obtain exactly what is required but there is access to a decent number of reviews of the key works here, including some interesting debate. 

 

it isn't what we need exactly but it does make for interesting background. 

 

I guess it is time to see if we can find the excerpts of these books online if possible. Anyone bought these books in electronic format by the way? 

[abcdefg]

Anyone bought these books in electronic format by the way?

 

Amazon offers Sima Qian's "Records of the Grand Historians" for $18.35 per volume as a Kindle download. I suppose if all else fails...

 

http://www.amazon.com/Records-Grand-Historian-Qin-Dynasty/dp/0231081693/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1399821874&sr=1-3&keywords=sima+qian

 

Edit: Looks like only one volume, the one about the Qin, is available in Kindle format. (Would that be the volume we need?)

 

I guess it is time to see if we can find the excerpts of these books online if possible.

 

Yes, that would be great. I looked here, but could not locate them as readable documents even though they are referenced.

 

https://openlibrary.org/works/OL12938286W/Records_of_the_grand_historian_of_China

 

Could not get into JStor without re-joining the alumni association of the university from which I graduated a long, long time ago. Guess I could bite the bullet and do that if there is no other way.

[abcdefg]

From the course website:

 

The course thus provides a general framework for students to explore Chinese humanities. Yet, participants should take the initiative by doing both the recommended and the supplementary readings, most, if not all, of which are available at good public libraries.

 

https://class.coursera.org/chinesehumanitieseng-001/wiki/syllabus

[xuexiansheng]

@abcdefg- There is a discussion in the course forums on where to find the readings. Some people were having the same problems if they don't have access to a good university library. It looks like one student took it upon them self to 'liberate' a copy of the first reading.

 

http://isites.harvard.edu/fs/docs/icb.topic116907.files/Xiang_Yu.pdf

 

link here for discussion 

[xuexiansheng]

There is a link for the Watson translation in the internet archive, so it should be open access.

[xuexiansheng]

@abcdefg-

Could not get into JStor without re-joining the alumni association of the university from which I graduated a long, long time ago. Guess I could bite the bullet and do that if there is no other way.

 

I just downloaded the two supplementary articles for the first reading from JSTOR, message me with an email and I can send them to you.

[abcdefg]

Oh, wow, @Xuexiansheng, that's really great!  Appreciate the help. Since I'm in China, I don't have recourse to a library which has English translations of Chinese books.

 

Have sent you a PM.