Ellen Neskar

This course will explore the rise, development, and transformations of China’s sociocultural practices and political institutions in the classical period (sixth century BCE to second century CE) and medieval period (third–14th centuries). The first section will explore the ways in which China developed its political, philosophical, and cultural institutions that would shape its history through the 20th century. In the second part of the course, we will examine the ways in which these institutions were challenged and transformed by both internal and external forces. More particularly, we will focus on the cross-cultural influences of the Silk Road on China’s economy, politics, religion, and culture. Topics will include changing nature of diplomacy, forms of economic exchange and trade, the introduction of new religions (Buddhism, Islam, Judaism, and Christianity) and the introduction of new technologies, art, and material culture (including food and items of daily use). This is a hybrid lecture course, including weekly lectures and seminars. The lectures will be based on scholarly research and provide the broader historical and cultural context for a study of primary documents. In the seminar portion, we will undertake a closer reading and discussion of those primary documents.

Throughout Chinese history, high literature and popular folklore shared a fascination with certain subjects, including ghosts and spirits, heroes and bandits, lovers and friends. Elite authors used these subjects as metaphors to contemplate and criticize their cultural, economic, and political traditions. In folklore, these subjects gave voice to nonelite concerns and preoccupations and merged with a variety of practices in popular culture (secular festivals, ancestor worship, and religious practices). Although technically and stylistically different, high literature and popular folklore enjoyed a continual interplay in which each redirected and influenced the other. This course aims to build different, and sometimes competing, conceptions of “tradition and culture,” “elite and folklore,” as well as to understand their continuing relevance today. To that end, we will focus on the close reading of short-story fiction, folktales, stage plays, opera, and religious practices from three pivotal periods in Chinese history: the Tang-Song period (eighth-12th centuries), the Ming-Qing period (15th-18th centuries), and the 20th century. Our approach will involve both literary and historical analysis, and our goals will be to discover continuities and transformations in both content and form and the interchange between elite and popular practices. Topics for class discussion will include: the nature and definitions of the individual; the relationships among the self, family, and society; changing notions of honor, virtue, and individualism; attitudes toward gender and sexuality; and the role of fiction and folklore in promoting or overturning cultural norms.

This course centers on the close, detailed reading of a small number of foundational texts in classical Confucianism and Taoism. Our focus will be to explore how these texts might fit “virtue ethics,” which emphasizes moral character and the pursuit of a worthwhile life. Some attention will be paid to other forms of ethics, including those that stress either the adherence to duties and obligations or the social consequences of ethical action. Our primary goal, however, will be to examine the ways in which classical Chinese philosphers regarded personal virtues and “good character” as both a prerequisite to and an explanation of appropriate action and its consequences. Among the more specific topics that we will explore are: ideal traits of virtue, the links between moral values and different understandings of human nature, the pyschological structures of virtue, practices leading to the cultivation of virtue, the roles of family and friendship in developing moral values, and what constitutes a good life.

This course centers on the close, detailed reading of a small number of foundational texts in classical Confucianism and Taoism. Our focus will be to explore how these texts might fit “virtue ethics,” which emphasizes moral character and the pursuit of a worthwhile life. Some attention will be paid to other forms of ethics, including those that stress either the adherence to duties and obligations or the social consequences of ethical action. Our primary goal, however, will be to examine the ways in which classical Chinese philosphers regarded personal virtues and “good character” as both a prerequisite to and an explanation of appropriate action and its consequences. Among the more specific topics that we will explore are: ideal traits of virtue, the links between moral values and different understandings of human nature, the pyschological structures of virtue, practices leading to the cultivation of virtue, the roles of family and friendship in developing moral values, and what constitutes a good life.

Throughout Chinese history, there was a continual interplay between high literature and popular folklore. Although technically and stylistically different, both share a fascination with certain subjects, including ghosts and spirits, heroes and bandits, lovers and friends. Elite authors used these subjects as metaphors to contemplate and criticize their cultural, economic, and political traditions. In folklore, these subjects gave voice to non-elite concerns and preoccupations and merged with a variety of practices in popular culture (secular festivals, ancestor worship, and religious practices). This course aims to build different, and sometimes competing, conceptions of “tradition” and “culture” and to understand their continuing relevance today. To that end, we will focus on the close reading of short-story fiction, folktales, stage plays, opera, and religious practices from three pivotal periods in Chinese history: the Tang-Song period (8th-12th centuries), the Ming-Qing period (15th-18th centuries), and the 20th century. Our approach will involve both literary and historical analysis, and our goals will be to discover continuities and transformations in both content and form and the interplay between elite and popular practices. Topics for class discussion will include: the nature and definitions of the individual; the relationships among the self, family, and society; changing notions of honor, virtue, and individualism; attitudes toward gender and sexuality; and the role of fiction in promoting or overturning cultural norms.

This course will look at the rise and unfolding of China’s major religious traditions—Confucianism, Buddhism, Daoism, and popular (folk) religion—and seeks to place them within a broader historical, social, and cultural context. In doing so, we will take a two-pronged approach. The first approach will involve the close reading of texts that were foundational in each of the traditions. Topics to be explored will include: notions of the Dao (Tao) and the ways in which it might be attained by individuals, families, and communities; the essence of the mind, human nature, and the emotions and the ways in which they interact in behavior; and practices of inner self-cultivation and social engagement. The second approach will be to explore the specific religious practices associated with each of the traditions (e.g., ancestor worship, exorcisms, community worship, and prayers), the origins and transformation of popular religious festivals (including New Years, All Souls Day, and Hell), and the rise and spread of deity cults (including Guanyin, Mazu, and City Gods). This will involve a different set of texts, including ritual and liturgical texts, temple records and regulations, “how-to” manuals for specific practices, miracle tales, temple performance pieces, government documents, legal cases, diaries, and journals. In bringing these two approaches together, we will consider the ways in which religious traditions and practices both shaped and were shaped by social, cultural, economic, and political institutions.

This course will offer a three-part approach to the study of law in pre-modern China, focusing on legal theory, courts and the implementation of law, and the relationship between law and popular culture. The first part of the course will provide an overview of the philosophical basis of law, the state’s development of civil and penal law codes, and its creation of courts and judicial institutions. The second part will look more closely at the application of the law code to criminal cases in the medieval period. Here, we will study case books and judicial judgments, precedent texts, magistrates’ manuals, forensic guidelines, and journal accounts. Topics that we will examine include: the role and function of local judges, the processes by which penal cases were judged and punishments determined, and the rights and obligations of the various parties in a legal suit. The third part of the course will examine the ways in which the judicial system both influenced and was influenced by popular culture. Our readings will include religious tracts, folktales, and popular fiction. Topics will include the ways in which the court system shaped popular notions of justice, karma, and revenge; the contribution of the legal system to increasingly complicated notions of heaven and hell; and the rise of popular “detective” fiction centered on the courtroom and judges.

This course explores a variety of forms of traditional popular culture that continue to survive in China and abroad. Among the topics we will cover are: folktales (Mulan, the Butterfly Lovers); festivals (New Year’s, Dragon Boat, Herdboy, and Weaving Maid); popular deities (Mazu, Guanyin); and religious practices (All Souls, Hell, ancestor worship). Our focus will be on their historical origins and transformations through a variety of cultural forms. Particular attention will be paid to their entertainment, political, ideological, and sociological functions. This course aims to build different—and sometimes competing—conceptions of “tradition” and understand their continuing relevance today. Since many of these practices and beliefs reside outside the lens of elite taste and political authority, our materials will include opera, drama, popular fiction, and visual arts.

Some of the most consequential and revolutionary prose written in 20th-century China is to be found neither in history nor politics but in fiction and memoir. Indeed, state leaders, reformers, and revolutionaries all believed that fiction was central in their push toward political change and national modernization. The premise of this course is that literature offers an important glimpse into the individual, social, and cultural goals and ramifications of China’s political revolutions. More specifically, the course will look at the short-story fiction and memoirs produced following the 1911 revolution and May Fourth Movement (1919), the 1949 communist revolution, the Cultural Revolution (1966-76), and the post-Mao era (1976-1990). Although we will use various methods of literary analysis, the primary approach to the readings will be historical. Topics to be explored include: the ways in which early writers viewed the problems of traditional literature, the role of literature in bringing about social and political change, the tension between the individual and society, and changing notions of gender. We will also look at the ways in which some writers (among them Lu Xun and Ding Ling) created new narrative techniques to embody their vision of social realism and in which others adopted Western literary techniques to convey their self-image as “modern” or “international” writers.

News coverage of China often highlights the government’s persecution of religious groups, among them Falungong and Tibetan Buddhism. And yet, the same government tolerates a widespread cult to the deceased Communist Party Chairman Mao Zedong as the god of wealth and business success. This course seeks to place China’s often contradictory attitudes toward religion within a broader historical and cultural context by looking at the rise and unfolding of Confucianism, Taoism, Buddhism, and popular religion. We will focus on two related themes: how different religious groups in China interacted with and affected the state and how the state created its own religious structure and ultimately shaped the various religions. Questions to be raised will include the following: How did the traditional religions both support and oppose the state? How did the state adopt the symbols and practices of these religions to legitimize its authority? How did the traditional Chinese state conceive of the sacred role of the emperor? What assumption led to its creation of a state religion that controlled private religious practices? How has the contemporary Chinese government borrowed, transformed, or eradicated the traditional relationships between religious groups and the state? We will attempt to answer these questions from a multidisciplinary approach that encompasses religious, institutional, intellectual, and cultural perspectives. Although readings will include secondary sources, emphasis will be placed on primary documents. Sources will include government edicts, ritual manuals, legal cases, religious texts, temple records, private memoirs and diaries, miracle tales, didactic fiction, and folklore.

News coverage of China often highlights the government’s persecution of religious groups, among them Falungong and Tibetan Buddhism. And yet, the same government tolerates a widespread cult to the deceased Communist Party Chairman Mao Zedong as the god of wealth and business success. This course seeks to place China's often contradictory attitudes toward religion within a broader historical and cultural context by looking at the rise and unfolding of Confucianism, Taoism, Buddhism, and popular religion. We will focus on two related themes: 1) how different religious groups in China interacted with and affected the state; and 2) how the state created its own religious structure and ultimately shaped the various religions. Questions to be raised will include the following: How did the traditional religions both support and oppose the state? How did the state adopt the symbols and practices of these religions to legitimize its authority? How did the traditional Chinese state conceive of the sacred role of the emperor? What assumption led to its creation of a state religion that controlled private religious practices? How has the contemporary Chinese government borrowed, transformed, or eradicated the traditional relationships between religious groups and the state? We will attempt to answer these questions from a multidisciplinary approach that encompasses religious, institutional, intellectual, and cultural perspectives. Although readings will include secondary sources, emphasis will be placed on primary documents. Sources will include government edicts, ritual manuals, legal cases, religious texts, temple records, private memoirs and diaries, miracle tales, didactic fiction, and folklore.

This seminar centers on foundational texts in the classical Taoist tradition and their unfolding in later religious and artistic movements. The goal of this course is twofold: to understand the texts as they were written between the fifth and third centuries BCE and to examine the ways in which they were interpreted and reinterpreted in later religious traditions and applied in poetry and painting. The first semester will focus on a close and detailed reading of the Daodejing (Tao-te-ching), Zhuangzi, and Liezi as a way of examining their core philosophical concepts. Questions we will ask include: What is being? What is knowledge? What is the Tao, and how might individuals attain it? What is the ideal relationship of the individual to society, nature, and the cosmos? Second semester, we will explore the influence of these texts on later religious and artistic traditions. Topics we will explore include the relationship between religious practice and artistic expression, the creation of visual and literary art as an expression of the Tao, and the practice of being a reader/observer. Here we will examine medieval and Late Imperial texts on Taoist religious practice, poetry, painting, and aesthetics. In addition to these more theoretical works, we will study the lives and works of some notable Taoist-influenced poets and artists.

This seminar centers on the two foundational texts in the classical Taoist tradition, Lao-tzu’s Tao-te ching (Daode jing) and the Chuang-tzu (Zhuangzi). The Tao-te-ching, an anthology of poetry, asks us to contemplate the nature of the Dao and the possibility of the individual’s attainment of it; the role of the government and rulers in making the Dao prevail in the world; and a rudimentary cosmology that proposes an ideal relationship of the individual to society, nature, and the cosmos. By contrast, the Chuang-tzu defies all categorization and, instead, invites readers to probe through its layers of myth, fantasy, jokes, short stories, and philosophical argumentation. Along the way, Chuang-tzu plunges us into an examination of some of the core questions of moral philosophy and epistemology: What is being? What is the nature of human nature? What does it mean to be virtuous? What is knowledge? How does one know that one knows? And, what does it mean to attain true knowledge and the Dao? To explore those topics and answer these questions, our seminar sessions will revolve around the close, detailed reading and interpretation of the texts.