Topics in Chinese History: Reading the Visual in Chinese History

4 credits · Undergraduate

This course brings a thematic approach to the critical analysis of the visual in Chinese history. In focusing on key elements of material culture and emphasizing how they have been viewed at specific moments in Chinese history, the course teaches students of history how to achieve a more balanced picture of the past drawn from both visual and literary records. Inevitably, the course tries to determine for a particular temporal and geographical setting what's ordinary or conventional and what's not; also to rethink the metaphors that currently dominate thinking about history in China. No prior acquaintance with Chinese history is required for the course.