Literature, Science, and Technology in China

This course explores relations between Chinese science, technical know-how, and literary writings in early modern and contemporary China. The course encourages students to re-define science and technology in the context of China’s changing Confucian education system, booming market economy, and the multiethnic empire and explores the impact of imperial legacy in scientific imagination in contemporary China. By drawing on materials from local museums as well as latest Chinese science fictions, we will investigate the ways in which knowledge about medicine, handicrafts, and foreign lands transformed the form and content of novels and belle-lettres.