HIST 4963 - China’s Early Modern

(crosslisted) ASIAN 4461, CAPS 4963
(GHB) (HA-AS)

Fall. 4 credits.

Co-meets with HIST 6963/ASIAN 6661.

T. Hinrichs.

Theories of modernization have inspired, informed, and plagued the historiography of late imperial China. Comparative studies have variously found and sought to explain in the Song-Qing eras an absence of modernization, modernization earlier than Europe’s, or alternative paths of modernization. Regional models argue for trans-East Asian systems and patterns of modernization. Global models have argued that China had a vital role in Europe’s modernization as a provenance of modernizing institutions and ideas, as a source of exploited resources, or otherwise as an integral part of global systems. In this course we will explore these historiographical debates and develop critical perspectives, including approaches to escaping Eurocentric and teleological frameworks.