ASIAN 2231 - [Introduction to China: Imagining China’s Past]

(crosslisted) CAPS 2231
(GHB) (CA-AS, HST-AS)

Fall. Not offered: 2023-2024. Next offered: 2024-2025. 3 credits. Student option grading.

This class is one of several topical courses in the Department of Asian Studies at the 2000-level that offer introductions to Chinese civilization (ASIAN 2230, ASIAN 2231, ASIAN 2232). Students may take more than one of these introductory courses for credit.

R. McNeal.

This is a course about the power of the past in Chinese historical, literary, religious, and artistic imagination. We will survey notions about China’s past across more than two millennia, from the Bronze age to contemporary times. We will do this by focusing on a handful of literary, philosophical, artistic, and material sources to examine how people have made sense of an found meaning in China’s past. The course assumes little or no background in the study of China. (GE)