The City in Modern China
(History 661D)

Mingzheng Shi
mingzhen@hawaii.edu
University of Hawaii at Manoa
Hawaii, USA
Fall, 1999

SYLLABUS

Description

This course examines major issues and problems in modern Chinese urban history through reading and discussion of representative English works on Chinese cities. Topics include definition and concept of Chinese cities, imperial city planning and urban built environment; municipal governance and urban services, transformation of urban spaces and public sphere; issues of class, ethnicity and gender in the urban setting, urban culture, identity, and modernity. The first part of the seminar will focus on select topics in Chinese urban history, and the second part will be devoted to supervised research and writing of a term paper.

Requirements

  1. Class Participation (50%). You are required to submit 1-2 page long weekly assessments of your reading assignment for the first half of the course. These short critiques must deal with the readings for that week, focusing on issues raised, problems you may have with the authors' methods, documentation, or conclusions, as well as ways in which the books relate to other works you have read. At least two questions should be proposed for class discussion and be appended to the end of your weekly critiques, which are delivered either by e-mail to mingzhen@hawaii.edu or physically to my mailbox in the History Department by noon on the day of class. Everyone will have one opportunity to lead a class discussion.

  2. Term Paper (50%). There will be two tracks: For those who must take this course as a research seminar, you are required to produce a research paper, and you are urged to set in motion the process of research and writing early in the semester; and for the rest of the class, your paper can be either in the form of a thought piece which analyzes one major issue raised in this course, or in the form of a book review which synthesizes and assesses two or more books (including but not limited to the required ones) on a topic related to the debate. The thought-essay may be based on additional readings but need not involve primary research. A two-page paper project proposal is required from everyone taking the class. Everyone will also have an opportunity to discuss his or her paper in class.

Readings

The following books are required for the course. The books may be purchased from the University bookstore and copies of the articles will be distributed in class.

Sen-dou Chang
“The Morphology of Walled Capitals,” in G. William Skinner, ed., The City in Late Imperial China. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1977.

Alison Dray-Novey
“Spatial Order and Police in Imperial Beijing,” Journal of Asian Studies 52:4 (November 1993).

Bryna Goodman
“New Culture, Old Habits: Native-Place organizations and the May Fourth Movement,” in Frederic Wakeman, Jr. and Wen-hsin Yeh, eds., Shanghai Sojourners. Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California at Berkeley, 1992.

Gail Hershatter
“Modernizing Sex, Sexing Modernity: Prostitution in Early Twentieth-Century Shanghai,” in C. Gilmartin, et al eds., Engendering China: Women, Culture, and the State. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1994.

Emily Honig
Sisters and Strangers: Women in the Shanghai Cotton Mills, 1919-1949. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1986.

Susan Mann
“Urbanization and Historical Change in China,” Modern China 10:1 (January 1984).

William T. Rowe
Hankow: Commerce and Society in a Chinese City, 1796-1889. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1984.

G. William Skinner
“Introduction: Urban Development in Imperial China,” “Introduction: Urban and Rural in Chinese Society,” and “Introduction: Social Structure in Ch’ing China,” in Skinner, ed., The City in Late Imperial China. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1977.

David Strand
Rickshaw Beijing: City People and Politics in the 1920s. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989.

Frederic Wakeman
Policing Shanghai, 1927-1937. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995.

Arthur F. Wright
“The Cosmology of the Chinese City,” in Skinner, ed., The City in Late Imperial China. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1977.


CLASS SCHEDULE & READING ASSIGNMENTS

August 24:     Introduction

August 31:     What is a Chinese City?
Rowe, Hankow, pp. 1-14
Skinner, three introductions, The City in Late Imperial China.

September 7:     Imperial City Planning
Chang, “The Morphology of Walled Capitals.”
Wright, “The Cosmology of the Chinese City.”

September 14:     Urban Society
Rowe, Hankow, pp.17-346.
Mann, “Urbanization and Historical Change in China.”

September 21:     City People
Strand, Rickshaw Beijing.
Goodman, “New Culture, Old Habits.”

September 28:     Class, Ethnicity, and Gender
Honig, Sisters and Strangers.
Hershatter, “Modernizing Sex, Sexing Modernity.”

October 5:     Urban Policing
Wakeman, Policing Shanghai.
Dray-Novey, “Spatial Order and Police in Imeperial Beijing.”

October 12:     Selecting Paper Topics

October 19:     Conducting Research

October 26:     Progress Report

November 2:     Writing Papers

November 9:     No Class

November 16:     Progress Report

November 23:     No Class

November 30:     Discussion of Papers

December 7:     Conclusion



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Syllabus prepared for archive 28 January 2001.