Mythical Histories in China and Japan

1. Scrutinizing received constructs, proposing new terms (Sept. 3)

Constructs: linear history, History, history as Truth, history as fact, the inherently meaningful event, modernity

Terms: myth, history, discourse, construction, deconstruction, narrative position

• Allan Nevins and Henry Steele Commager, A Pocket History of the United States, 1-23, 175-194

Patricia Nelson Limerick, The Legacy of Conquest, The Unbroken Past of the American West, 17-32, 322-349

Roland Barthes, Mythologies, 109-59

• Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities, 1-140

Partha Chaterjee, "Whose Imagined Community?," The Nation and Its Fragments, 3-13

Thongchai Winichakul, "The Presence of Nationhood," Siam Mapped: A History of the Geo-Body of a Nation, 1-19

• Record of Ancient Matters (Kojiki), 37-92

Derk Bodde, "Myths of Ancient China," 15-37

Wolfram Eberhard, "The World-Egg," Local Cultures of South and East China, 438-46

• Stefan Tanaka, Japan’s Orient: Rendering Pasts into History

Gabrielle Spiegel, "Genealogy: Form and Function in Medieval Historical Narrative," 43-53

*Brief History, 408-29

(Son of Heaven, Mandate of Heaven, Legitimate Succession)

• Ssu-ma Ch’ien (d. ca. 85 B.C.), "The Five Emperors," The Grand Scribe’s Records, 1-17

• Wu Hung, "Ancient Sovereigns," The Wu-liang Shrine, 244-52

• "Dynastic Legends," The Book of Odes (Shih ching), 239-280

• Yang Wei-chen (1296-1370), "Polemics on Legitimate Succession," 51-72

Richard L. Davis, "Historiography as Politics in Yang Wei-chen’s ‘Polemics on Legitimate Succession’," 33-51

Pamela Kyle Crossley, "An Introduction to the Qing Foundation Myth," 13-24

*Brief History, 3-26, 79-91

7. Japanese Emperor and Nation (October 15)

(Divine Emperor)

• Nihongi (Chronicles of Japan), 1-63

• Kojiki, 37-92 (review from previous assignment)

• Kitabatake Chikafusa (1293-1354), A Chronicle of Gods and Sovereigns, 49-129

• Motoori Norinaga (1730-1801), The Way of the Gods, 21-41

*Brief History, 131-154, 156-172, 285-291

8. Student Presentations (Oct. 29):

1. description of topic and central problem 2. historical background to topic & problem 3. statement of interpretation, thesis, etc.

• Hsun-tzu [Xunzi] (fl. 298-238 B.C.), "Contra Twelve Philosophers," 212-229

• Ssu-ma T’an, "The Discussion of the Essentials of the Six Schools," 43-48

• Chuang-tzu (ca. 399-295 B.C.), "The World," 362-377

Thomas A. Wilson, Genealogy of the Way, 112-43

• Tu Fei, Annals of the Transmission of the Dharma-treasure, 255-269

† John R. McRae, The Northern School and the Formation of Early Ch’an Buddhism, 1-6, 73-97

• Hui-neng, The Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch, 125-134

† Philip B. Yampolsky, The Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch, 1-88

*Heinrich Dumoulin, Zen Buddhism: A History, 85-153

*Brief History, 28-49, 102-116

• Chu Hsi (1130-1200), Reflections of Things as Hand, 279-308

• Chang Hsüeh-ch’eng (1738-1801), "On the Tao"

Wing-tsit Chan, "Chu Hsi’s Completion of Neo-Confucianism," 103-138

Thomas A. Wilson, Genealogy of the Way, 72-111

*Brief History, 185-203, 251-254, 334-337, 344-347

• Ogyu Sorai (1666-1728), "A Discourse on the Way"

• Maruyama Masao, "Orthodoxy and Legitimacy in the Kimon School," Journal of Sino-Japanese Studies, 6-49

† Herman Ooms, Tokugawa Ideology: Early Constructs, 1570-1680, 3-62

† Carol Gluck, Japan’s Modern Myths: Ideology in the Late Meiji Period, 3-16

* Kate Wildman Nakai, "Tokugawa Confucian Historiography: The Hayashi, Early Mito School, and Arai Hakuseki," Confucianism and Tokugawa Culture, 62-91

*Brief History, 355-364, 431-439

"Ren gui qing" [Woman, demon, human], a film by Huang Shuqing, 1988 (108 mins.)

Dai Jinhua and Mayfair Yang, "A Conversation with Huang Shuqing," 790-805

Dai Jinhua, "Invisible Women: Contemporary Chinese and Women’s Films," 255-280

"Farewell My Concubine," a film by Chen Kaige, 1993 (157 mins.)

Gerda Lerner, The Creation of Patriarchy, 3-75, 101-122

!! 13. Final Student Presentations !! (December 3)

14. Revolution (Dec. 10)

Karl Marx, "Revolution in China and Europe," Surveys from Exile, 325-333

Mao Tse-tung (1893-1976), "The Chinese Revolution and the Chinese Communist Party," 305-334

Chien Po-tsan, "Problems in the [Communist] Periodization of Chinese History," 76-84

† Arif Dirlik, "Mirror to Revolution: Early Marxist Images of Chinese History," Journal of Asian Studies (33 Feb. 1974), 193-223

*Brief History, 470-496, 554-559

• primary text or text that will be the main focus of discussion

† required reading on reserve at Burke Library

* Background readings on reserve in library (also background reading: Brief History: Conrad Schirokauer, A Brief History of Chinese and Japanese Civilizations, Second Edition)

Supplementary Readings

1. Scrutinizing received constructs

Barlow, Tani. "Colonialism’s Career in Postwar China Studies," positions, 224-267

Farquhar Judith & James Hevia. "Culture and Postwar American Historiography of China," positions, 486-525

LaCapra, Dominick. Rethinking Intellectual History: Texts, Contexts, Language. Cornell, 1983.

Young, Robert. White Mythologies: Writing History and the West. Routledge, 1990.

3. Nation and Modernity

Duara, Pradenjit. Rescuing History from the Nation

Gladney, Dru. "Representing Nationality in China: Refiguring Majority/Minority Identities." JAS 53 (Feb. 1994) 1: 92-123.

Tanaka, Stefan. "Imaging History: Inscribing Beleif in the Nation." JAS 53 (Feb. 1994) 1: 24-44.

4. Origins

Birrell, Anne. Chinese Mythology: An Introduction. Johns Hopkins U., 1993.

Bonnefoy, Yves, comp. Asian Mythologies. Chicago, 1993.

Chang, Kuang-chih. Art, Myth, and Ritual

Kalgren, Bernard. "Legends and Cults in Ancient China." Bulletin of the Museum of Far Eastern Atiquities. 18 (1946): 199-365.

6. Chinese Sovereignty

Chan, Hok-lam. Legitimation in Imperial China: Discussions Under the Jurchen Chin Dynasty (1115-1234)

Hulsewé, A. F. P. "Notes on the Historiography of the Han Period," Historians of China and Japan, 31-59

Kahn, Harold L. Monarchy in the Emperor’s Eyes: Images and Reality in the Ch’ien-lung Reign

Ssu-ma Ch’ien. "The Basic Annals of Emperor Kao-tsu," Records of the Grand Historian of China, 77-121

____________. "The Basic Annals of Hsiang-yü," 37-74

Tung Chung-shu (ca. 179-ca. 104 B.C.). Luxuriant Gems of the Spring and Autumn Annals, 271-288

Van der Loon, P. "The Ancient Chinese Chronicles and the Growth of Historical Ideals," Historians of China and Japan, 24-30

7. Japanese Emperor and Nation

Arai Hakuseki (1657-1725). Lessons from History (Tokushi yoron)

Chingen. Miraculous Tales of the Lotus Sutra from Ancient Japan (Kokekyokenki [ca. 1040])

Jien (1155-1225), The Future and the Past (Gukansho)

Masasada (d. 1162). Okagami (The great mirror)

Robinson, G. W. "Early Japanese Chronicles: The Six National Histories," Historians of China and Japan, 213-228

Robinson, G. W. and W. G. Beasley, "Japanese Historical Writing in the Eleventh to Fourteenth Centuries," Historians of China and Japan, 229-244

Takakuni (1004-77). Konjaku (Tales of modern and ancient times)

10.The Confucian Tao in China

Liu Shu-hsien. "The Problem of Orthodoxy in Chu Hsi’s Philosophy," Chu Hsi and Neo-Confucianism, 437-460

Nivison, David S. "History and the Tao," The Life and Thought of Chang Hsüeh-ch’eng

11. The Confucian Tao in Japan

Beasley, W. G. "Japanese Historical Writing in the Tokugawa Period (1603-1868)," Historians of China and Japan, 245-263

Harootunian, H. D. Toward Restoration: The Growth of Political Consciousness in Tokugawa Japan

Nosco, Peter. "Neo-Confucianism and Tokugawa Discourse," Confucianism and Tokugawa Culture, 3-26

Yamazaki Michio. "The Tradition of the Way in Japan," Chu Hsi and Neo-Confucianism, 584-594

12. Gender

Aoki, Michio Y. and Margaret B. Dardess, As the Japanese See It: Past and Present, 160-167

Barlow, Tani. "Theorizing Women: Funu, Guojia, Jiating [Chinese Women, Chinese State, Chinese Family]," Genders 10 (Spring 1991), 132-160

Book of Odes, "Songs of the States"

Heishu, Hosoi. "A Sermon," 400-413

Mann, Susan. "‘Fuxue’ (Women’s Learing) by Zhang Xuecheng (1738-1801): China’s First History of Women’s Culture," Late Imperial China 13 (June 1992) 1: 40-62.

Rapp, Rayna. "Gender and Class: An Archaeology of Knowledge Concerning the Origin of the State," 309-316

Wolf, Margery. Revolution Postponed: Women in Contemporary China

Wu Hung. "Eminent Women," The Wu-liang Shrine, 252-72

14. Revolution

Hegel, G.W.F. Lectures on the Philosophy of World History, 11-24, 190-209

Wittfogel, Karl A. "Chinese Society: An Historical Survey," 343-364