HIST 604: Contemporary Greater China

Contemporary Greater China

This course aims to help you understand the vastness, diversity, and cultural and political complexity of the territory that we will call Greater China, by which I mean the territories that constituted China in the late Qing era, around the turn of the twentieth century. It focuses particularly on Taiwan and peripheral or contested regions of the People's Republic of China such as Xinjiang, Tibet, and Hong Kong in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, and examines tensions between nationalism and regionalism across and within these territories. It considers questions of political, cultural, and social identity among various groups in Greater China, and looks at forces such as government, movements of people, ideology, and economics that shape those identities. 

History 604 is designed to help you hone your critical thinking skills, learn to analyze texts, use evidence and develop an argument like a historian, and further develop your writing and research skills. To that end, class time will primarily be spent in discussion of texts we have read and assignments will include one short paper on course readings, an 8-10 page research paper on a topic of your choice, in consultation with me, and a poster presentation based on that research. As a Core Goal 4.2 course, History 604 is also designed to help you develop your intercultural competency skills. The course will help you build reflective skills as well as a foundation for understanding and responding flexibly to ethnic, political and cultural diversity within Greater China.