Week 12: Dragons, and a bit of medicine

In Week 12 we look at dragons, and their somewhat surprising use as an ingredient in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). Please note: the history of TCM is its own specialist field of study, so we only get to touch the surface of the surface in our course.

Please fill out the Googleform survey (also emailed to you), so I can take stock. I try to keep a regular schedule for the rest of the semester, so there is some stability for your, too. But as always: I welcome your feedback! Let me know if this works for you, if it is too much, or if you have suggestions for improvements. You can also email me or leave anonymous comments on the Pad, anytime!

All passwords and links for Zoom can be found at the Canvas Homepage for the course.

Schedule:
  • Monday: reflection on the course materials from week 11: this is a chance to show how you have consolidated your knowledge of the topic of mountains. How have your ideas changed through repeated interactions with peers and the course materials during the past week? What connections do you see with other course materials? What are the big lessons you learned, to carry forward through the rest of the semester?
        • Post on your blog, in Category HST107
        • Include the words “Week 11” in the title
  • Tuesday: 4pm Zoom session: Check in with classmates and projects, or talk about course materials for this week.
  • Tuesday (anytime before midnight): Initial post on the Canvas discussion board due.
  • Wednesday (anytime before midnight): Two responses to other students’ posts due, on the Canvas discussion board.
  • Thursday Zoom session 4pm (link under the pink header on Canvas Homepage): “regular class”: we will go into more detail about the course materials for the week, based on the Canvas discussion board.
  • Friday (anytime before midnight): Final Project Bite step 4:
        • Annotated bibliography”: List of sources you have read and assessed useful for further use.
          • Use Chicago Notes and Bibliography style- use the Bibliography formatting for this exercise.
          • Strive for at least three good quality, preferably scholarly, sources (chapters, articles, or full-length books). If you cannot find three reputable sources, provide an overview of your search process: where did you search, which terms etc. Remember for Chinese terms there may be an alternative transcription. This will help me to guide you towards more/other materials.
          • Each annotation should include:
                  • A brief (3 sentence) summary of the contents of each.
                  • A brief explanation of how you intend to use this information.
                  • Shortcomings you noticed in the source (doesn’t answer a particular question, reasons why you think it is not sufficiently scholarly to use, etc.)
                  • Here are some concrete examples from the OWL at Purdue.
          • Share as google doc, and allow me editing access: this gives us a space to build a collective bibliography for your project (this may be the same google doc as in step 2)
          • * I realize this is Good Friday- if you observe a religious holy day, please make me an offer for a different deadline.
Readings/course materials
  • Slides (Gdrive link)
  • Textbook: Johnson, Nyjah. “Dragons”. In China’s Magical Creatures (and where to find them). First edition, Muhlenberg College, 2020. (https://open.muhlenberg.pub/chinasmagicalcreatures/chapter/dragons/)
  • Nappi, Carla Suzan.The Monkey and the Inkpot: Natural History and Its Transformations In Early Modern China. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2009. (PDF)
        • Annotated translation of the section on dragons from a seventeenth century text on medicinal drugs, with an in-depth commentary from the translator. Beware of the differences between the original text in translation, and the notes from the translator.
        • What do you find surprising, strange, remarkable or interesting about the use of dragons in medicine? What are some of their properties? Do you see connections with materials we saw earlier?
  • Melvin Bragg and guests. “Li Shizhen”. In Our Time, BBC. Nov. 28, 2019. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000bp3g (or Canvas-hosted version with captions) [Duration: 45 mins + bonus material]
        • This podcast introduces you to the man who wrote the original text in the previous bullet point.
        • How do dragons fit into the wider framework of his book?
  • OPTIONAL EXTRA: Dragons in popular literature:
    • Chapter 10 and 11. In Journey to the West, translated Anthony C. Yu, 126-167. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 2006. (PDF)
          • We will see the start of Journey to the West (Xiyouji or Hsi-yu-chi) next week, with the story of Monkey. But in these chapters, a dragon shows his powers- and his limitations!
    • Romance of the Gods “Nezha and His Father”. In Owen, Stephen. An Anthology of Chinese Literature: Beginnings to 1911. 1st ed. New York: W.W. Norton, 1996. (PDF)
          • Similar to the dragon in the previous story, a dragon plays an important element in driving the plot in the opening sections of this part of the novel.