Monkey (personal name: Sun Wukong) is the main character of the opening chapters of the famous and ever-popular novel Journey to the West. Monkey is a troublemaker extra-ordinaire. He’s not unlike some of the mountain creatures we encountered earlier!
You can choose to read the story in translation, or watch the Chinese animation from 1964. It was a huge hit in China when it was released!
Schedule
- Tuesday: 4pm Zoom session: Textbook editorial meeting: try to be there!
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- Help to determine sequence of chapters
- Help to determine look and feel of the textbook:
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- glossary?
- textboxes?
- colors? bolded items?
- Would anybody like to write (or collaborate on) a foreword for the second, “Pandemic” edition? [Can be done anytime before I teach the course again]
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- Look through the documents in the shared Google Folder (incl. topics/authors; do’s and don’ts; additional resources for specific topics/projects)
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- Find the recording on the Canvas page (look for the date)
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- 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.
- Thursday (anytime before midnight) Below are two websites, randomly selected from the students in this course. Go to each website and give feedback on the reflection for week 11.
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- If one of the websites shown below is your own, or it is twice the same site, refresh the page, and you should get new sites; if the week 11 reflection is not there, find a post from a previous week on that student’s blog.
- Use the hypothes.is add-on in your browser to give feedback to the post in the group HST107. Remember the Architect’s model of giving feedback! Be kind, be specific, and provide concrete suggestions for improvement.
- Website 1:
- Website 2:
- You can provide feedback to as many websites/blogs as you like, of course!
- Don’t forget to check on your own posts what the comments are from the group HST107; you can rewrite your posts and improve them (incl. adding links or pictures) anytime through the semester.
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Reading materials
- Slides (Gdrive link)
- Textbook: Nguyen, Phuc. “5: The Monkey King: Journey to America.” In In China’s Magical Creatures (and where to find them). First edition, Muhlenberg College, 2020. (https://open.muhlenberg.pub/chinasmagicalcreatures/chapter/the-monkey-king/)
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- This chapter gives you a good sense of how the character of Monkey has developed over the centuries.
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- Option 1: Primary source (text) Wu, Cheng’en. The Monkey & the Monk: A Revised Abridgment of The Journey to the West, translated by Anthony C. Yu. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006. (Chapters 1-7) (Link to file on Gdrive)
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- The story starts on p. 16 of the PDF (p.1 of the printed version)
- Reading guide to help you through the main issues of the story; the story may seem a bit overwhelming with a sea of unfamiliar names, but I suggest you focus on following the main plot line: Monkey and his antics.
- Do you see connections with earlier material? Take note of one or two.
- Guiding questions: What does Sun Wukong represent? How should we interpret this playful but also destructive character? What kinds of power structures are documented in the text? Who has authority? What connections do you notice with materials previously covered in this course, or with your own research project?
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- Option 2: Primary source (film): Wan Laiming and Cheng Tang, dirs. Havoc in Heaven (Danao tiangong). 1963. Shanghai Animation Film Studio, 1964, on Youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hu0XosgxCyU
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- If you prefer to watch the animated version, you can. Bear in mind it’s not necessarily quicker: it is two close to two hours long!
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