Nov. 14 – Nov. 20
Unless otherwise noted, all assignments and tasks are due by 11:59PM. I strongly suggest you keep a healthy life-work balance and make sure to get enough sleep. Check the “best-before dates” policy in the syllabus.
| Monday |
- □ Look ahead at the readings and tasks for this week, and plan in when you will do them.
- – This prevents last minute panic, and means you can make the most of our time together in class.
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- □ Feedback on your fellow students’ posts
- – Read through and use Hypothes.is (Group HST107) to comment on your fellow students’ First Post: everybody likes some encouragement! Here is a random selection of three posts. If two or more posts are the same, or one is your own, just refresh the page for a different set. It’s all random, it’s all good!
- * Post 1
- * Post 2
- * Post 3
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| Tuesday |
- □ Please prepare before class: Readings
- Cao Xueqin. The Golden Days. Vol. 1 of The Story of the Stone, translated by David Hawkes. Penguin Classics, 1973. (Chapters 1 and 5) (PDF)
- Chapter 1 of this eighteenth century novel explains how Jia Baoyu, the “Stone” of the title, becomes incarnated as a boy in the human world. He lives a luxurious life in the mansion of his ancestors, the Dukes of Ningguo and Rongguo. He grew up with his cousin Xue Baochai, but at the start of Chapter 5 Dai Linyu, another cousin, joins the household. Through fate these three are connected, and the names of the two girls both contain a character that is also found in Baoyu’s name. Baoyu is (later in the novel) in love with Linyu, but his parents want him to marry Baochai.
- Info: In contrast to most of the primary sources we read so far, this text was consciously created as fiction by the author: it is not a form of history, nor is it a retelling of a traditional folk tale. The full length novel (120 chapters) is very cleverly constructed, and some scholars spend a lifetime to studying the text and its complex literary ideas; it is a separate field of Chinese literature. The novel is also known as Dream of the Red Chamber (in Chinese: Honglou meng).
- Reading Questions: How many connections with ideas from earlier in the course can you see? This can be in broad terms (afterlife, enchanted beings, techniques of story-telling…) as well as specific figures we discussed.
- Reading Questions: Bear in mind while reading the words that welcome you to the Land of Illusion: “Truth becomes fiction, when the fiction’s true; Real becomes not-real where the unreal’s real.” Which layer of the story is the real world? What is the author doing to the reader? Why?
- Reading tip: The riddle poems in Chapter 5 are tricky, you can skim them – If you are curious about the riddles in Chapter 5, here is the solution (PDF)
- TIP: You only need to read chapter 1 and 5, but 2-4 are included should you wish to read what happens in between.
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- □ Meeting: Ettinger 204, 3.30PM
- Slides (Gdrive)
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| Wednesday |
- □ Catch up, and/or prepare for Thursday!
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| Thursday |
- □ Prepare before class:
- Brainstorm with your group: What is the worst possible outcome for our textbook project? What are the things you can do to achieve that outcome? –> bring your notes to class!
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- □ Meeting: The Hive, B06, Trexler Library
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| Friday |
- □ Catch up with any missing tasks or help a fellow student! Check in the Discord chat.
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| Saturday |
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| Sunday |
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Where to get help:
- Tea Room on Discord:
- open anytime for you
- I will be hosting Tue 2PM-3PM; Wed. 11AM-12PM, or at other times by appointment via Google Calendar. You can also find me in my office during Tea Room times.
- Private room for confidential chat available on request.
- Discord Channel #hst107 and the (anonymous) Padlet (both also useful for chatting, sharing fun stuff)
- DLAs: Digital Learning Assistants: schedule coming soon!
- Writing Center: Sunday-Wednesday: 3:30 – 5:30 pm and 7-11 pm; Thursday: 3:30 – 5:30 pm and 7-9 pm; drop in or make an appointment
- Trexler Library Course Subject Guide: our own dedicated subject guide for the course
- Safety on/around campus: report an incident
