Week 2: Divination – HST107: China's Magical Creatures

Sept. 5 – Sept. 11

Welcome to Week 2! This week we look at some of the earliest ways people in China tried to divine the future, and maybe tried to influence it: oracle bones, and the Book/Classic of Changes (we still can’t agree over the translation of the Chinese title Yijing).

While you’re reading textbook chapters in our student-authored textbook, start dreaming about ways you can make it better: maybe maybe merging parts of chapters together? Adding more/different illustrations? Maps? Bibliography for further reading/research with notes? Quizzes? What would your ideal interactive textbook look like? Let’s make it happen!

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. □ 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! Remember the specs for the post: what’s missing? What did they do well? * Post 1: * Post 2: * Post 3:
Tuesday	□ Prepare before class: readings – Textbook: Alkhatib, Inaya. “Divination in Early China”. in China’s Magical Creatures (and where to find them). Edited by T. D’Haeseleer, Allentown: Muhlenberg College, 2022. https://open.muhlenberg.pub/chinasmagicalcreatures/chapter/the-classic-of-changes-yijing/ Read paragraphs 1-2, to give you some background on oracle bones (the rest is for Thursday) Note that the chapter on Calendars, and on Divination also have small sections on oracle bones. For all suggestions on improving/changing the textbook: use Hypothes.is group HST107, or add them to the this Google Doc. – One PDF with the following two texts; Questions: What connections and breaks do you see with the “myth-history” from last week? How can we use the oracle bones to understand the world of the Shang people? 1) Keightley, David N. Sources of Shang History: The Oracle-Bone Inscriptions of Bronze Age China. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978. – “Preamble” pp. 1-2, gives you an idea of how the earliest “Chinese” writing still extant was created. 2) Keightley, David. “Chapter 1: The Oracle Bone Inscriptions of the Late Shang Dynasty.” In Sources of Chinese Tradition. Second ed. Edited by Wm Th. De Bary, Irene Bloom, et al. Introduction to Asian Civilization, 3-23 New York: Columbia University Press, 1999 – Translations of some oracle bones. If you like another textbook for BACKGROUND (on reserve in Trexler Library) – pp. 19-44: Hansen, Valerie. The Open Empire: A History of China to 1800. Second ed. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2015. – pp. 10-30: Ebrey, Patricia Buckley, and Kwang-Ching Liu. The Cambridge Illustrated History of China. Second ed. Cambridge Illustrated History. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2010. □ Meeting in Ettinger 204, 3.30PM – Slides (Google drive)
Wednesday	□ Catch up, and/or prepare for Thursday!
Thursday	□ Prepare before class: 1) Readings: – Textbook: – Alkhatib, Inaya. “Divination in Early China”. in HST107: China’s Magical Creatures. Ed. by T. D’Haeseleer, Allentown: Muhlenberg College, 2022. https://open.muhlenberg.pub/chinasmagicalcreatures/chapter/the-classic-of-changes-yijing/. – read part 2 – Mindlin, Juli. “The Future of Divination.” In China’s Magical Creatures (and Where to Find Them). Ed. by T. D’Haeseleer, Allentown: Muhlenberg College, 2022. https://open.muhlenberg.pub/chinasmagicalcreatures/chapter/future-divination/ – Scholarly: – Loewe, Michael. “China.” In Oracles and Divination, edited by Michael Loewe and Carmen Blacker, 38-62. Boulder: Shambhala, 1981. (PDF) This is a short introduction to the main ideas about divination, oracles and omens. Loewe introduces three commonly used methods: “oracle bones” (or maybe better “divination bones”?), Book of Changes, and fengshui (Geomancy). What are the differences between divination, oracles and omens? What is the historical evolution for each of the three techniques? 2) Cast your hexagram: Focus your attention on a question about your current situation or your future prospects, and let the Classic of Changes bring clarity to your situation. If you’ve never done this before, this website has some good instructions on how to obtain your hexagram using coins. !!! Note that the ﬁrst line you cast will be the bottom line of the hexagram; the last line will be the top one. (Apparently very important!) You can easily ﬁnd your hexagram’s number in the list on this website. Once you have your number (and name) of the hexagram, please go to the library webiste and find the following translation as an e-book, to ﬁnd the text of your hexagram: (Do not use the translations on the websites used to find your hexagram): The Classic of Changes: A New Translation of the I Ching As Interpreted by Wang Bi. Transl. by Richard B. Lynn. New York: Columbia University Press, 1994. (e-book Trexler Library) If you have “changing lines” (i.e. lines that move from yin to yang, or vice versa): Use this site to see what to do next Make sure to consult the “changing” hexagram in addition to your primary hexagram, and pay particular attention to the lines that change. This shows your situation is evolving and you need to take into account both hexagrams for guidance. The commentary to help you interpret the lines can be quite lengthy. Read on until you bump into the next hexagram. Jot down your understanding of the explanation of the hexagram and bring to class, together with your hexagram(s). Or … you can use the speedy, 21st century method: refresh this page and click on the (blue) name of the hexagram that appears in the right menu bar. Not sure what the early Chinese would say about that! □ Meeting in Ettinger 204, 3.30PM – Slides
Friday	□ Catch up with any missing tasks or help a fellow student! Check in the Discord chat.
Saturday	□ Take a break!
Sunday	□ Get your Weekly Report in, as a blog post in category HST107.