Week 4: Masters of the strange; the afterlife

Sept. 19 – Sept. 25

This week you get a lot of help from the textbook to situate the topics – but keep thinking what improvements or augmentations you would like to see in our own, new edition! Add them to our running list.

On Tuesday we look at people who are experts in Five Phases, yinyang, and other special arts, and how historians of early China have shaped our understanding of them. Thursday we’re running ahead of Halloween: ghosts and the afterlife. It is a very rich topic, and it continues into next week with the terra cotta army.

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.
  •  
  • □ Feedback on your fellow students’ posts –> regular best-before date pushed to Tuesday night
  • – 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:
Tuesday
  • □ Prepare before class: Readings
  • – Textbook: McDonald, Patrick. “Classic of Mountains and Seas.” 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/classic-of-mountains-and-seas/
  • – Textbook: Leitch, Emily. “Fangshi and Shi: Hierarchic Power of Knowledge.” 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/fangshi/
  • – Secondary source: DeWoskin, Kenneth J., Doctors, Diviners, and Magicians of Ancient China: Biographies of Fang-shih. New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1983. (PDF)
        • Note: the text uses Wade-Giles, an older transcription system, and the term fang-shih is in pinyin written as fangshi. There are various tools online available if you prefer the pinyin system.
        • Read pp. 1-22, (I have included the rest of the chapter in case you want to read more).
        • Use this PDF with the structure of the text to extract the main ideas from each section listed. We will in class go together through your findings.
  • – Primary source: “Doctors, Diviners and Magicians”. In An Anthology of Translations: Classical Chinese Literature, Vol. 1: From Antiquity to the Tang Dynasty. Edited by John Minford and Joseph S. M. Lau, 359-370. New York: Hong Kong: Columbia University Press; The Chinese University Press, 2000. (PDF)
        • Can you apply the ideas from DeWoskin’s text to these biographies? How does that change your understanding? Where and how does the writer of these biographies show his opinion of these fangshi?
  • □ Meeting: Ettinger 204, 3.30PM (Slides)
  • □ Comments on fellow students blog posts: due tonight (instead of Monday)
Wednesday
  • □ Catch up, and/or prepare for Thursday!
Thursday
  • □ Prepare before class: — incl. “carry-over” from Thursday:
  • – Primary source: “Doctors, Diviners and Magicians”. In An Anthology of Translations: Classical Chinese Literature, Vol. 1: From Antiquity to the Tang Dynasty. Edited by John Minford and Joseph S. M. Lau, 359-370. New York: Hong Kong: Columbia University Press; The Chinese University Press, 2000. (PDF)
        • Can you apply the ideas from DeWoskin’s text to these biographies? How does that change your understanding? Where and how does the writer of these biographies show his opinion of these fangshi?
  •  
  • –Textbook: Lau, Regina. “The Significance of Tomb Burial.” In 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/significance-of-tombs/
  • – Secondary source: Von Glahn, Richard. “The Han Cult of the Dead and Salvific Religion.” In The Sinister Way: The Divine and the Demonic in Chinese Religious Culture, 45-77. University of California Press, 2004. www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/j.ctt1pp0n9.8.
          • “Chapter 2: The Han Cult of the Dead and Salvific Religion”: read pp. 45-66 (i.e. not the part on Buddhism)
          • What are the ideas about what happens to the dead in the Han dynasty?
          • Tip: there are two words for “soul” in traditional Chinese: hun and po. There is a lot of debate about the difference between these two; often it is said that the hun leaves the body after death, while the po soul remains with the corpse, but not all historians agree.
          • NOTE: rather than providing a PDF, I ask you to download the chapter from the library, because this shows how the collection is used: more downloads = justification for keeping this book in the collection.
  • – Primary Source: Wang Chong. “On Death.” In Lun Heng, Vol. 1: Philosophical Essays of Wang Ch’ung. Translated by Alfred Forke. 2nd ed. New York: Paragon Book Gallery, 1962. (PDF)
          • Wang Chong lived in the first century CE. He wrote about many topics, including natural history, but also ghosts, death, dragons and other topics pertaining to this course.
          • His voice is critical of many popular beliefs in Han China, but we learn a lot about common beliefs about ghosts: what are some of the common beliefs he argues against? What does he believe in?
          • Do you see parallels in the commonly held beliefs (which he argues against) and the ideas covered in von Glahn’s chapter? What new information do you find in Wang Chong’s Lunheng?
  • Useful additional materials: check out this webpage on tombs and the afterlife (before Buddhism) if you want to learn more.
  •  
  • □ Meeting: Ettinger 204, 3.30PM (Slides)
Friday
  • □ Catch up with any missing tasks or help a fellow student! Check in the Discord chat.
Saturday
  • □ Rest day
Sunday

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