Spring Cleaning: History Seminar 2006-7

A. and I re-arranged our apartment, cleaning up and getting rid of many things in the process. I think there's a lot of benefit to be had from cleaning up intellectually as well. For one thing, I'm dumping a lot of old notes and papers. They are practically useless to me the way the are. Along the way, I'll skim my notes one last time and make lists of all the papers I've read so far.

First I'll take a brief accounting of a year-long history seminar I took in '06-'07. We had many interesting discussions in this seminar, and all undertook significant research projects. It will be interesting as I go over these materials to think about what went right, what wrong, and to use the information to improve might upcoming effort to coach undergraduates in their research.


An example of a scholarly debate (polemic exchange, more like):

Yeh, Catherine Vance. "The Life-Style of Four Wenren in Late Qing Shanghai." Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 57, no. 2 (1997): 419-470.

Esherick, Joseph W. "Cherishing Sources from Afar." Modern China 24, no. 2, Symposium: Theory and Practice in Modern Chinese History Research. Paradigmatic Issues in Chinese Studies, Part V (1998): 135-161.

Kaplan, Amy. "Manifest Domesticity." American Literature 70, no. 3, No More Separate Spheres! (1998): 581-606.

Hevia, James L. "Postpolemical Historiography: A Response to Joseph W. Esherick." Modern China 24, no. 3 (1998): 319-327.

Huang, Philip C. C. "Theory and the Study of Modern Chinese History: Four Traps and a Question." Modern China 24, no. 2, Symposium: Theory and Practice in Modern Chinese History Research. Paradigmatic Issues in Chinese Studies, Part V (1998): 183-208.

Esherick, Joseph W. "Tradutore, Traditore: A Reply to James Hevia." Modern China 24, no. 3 (1998): 328-332.

Esherick, Joseph W. "Cherishing Sources from Afar." Modern China 24, no. 2, Symposium: Theory and Practice in Modern Chinese History Research. Paradigmatic Issues in Chinese Studies, Part V (1998): 135-161. A complaint about history writing with special attacks on James Hevia. Note the role that translation plays here.

Hevia's reply: Esherick's points are "mere quibbling"

Esherick must have the last word.

Miscellaneous Papers

An old scholar asks what historians are doing.

Kaplan, Amy. "Manifest Domesticity." American Literature 70, no. 3, No More Separate Spheres! (1998): 581-606. Theory-heavy account of "inscribing" and "agency," etc. I have to approach this again -- I must say I don't think I was taught to cover these terms robustly.

Yeh, Catherine Vance. "The Life-Style of Four Wenren in Late Qing Shanghai." Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 57, no. 2 (1997): 419-470. Is this essentially a set of portraits? If so I did not appreciate it nearly enough on first reading.

Book Extracts:

Matthew Harvey Sommer. Sex, Law, and Society in Late Imperial China. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 2002.

I read chapter three, on rape cases.