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Department of History

H298 Manchu Society and Culture: An Alternative History of China (1600-1997)

Course Code:
154800267
Status:
Course Not Running 2012/2013
Unit value:
1
Year of study:
Year 2, Year 3 of 3 or Year 4
Taught in:
Full Year

Prerequisites

Students should have attended an introductory course to the history of China or East Asia.

Objectives and learning outcomes of the course

Aims of Course:

At the end of the course, a student should be able to develop an understanding of the key issues relating to the development of the Manchu people, with particular reference to historical methodology. Students should gain an awareness of the various approaches (ethnic, religious and social history) as well as issues developed within this course. They should develop a range of study and basic research skills relevant to an understanding of Chinese history, as well as their own professional and personal interests through participation in the course; this is particularly the case for students who have already studied aspects relating to ethnic minorities in China. Students are finally invited to appreciate the variety of cultural values, in particular with respect to inter-ethnic tensions.

Expected Outcomes:

By the end of this course students are expected to have gained a thorough understanding of the subject matter in the narrow sense, i.e. the development of Manchu identity as part of the Qing civilisation matrix, but will also have deepened their insight into China’s modern history in more general terms. Furthermore, the relationship between the Chinese empire and its constituting ethnic groups will become evident, exemplified by the Manchus. In methodological terms, students will have been familiarised with the secondary literature available (including titles which they cannot read yet, though they may have started studying the appropriate languages), as well as with relevant archival holdings. Since this is an intermediate course designed for students with a basic knowledge of the history of China and of the wider Asian region, students are not yet expected to demonstrate a thorough knowledge of primary source analysis, though any willingness towards this aim would be supported and encouraged.
The course is intended to rotate on an annual basis with another course exploring the social history of China. Due to its emphasis on late imperial China, links with the present are unavoidable and welcomed, in particular as regards the role of the central government and the relevance of China’s ethnic minority groups. This course can thus also be regarded as a compendium to any historical survey courses which students may have attended with reference to China.

Workload

Three contact hours a week over twenty-two weeks

Scope and syllabus

This course intends to provide an introduction to Manchu history, focusing on issues of socio-cultural identity. Students will be able to trace the dramatically changing relationship between the Manchus and China’s Han majority from the national gestation period, throughout the Qing empire, via the Republic and Manchukuo to the contemporary People’s Republic. A focal point will be the precise nature of Manchu identity during the Qing period, torn between acculturation and ethnic reassertion. Students are also hoped to gain an understanding of the complexities within the multi-ethnic Qing empire, as expressed in terms of language, customs and religion, but also of concrete politics and inter-communal tensions.

Though designed as a history of the Manchu nationality, the course will be of benefit to all students wishing to expand their knowledge of modern Chinese history. Primary sources will be provided by the lecturer in translated form, both from Manchu and Chinese. Given its varied background, the course may also attract students of East Asian languages, of religious studies or anthropology.

The course is based on one lecture per week, with compulsory attendance. Students will be provided with handouts for each session - containing detailed bibliographical information and the chronological and thematic frame of the lecture - as well as with a general course syllabus and bibliography. Tutorials will allow students to present topics in class, as well as to discuss crucial documents with the entire group. A basic reading pack will be made available.

Suggested preliminary syllabus:

  1. Features of Manchu society and culture (I): Origins, language, religion
  2. Features of Manchu society and culture (II): Tribal traditions and organisation
  3. Notional ethnicity? Nurhaci’s vision and Hung Taiji’s decision (1616-1643)
  4. The Qing dynasty (I): Monarchy à la chinoise (1616-1636-1644)
  5. The Qing dynasty (II): Conquest and pacification (1644-1674)
  6. The Qing dynasty (III): The lure of Chinese civilisation
  7. Martial spirit and the Banner system
  8. The Manchu economy in northern China and in Manchuria
  9. The Qing dynasty (IV): Multi-ethnic promise and tensions
  10. Appropriation: Shunzhi, Kangxi and Yongzheng (1644-1736)
  11. Alienation: Qianlong and Daoguang (1736-1810s)
  12. Rejection: The “long nineteenth century” (1810-1911)
  13. Tibetan Buddhism, Islam, Christianity
  14. The Qing administration and the secret Manchu archives
  15. Manchu women
  16. Millenarians, the Taiping and popular anti-Manchu sentiments (1780-1864)
  17. Manchu nobles during the late Qing: Bulwarks against Progress? (1898-1911)
  18. The Revolution of 1911 and its consequences for Manchu identity
  19. Class and nationality: ¨Manchu¨ as wrong political background (1911-1976)
  20. Ethnic revival during the Deng Xiaoping reform period (1980-1997)
  21. REVISION
  22. REVISION

Method of assessment

One three hour exam accounting for fifty per cent of total marks. Two three thousand word essays, each worth twenty-five per cent.

Suggested reading

  • Paul A. Cohen, China unbound: Evolving perspectives on the Chinese past, New York: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003.
  • Nicola Di Cosmo (intro., notes, transl. of Dzengšeo’s), The diary of a Manchu soldier in seventeenth-century China : "My service in the army", London: Routledge, 2006.
  • Idem and Dalizhabu Bao, Manchu-Mongol relations on the eve of the Qing Conquest: a documentary history, Leiden: Brill, 2003.
  • Pamela Kyle Crossley, Orphan warriors: Three Manchu generations and the end of the Qing world, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990.
  • Idem, The Manchus, Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 1997.
    Prasenjit Duara, Rescuing history from the nation: Questioning narratives of modern China, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995.
  • Patricia Buckley Ebrey, “Manchus and Imperialism: the Qing Dynasty 1644-1900,” ch.9 in The Cambridge Illustrated History of China, Cambridge University Press, 1996.
  • Mark Elliott, “Manchu figurations of historical process in the early seventeenth century”, in: Lynn A. Struve (ed.), Time, temporality, and imperial transition: East Asia from Ming to Qing, Honolulu: Association for Asian Studies / University of
    Hawai'i Press, 2005.
  • Idem, The Manchu way: The eight banners and ethnic identity in late imperial China, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001.
  • Johan Elverskog, Our great Qing: The Mongols, Buddhism and the state in late imperial China, Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2006.
  • James Hevia, Cherishing Men from Afar: Qing Guest Ritual and the Macartney Embassy of 1793, Durham: Duke University Press, 1995.
  • Franz Michael, The origin of Manchu rule in China: Frontier and bureaucracy as interacting forces in the Chinese Empire, New York: Octagon, (1942) 1972.
  • Susan Naquin & Evelyn S. Rawski, Chinese society in the eighteenth century, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987.
  • Robert B. Oxnam, Ruling from horseback: Manchu politics in the Oboi regency 1661- 1669, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1975.
  • Tatiana A. Pang and Giovanni Stary, New light on Manchu historiography and literature: The discovery of three documents in old Manchu script, Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1998.
  • Alessandra Pozzi, Juha Antero Janhunen and Michael Weiers (eds), Tumen jalafun jecen aku: Manchu studies in honour of Giovanni Stary, Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2006.
  • Edward J. M. Rhoads, Manchus & Han: Ethnic relations and political power in late Qing and early republican China, 1861-1928, Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2000.
  • Giovanni Stary et alii, On the tracks of Manchu culture, 1644-1994: 350 years after the conquest of Peking, Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1995.
  • Jonathan Unger (ed.), Using the past to serve the present: Historiography and politics in contemporary China, Armonk/N.Y: M.E. Sharpe, 1993.
  • Frederick Wakeman, The great enterprise: the Manchu reconstruction of imperial order in seventeenth-century China, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985.
  • Zarrow, Peter, “Historical Trauma: Anti-Manchuism and Memories of Atrocity in Late Qing China [Yangzhou shiri ji (Account of Ten Days in Yangzhou)],” History and Memory 16.2 (Autumn-Winter 2004), pp. 67-107.

Online course outline.