H399 Christianity in China (1600-1949): Historical Impact and Interpretations (I)
- Course Code:
- 154800268
- 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, as well as an intermediary course in Chinese or East Asian history.
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 Christianity in China, with particular reference to historical methodology. Students should gain an awareness of the various approaches (religious and social history, study of ethnic identity) and 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 of Chinese civilisation and/or Christianity. Students are finally invited to appreciate the variety of cultural values, in particular with respect to Christianity, to tolerance between religious (and secular) communities.
Expected Outcomes:
As a Special Subject course, this course has been designed for students with a good knowledge of Chinese, Central or East Asian history. It is intended to rotate on an annual basis with another course exploring the social history of China. At the end of this course, students should be able to critically evaluate the role of religion and relationship between state and religious minorities in China’s past and present. The course will furthermore address methodologically important issues, such as cultural encounter, foreign relations and aspects of global history. Building on the knowledge attained through regional introductory lectures and intermediary courses, this course will introduce students to the genuine work of the historian by the analysis of primary source materials, both as a concomitant to teaching as well as for the purpose of writing their coursework. This is particularly the case for those students choosing the 500-level long essay option.
Workload
This course will run for twenty-two weeks and there will be three contact hours per week.Scope and syllabus
The aim of this course is to deepen students’ understanding of Chinese history through the study of China’s encounter with Christianity, from the first encounters with Syriac missionaries to China’s current “Christianity fever”. The emphasis will be on the internal development of China’s Christian communities. In this context, phenomena such as inculturation, indigenisation and persecution will be analysed by means of documentary evidence. The initial missionary message, by the theologically trained (often foreign) ‘parson’, thus transformed itself through popular interpretation, disseminated by members of the itinerant professions, such as medics or barbers. In this context, the role of the religion in the coexistence of China’s ethnic and religious communities will become a subject of scrutiny. Finally, the course will analyse the role of foreign missionaries, competing with already established religions and with the imperial state, as the ultimate arbiter in all things religious.
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. From the beginning, students will be familiarised with the critical use of historical sources, both from the late imperial and republican eras. Many of these primary source materials are derived from the SOAS Special Collections archives, which contains unique holdings of early Protestant missionary tracts and correspondence. 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, mostly consisting of extracts from relevant primary sources.
Suggested preliminary syllabus:
- Origins (I): Missionary and millenarian religion in early China
- Origins (II): The Assyrian Church (‘Nestorians’)
- Image and reflection: Early debates on missionary methodology
- Christian China (1600-1700): Imperial favour, local resistance
- Excursion: Tokugawa Japan’s Hidden Christians (1630-1862)
- Unchristian rivalry: The Society of Jesus and mendicant monasticism
- The Rites Controversy and its shadow (1715-1742)
- Christian China (1724-1858): The ‘long eighteenth century’
- Macau
- Europe overseas: Colonial and denominational competition
- Oddballs: Protestant missionaries in China (1807-1900)
- Missionary schools and universities (1880s-1949)
- The medical missionary movement (1880s-1930s)
- Christian China (1858-1899): Imperial tolerance
- The Boxer rebellion (1899-1901) and its psycho-political impact
- Christian China: The early Republic (1911-1936)
- China’s Christians (1796-1949): A ‘fifth column’ of Western imperialism?
- Civil War and Mao’s victory: Politics, exile, reinterpretation (1925-1949)
- The “Three Self” Patriotic Churches and the Christian “underground” (after 1949)
- Conclusion: “Chinese Christianity” or “Christianity in China”?
- REVISION
- REVISION
Method of assessment
One three hour exam accounting for fifty per cent of marks and two three thousand word essays to be submitted in term two; each essay counting for twenty-five per cent.Suggested reading
- David Cheung (Chen Yiqiang), Christianity in Modern China. The Making of the First Native Protestant Church, Leiden: Brill, 2004.
- Dan Cui, The cultural contribution of British Protestant missionaries and British-American cooperation to China's national development during the 1920s, Lanham: UPA, 1998.
- Ryan Dunch, Fuzhou Protestants and the making of a modern China, 1857-1927, New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001.
- Irene Eber, The Jewish Bishop and the Chinese Bible: S.I.J. Schereschewsky (1831-1906), Leiden: Brill, 1999.
- Marián Gálik, Influence, translation, and parallels: Selected studies on the Bible in China, Sankt Augustin: Monumenta Serica Institute, 2004.
- Jacques Gernet, China and the Christian Impact: A Conflict of Cultures, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985.
- Lars P. Laamann, Christian Heretics in Late Imperial China: Christian Inculturation and State Control, 1720-1850, Abingdon: Routledge, 2006.
- Joseph Lee, The Bible and the gun: Christianity in South China, 1860-1900, NY: Routledge, 2003.
- Kathleen L. Lodwick, Crusaders against opium: Protestant missionaries in China, 1874-1917, Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1995.
- Jessie Gregory Lutz, China and the Christian colleges, 1850-1950, Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1971.
- George Minamiki, The Chinese rites controversy: From its beginning to modern times, Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1985.
- Nicholas Standaert and Adrianus Dudink (eds), Forgive Us Our Sins: Confession in Late Ming and Early Qing China, (Monumenta Serica Monograph Series LV), Sankt Augustin / Nettetal: Steyler Verlag, 2006.
- Jean-Paul Wiest & Edmond Tang (eds), The Catholic Church in modern China: perspectives, Maryknoll (New York): Orbis Books, 1993.
- Yip Ka-che, The Anti-Christian Movements of 1920-27: With Special Reference to the Experience of Protestant Missions, New York: Columbia University Press, 1970.
- Jost Oliver Zetzsche, The Bible in China: The history of the Union Version or The culmination of Protestant missionary Bible translation in China, Sankt Augustin: Monumenta Serica Institute, 1999.
- Angela Zito, Of Body and Brush: Grand Sacrifice as Text / Performance in Eighteenth Century China, Chicago: University of California Press, 1997.
- Erik Zürcher, Nicolas Standaert and Adrianus Dudink, Bibliography of the Jesuit Mission in China (ca. 1580 - ca. 1680), Leiden: Centre of Non-Western Studies (Leiden University), 1991.
