HISTORY OF IMPERIAL CHINA

Topics in the history of imperial historiography (Han to Yuan)

This course is one of the optional taught modules within the Master degree course in Languages and Civilization of Asia and Mediterranean Africa.

The course sets out to analyse the diachronic development and the role of Chinese historiography, from the 2nd century BC to the 14th century AD.

Learning objectives of the course are:
-to acquire the methodological tools necessary to analyse the methods and purposes of premodern Chinese historiography, and in particular to obtain an understanding of issues concerning the birth and development of different historical genres (chronicles and annals, biographies, treatises, dynastic histories, geographical treatises, institutional compendia), the figure of the historian and more generally the role of historiography in imperial China;
- to enhance understanding and critical assessment of the primary sources and the secondary literature;
- to be able to conduct autonomous scientific research and produce written essays.

Knowledge and understanding
At the end of the course the student will have acquired a knowledge of the diachronic development of the history of the pre-modern Chinese historical text, will be able to contextualize the main sources, their structure and textual history; will have acquired the tools for evaluation and critical analysis of primary sources; will be able to critically analyse secondary sources; will also be able to conduct autonomous research on topics related to the history of imperial historiography.

Ability to apply knowledge and communication skills
The student will be able to elaborate (in the form of short written essays and oral presentations) the available secondary literature, will have learned to formulate hypotheses and arguments and to assess different solutions and critical alternatives on the basis of objective textual evidence; will have acquired the ability to cite sources adequately and to take care of the formal aspects of textual production.

A good knowledge of classical Chinese and a basic knowledge of the history of imperial China is desirable.

The course will explore the following topics:
1. The annalistic tradition and the pre-imperial heritage
2. The composite genre (jizhuanti 紀傳體) and the dynastic histories
3. Local history, chronicles and history writing in the early medieval period
4. Tang Taizong and the Tang Historiographical Office
5. Geography and administration: manuals and pre-modern geographical treatises
6. Historian or official? “Private” vs. official historiography
7. Historians writing about historians and historiography: Liu Zhiji's Shitong
8. Antiquarianism and the study of history: The birth of modern historiography (11th cent.)
9. Historiography, history teaching and imperial examinations (12th-14th cent.)

An updated list of reference texts and course material will be published in moodle shortly before the beginning of the course. A bibliography of supplementary texts and recommended readings on the topics dealt with in class will also be available in moodle.

Chaussende, Damien; Morgan, Daniel. Monographs in Tang Official Historiography. Springer International Publishing, 2019.

Chaussende, Damien (transl.), Liu Zhiji 劉知幾 (661-721). Liu Zhiji, Traité de l'historien parfait: Chapitres intérieurs 劉知幾史通内篇. Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 2014.

Chen, Jack Wei. The Poetics of Sovereignty: On Emperor Taizong of the Tang Dynasty. Harvard: Harvard University Asia Center, 2010 [capitolo 1].

Chittick, Andrew. “The Development of Local Writing in Early Medieval China,” Early Medieval China (2003): 36-70.

De Weerdt Hilde (2007). “The Discourse of Loss in Private and Court Book Collecting in Imperial China,” Library Trends 55(3): 404-420.

Dudbridge, Glen. Lost Books of Medieval China. The Panizzi Lectures, London The British Library: 1999.

Farmer, J. Michael. “Qian Zhou and the Historiography of Early Medieval Sichuan,” Early Medieval China 7 (2001): 39-77.

Feldherr, Andrew; Hardy, Grant (eds.). The Oxford History of Historical Writing: Volume I, Beginnings to AD 600. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011. [capitoli sulla storiografia cinese]

Foot, Sarah; Robinson, Chase F. The Oxford History of Historical Writing: Volume II, 400-1400. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012. [capitoli sulla storiografia cinese]

Hok-lam Chan, “Chinese Official Historiography at the Yuan Court: The Composition of the Liao, Chin, and Sung Histories,” in John D. Laglois Jr. (ed.), Chiina under Mongol Rule (Princeton NJ, 1981), 56-106.

Klein, Esther Sunkyung. Reading Sima Qian from Han to Song. The Father of History in Pre-Modern China. Leiden, Boston: E. J. Brill, 2018. [a selection of chapters]

Kurz, Johannes. “The Compilation and Publication of the Taiping yulan and Cefu yuangui,” in Qu’était-ce qu’écrire une encyclopédie en Chine? Extreme-Orient, Extreme-Occident, Cahiers de recherches comparatives (2007), pp. 39-73.

Sena, Yunchiahn C. Bronze and Stone: The Cult of Antiquity in Song Dynasty China. Washington: Washington University Press, 2019.

Twitchett, Denis. The Historian, His Readers, and the Passage of Time. The Fu Ssi-nien Memorial Lectures, Institute of History and Philology, Academia Sinica, 1996.

van Ess, Hans. “The Late Western Han Historian Chu Shaosun,” in Michael Nylan und Griet Vankeerberghen, eds., Chang’an 26 BCE. An Augustan Age in China (Seattle: University of Washington Press), pp. 477-504.

A final written exam (90 minutes) with open questions (70%).
A written paper (approx. 2000 words, bibliography and notes excluded, 30%) on an agreed topic.
Details on the delivery, presentation and topics will be provided in class during the first lesson and will be available in moodle.

Each partial grade will be expressed in 30ths and the overall grade will be the average of the parts.

Non-attending students are kindly requested to contact the teacher at the beginning of the semester. The paper will be replaced by a longer paper (approx. 3000 words, bibliography and footnotes excluded).

Seminar:
- thematic readings: students will be requested to read essays on the topic of the lesson;
- students will prepare presentations on agreed topics;
- translation of selected texts from primary sources.

Italian

Classes can be held in English if required by international students

written