From the collapse of the Great Qing Empire to the fitful reforms of the People’s Republic after Mao’s demise, the “long march” of China’s twentieth century has been marked by wars, revolutions, mass migrations, and disasters human, natural, and everywhere in the murky in-between. Yet suffering and survival amount to more than sketchy statistics, and politics extend beyond the words of politicians.
This highly interactive course introduces students to the major events that shaped China as we know it today, and further explores both the global connections and the localized personal experiences of those who lived through them. Students will each adopt a historical figure like Mao Zedong or novelist Eileen Chang, or a fictional character profile like a Shanghai seamstress or Shanxi coal-miner, to follow through the decades. Lectures integrate students’ weekly updates on their subjects — where they are, what they are doing, how they are experiencing the world around them. Together over the semester, we map subjects’ movements across vast distances, and trace the rapid changes in key locations, to gain visceral, boots-on-the-ground insight into particular lived experiences of China’s turbulent twentieth century, a bird’s eye view of the fractured landscape, and familiarity with the sheer variety of sources, perspectives, narratives available to historians.
NYU College of Arts & Science Spring 2025 | EAST/HIST-UA 551 | MW 9.30–10.45a
4 units | History Major Requirements Met by this course: Advanced Non-west
* No prior background in Chinese language or history necessary. *
** Due to the experimental interactive nature of this course, this syllabus is provisional and subject to adjustment for class size and composition. **
CJ Ru
Assistant Professor/Faculty Fellow
NYU Provost's Postdoctoral Fellowship
PhD, Yale History
cjru (at) nyu.edu
Office Hours: Thursdays 2:30–4:30pm, and by appointment, 60 5th Ave #840
- Sign up here
Ula Kulpa
uk280 (at) nyu.edu
Office Hours: by appointment
There is no mandatory textbook, but you may wish to consult recommended background readings each week in Jonathan D. Spence, The Search for Modern China, 3rd Edition (NY: Norton, 2013).
Required readings will be available online via library links and/or as PDFs.
In addition, students are to pursue their own supplementary readings to fulfill their weekly assignments, whether by original research (e.g. historic newspapers), or by reputable scholarship (e.g. the relevant period in an authoritative biography). Those who desire more structured guidance may opt to follow the Ye family of Joseph W. Esherick's Ancestral Leaves: A Family Journey through Chinese History (Berkeley: UC Press, 2011), of which the course schedule includes suggested chapters.
Each student adopts a person to follow through the 20th century. This may be a historical figure (preferably alive for most if not all of 1930–1970) or a fictional character profile. Those who wish to explore family history are encouraged to do so. If the prospect of blazing your own trail or representing a historical figure by yourself feels daunting, you may opt to follow the Ye family in Esherick's Ancestral Leaves, mentioned above in the Readings section.
Each week as we progress through the 20th century, students must conduct your own research to update the class on your person(s). Worksheets will provide prompts on information to seek, and lectures will call on you to share your findings.
If your subjects are not yet born in a given week, you can delve into their family and hometown backgrounds; if they have already died, you can trace their descendants or the afterlives of their historic legacies. If they are fictional, you can "choose-your-adventure" for their life trajectories, as long as you document the evidential basis of your choices.
For both factual and fictional subjects, you can also reincarnate in a new person after a previous subject has died. Dazzlingly brilliant and unconventional women often died young, for example, and nonetheless deserve our attention — so one could string a series of female writers or spies to span the century and juxtapose the shifting sands in which they struggled. Similarly, the luckless youngest son of a poor tenant farmer faced myriad ways to die, again and again, here-there-and-everywhere over the century, and his unwritten story warrants our witness.
Some possible historical subjects include
- Political figures Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石, 1887–1975), Mao Zedong (毛泽东, 1893–1976), Zhou Enlai (周恩来, 1898–1976), Deng Xiaoping (邓小平, 1904–1997), Puyi (溥儀, 1908–1967), Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國, 1910–1988), Jiang Qing (江青, 1914–1991), Zhao Ziyang (赵紫阳, 1919–2005), Jiang Zemin (江泽民, 1926–2022)
- Any one of the Soong sisters: Nancy Eling (宋藹齡, 1889–1973), Rosamond Ching-ling/Qingling (宋庆龄, 1893–1981), Mei-ling (宋美齡, 1898–2003)
- Religious leaders the Dalai Lama (13–14th), Panchen Lama (9–11th), and Bogd Khan (8–9th Jebtsundamba Khutuktu)
- Economist Ma Yinchu (马寅初, 1882–1982)
- Scientists Qian Xueshen (钱学森, 1911–2009), Fang Lizhi (方励之, 1936–2012)
- Public intellectuals Hu Shih (胡適, 1891–1962), Guo Muoruo (郭沫若, 1892–1978)
- Novelists Lao She (老舍, 1899–1966), Shen Congwen (沈从文, 1902–1988), Ding Ling (丁玲 1904–1986), Ba Jin (巴金, 1904–2005), Eileen Chang (張愛玲, 1920–1995)
- Artists Feng Zikai (丰子恺, 1899–1975), Fu Baoshi (傅抱石, 1904–1965)
- Architects Liang Sicheng (梁思成, 1901–1972) and Lin Huiyin (林徽因, 1904–1955)
- Foreign observers Pearl Buck (1892–1973), Owen Lattimore (1900–1989), Edgar Snow (1905–1972)
Some possible fictional characters include:
- a Canton import-export trader or dockworker
- a Shanghai seamstress, courtesan, factory worker, silk merchant
- a coal miner or railway worker in North China or Manchuria
- a fisherman off the coast of Fujian
- a soldier or farmer (with or without land) in Hunan, Shandong, Shaanxi, or anywhere in what is currently China
- an American journalist, British missionary, Japanese engineer, Soviet spy ...
You are welcome to propose your own ideas!
Some of the questions we investigate with our 20th-century subjects include:
- Where are you? How did you get there? Who else is with you? Whom and what have you lost or gained along the way?
- What resources do you have at hand, and what opportunities and challenges do you face?
- How are you experiencing the physical world around you? What are the sights, sounds, smells? What are you eating, and how are you pooping?
- What kinds of art and entertainment are available to you? What ideas and belief systems?
- What do you know about major events near and far? How do they impact your life and worldview, whether or not you are aware of the influence?
- In the face of cataclysmic crisis, what are your options, and how do you choose your way forwards?
Final projects may delve into particular aspects or periods in the life of a subject you have tracked through the semester, or spin off on a topic that catches your fancy along the way. If you are strategic in approach, your weekly worksheets can provide the building blocks for your final project.
Papers (10– 15 pages) can pursue original research or an analytical review of existing scholarship on your chosen subject. Students are also highly encouraged to propose creative projects in lieu of a final paper: a historical-fiction short story, play, or screenplay; the first volley of a true-crime podcast, documentary film, or concept album; a tabletop or computer game; a graphic novel, mock newspaper, illustrated cookbook ...
10% Attendance & Participation
20% Weekly Assignments (10)
10% Midterm Quiz
10% Final Project Proposal (2 pages) + 1-minute Pitch
30% Final Project (*10–15* pages or equivalent) + 5-minute Presentation
20% Final Exam: 5/12 10am
Final grades calculated as follows:
A 95–100 A- 90–94
B+ 87–89 B 83–86 B- 80–82
C+ 77–79 C 73–76 C- 70–72
D+ 67–69 D 63–66 D- 60–62
F 59 and below