2024 Spring

HIST488A Touching: An Introduction to Qing Material and Intellectual Cultures

This is an introduction to early modern China and the world (1600–1900) from the lens of material and intellectual cultures. We use the word “touching” in three senses. Literally, we will feel the past by putting our hands on and working with a variety of real objects, such as bricks from the Great Wall, inkstones from Huizhou, books from our rare book collection, documents within the bureaucracy, and photos from the earliest cameras. Metaphorically, we explore how we might begin doing history on our own from things around us. Most importantly, we experiment with new approaches to history that are touching to each of us.

The course comprises one 90-min lecture (scheduled on Tuesday) and one 50-min tutorial session. No previous background in history or any language other than English is expected.

Students who wish to work with materials in English will enroll in Section 1/Group A of the tutorial, which is scheduled for Thursdays at 4 PM. Students who would like to (learn or) continue practicing reading Manchu should enroll in Section 2/Group B of the tutorial, which is on Thursdays at 5 PM.

HIST279 Steppe Empires in World History

This course offers an introduction to world history up to 1800 CE with a focus on the powerful empires that flourished over the Eurasian Steppe, a vast area stretching from Europe all the way to East Asia. We start with the Scythians and Xiongnus, including their relationship with the Greeks and Chinese. Then, we follow the Turks and Mongols, tracing various transformations along the Silk Road and of the Eurasian world. Finally, we examine the legacies of the Mongol empire and the making of the modern world. “Empire” provides a partial framework, on top of which we survey a wide range of themes including environment, economy, society, religion, science, technology, animals, and everyday life. During this process, we will sharpen our skills of analyzing different kinds of materials, ranging from archaeological findings, historical documents, and material objects, to contemporary popular cultural products.

2023 Fall

HIST548 The Historian’s Craft in a New Era

What do we do as historians? What can we do as historians given the rapid transformations in knowledge production, academic politics, and AI technologies? What must we do as historians in times of emerging environmental, demographical, political, ideological, or even crises? If you are concerned with, perplexed by, and seeking answers to the three questions above, then this course will be particularly rewarding.

Collectively, we trace how historians have written histories, what they have achieved, and what they could have achieved. We ask how we might rewrite histories in a new era. We shall proceed thematically through twelve keywords, ranging from the first-person singular “I” to the most recent debates in our field. In doing so, we explore different approaches to history, ranging from biographical and microhistorical narratives to digital and translational analysis. During this process, we will avoid an exclusive focus on any particular region; instead, we will scrutinize classical and cutting-edge scholarship dedicated to various parts of the world.

2023 Spring

HIST379 History of Later Imperial China

Let us explore a new way of learning, doing, and, to some extent, making history.

Let us focus and only focus on things that interest us, excite us, disquiet us, vex us, and weary us.

Let us forget about, or at least push to the background, what old-fashioned big-man histories preach to be important.

Let us follow those women who voted and fought, ruled and suffered, sang and roared, dreamed and swooned, ate crabs and commanded fleets, calculated the universe and philosophized the cosmos; let us dive into various historical worlds with them, from the heart of the Mongol empire to that of the Thai kingdom, from the mast of the Chinese junk to the turret of the German-built ironclad, from Tibetan monasteries to Shanghai alleys, from Marx in London to Chinese revolutionaries in Vancouver and Victoria.

Let us handle the real documents but also watch Zombie films; read between the lines but also work with artificial intelligence; “visit” the places of importance but also “play” the strategy games.

Let us read and only read what we would love to read even when we were not required to do so; do and only do the assignments that we would want to do even when we were not required to do so.

Let us laugh together, mourn together, and spend some memorable time together.

This spring: UBC, HIST 379.

2022 Fall

HIST490Q Introduction to Manchu Studies and Intellectual History

This course offers an introduction to the Manchu language, as well as Manchu studies and global intellectual history. It is not only a language class but also a seminar that explores how the literacy of a much-overlooked language can open up new possibilities for doing cultural, literary, and intellectual histories. No prior study of Manchu (or Chinese, or any language other than English) is expected or required. We will start by learning the Manchu writing system and the peculiarities of Manchu orthography. Once these basics have been covered, we will develop comprehension skills by studying Manchu grammar and reading original texts. By the end of the course, students should be able to correctly read, transcribe, and translate materials of an intermediate level of difficulty, whether in printed or manuscript form, with the help of a dictionary. During this process, we read cutting-edge scholarship that uses Manchu-language materials and will develop critical understandings of emerging trends in Chinese, Eurasian, and global histories.

HIST279 Steppe Empires in World History

2022 Spring

HIST479A Cultural History of Imperial China

This is an introduction to both cultural history and imperial China. We take “dream” as a heuristic device to survey different aspects of “Chinese” cultures (with a focus on ca. 1100 to 1900) and recent developments in the historiography. In terms of the specific contents, we start with dreams of success and wealth. As such, we critically examine the transformation of social and political cultures from the eleventh to the seventeenth centuries, situating China in the broader context of early globalization. Then, we delve into the everyday life of women and men living under the Manchu empire (1616–1911), exploring interdisciplinary approaches to literary, legal, and intellectual cultures. Afterward, with Hong Xiuquan’s dream about the Heavenly Kingdom, we trace the introduction of Christian and European cultures into China. We end with stories of commoners and elites “awakened from dream” during the early twentieth century. The overarching questions that we shall consider include: What is cultural history? How has the cultural turn broadened the scope of historical research and changed our understanding of Chinese/global histories? How may we approach some seemingly amorphous subject matters in history—dreams or fantasies, aspirations or (dis)illusions, to name a few? How may attention to these dimensions transform our understanding of the past and present, ourselves, and our world?

HIST321/421 History with Animals

This course invites us to consider the relationship between humans and animals from a historical perspective. How, we ask, can recent developments in the fields of animal and environmental studies enrich historical research? Conversely, how can historical inquiry shed light on the lives we share with and as animals today? Our course eschews an exclusive focus on any one region or period. Instead, we follow the footprints of a variety of animals, and in this way, we explore both connected and comparative histories of the world. We proceed thematically, but also chronologically. We start with the historiographical trajectories sometimes called “the animal turn,” and we situate these trends in the broader context of the development of our field (esp. the first three weeks). And then with cocks, horses, rats, pigs, dogs, and whales, we travel across lands, oceans, and time—a journey via which we re-examine the making of medieval courts, colonial empires, and modern super-powers. As such, one of the overarching questions throughout this seminar concerns how histories with animals will complicate, challenge, or even change dominant narratives about the rise of modern nation-state. A constitutive goal of this course is to help us develop our own projects—see assignments below.

2021 Fall

HIST 378: History of Early China

This course explores the history of China from its origins until the thirteenth century. In terms of content, it helps us understand Chinese cultures and societies through both well-studied and previously understudied (if not entirely unknown) materials. Over the course of the semester, we will divine with animal bones, dream with butterflies, retreat with elephants, build an empire/khanate from scratch, follow female commanders onto battlefields, and participate in voting and even the full-scale referendum. In terms of methodology, we explore a wide range of approaches of doing history—from source criticism to data visualization and from working with excavated objects to critically engaging video games of the present, for instance.

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