Sukhee Lee

Spring 2012

Chinese Intellectual History

-Draft syllabus
History is made by peoples actions. But we cant fully understand the meaning of other peoples
actions until we understand what they thought they were doing. Intellectual history is the queen
of all history as it explores how people made sense of themselves and the world and what their
thought and ideas tell us about the time and place that produced them. 4,000 years of Chinese
history provide us with a cornucopia of diverse intellectual traditions, many of which have
perennial relevance not only to the later history of China but also to universal human conditions.
This course explores some key moments and issues of Chinese intellectual history from
antiquity to the modern period.
This course is designed as a 300-level history course. Students are expected to read about 120
to 150 pages a week and to develop a skill of thinking through primary sources and of
evaluating the quality of scholarly works. They are expected to write at least 15 pages of
academic writing in the course. *Basic background knowledge of Chinese history is strongly
recommended.
Instructor: Sukhee Lee; sukhlee@rci.rutgers.edu There is no phone in my office. Email is the only
way of contacting me outside the class. Use your Rutgers email account when you write to me.
And please do not forget to start your subject line with (Chinese Intellectual History) so that I
can recognize that it is from one of you.
Office: Van Dyck 002E (College Avenue Campus);

Learning Goals
1) Develop an understanding of the role of human agency in bringing about change in
society and institutions
2) Develop the ability to write persuasively and communicate effectively
Books to be purchased
Patricia Ebrey, Cambridge Illustrated History of China, 2nd edition (Cambridge University Press,
2010) ISBN-13: 978-0521124331
Philip J. Ivanhoe and Bryan W. Van Norden, Readings in Classical Chinese Philosophy
(Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 2002) ISBN-13: 978-0872207806
Huang Zongxi, Waiting for the Dawn: A Plan for the Prince, tr. William Theodore de Bary (New
York: Columbia University Press, 2000) ISBN-13: 978-0231080972
All other readings will be provided at Sakai course site in pdf file.
Grading
Class attendance and participation
(attendance 5% and participation 10%)
FIVE response papers based on primary source analysis
1

15%
10%

THREE Quizzes
TWO Papers
Book review (should be double-spaced, typed, and 4-5 page long)
Longer paper (6-7 page)
Final exam

15%
15%
20%
25%

On academic integrity
Plagiarized paper or cheating in exams will result in, at least, F for the assignment. In addition, the
cases will be reported to the university administration for sanctions. As for the Rutgers policies on
academic integrity, see http://academicintegrity.rutgers.edu/integrity.shtml
Other Class Policies
*Lecture and section attendance is your most basic responsibility. I will take attendance at every
lecture and section. Unexcused absences, when they exceed twice, will affect your final grade.
(e.g. 3 times, -10% from your class attendance and participation; 4 times, -20%; ) If you are
absent from more than one third of the entire classes and sections, you will automatically get
F.
*Please turn off your cell phones as a courtesy to others.
*Late paper will be penalized by subtracting FIVE points for every day past the due date FOR THE
FIRST FIVE days. No paper will be accepted after FIVE days past the due. Famous lines such
as I am pretty sure that I emailed that to you the other day or I certainly uploaded it at Sakai in
time, but somehow cant find it there now will do no good unless you show me hard evidence
of such claims (e.g. a print of your original sent mail showing the time of its sending).

Weekly Schedule
Week 1
Introduction
1) Course Introduction
2) Why Intellectual History? Why China?
Quentin Skinner, Meaning and understanding in the history of ideas, in Visions of Politics, vol.
1 (Cambridge, UK.: Cambridge University Press, 2002):57-89.
Benjamin Schwartz, A Brief Defense of Political and Intellectual History: The Case of China, in
China and Other Matters (Cambridge, MA.: Harvard University Press, 1996):30-44
Week 2
Early Cultural Orientations
1) Shang and Early Zhou
2) Tradition of Sage Kings
David N. Keightley, Early Civilization in China: Reflections on How It Became Chinese, in
Heritage of China: Contemporary Perspectives on Chinese Civilization, edited by Paul S.
Ropp (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990): 15-54.
Benjamin Schwartz, The World of Thought in Ancient China (Cambridge: Harvard University
Press, 1985), chapters 1 and 2.
Herrlee G. Creel, The Origins of Statecraft in China (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1970), chapter 1

Week 3
The Axial Age in China
1) Disintegration of the Zhou Feudal Order
2) Confucius, the First Teacher
Herbert Fingarette, Confucius: The Secular as Sacred (Waveland Pr Inc, 1998)
Readings in Classical Chinese Philosophy (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 2001),
chapter 1
Week 4
Critics of Confucius: Impartial Caring and Self-Love
1) Mozi
2) Laozi, Yang Zhu, and Zhuangzi
Readings in Classical Chinese Philosophy, chapters 2, 4, and 5
Week 5
In Defense of Confucian Ideals
1) DISCUSSION SECTION I
2) Mencius and Xunzi
Readings in Classical Chinese Philosophy, chapters 3 and 6
Week 6
Art of War and Art of Bureaucracy
1) Sunzi and Han Feizi
2) Rise of Eclecticism: Guanzi and Master Ls Spring and Autumn Annals
Ralph Sawyer, The Art of War (Boulder: Westview, 1994), General Introduction.
Readings in Classical Chinese Philosophy, chapter 7
Week 7
History and Empire
1) DISCUSSION SECTION II
2) Sima Qian and the Discourses on Salt and Iron
Willard Peterson, Ssu-ma Chien (Sima Qian) as a Cultural Historian, in The Power of Culture:
Studies in Chinese Cultural History (Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 1994), 70-79.
Sima Qian, The Biography of Po Yi (Bo Yi) and Shu Chi (Shu Qi), Records of the Historian:
Chapters from the Shih Chi of Ssu-ma Ch'ien, 7-15.
_________, Letter in Reply to Ren An, Records of the Grand Historian: Qin Dynasty, 227-37.
_________, Postface, Ssu-ma Chien (Sima Qian) Grand Historian of China (New York:
Columbia University Press, 1958), 42-57.
Huan Kuan, Discourses on Salt and Iron: A debate on state control of commerce and industry in
ancient China, chapter I-XXVIII, tr. Esson M. Gale (selected chapters)
Week 8
Canonization of Classics
1) DISCUSSION SECTION III
2) The Five Classics
Ezra Pound, The Confucian Odes: The Classic Anthology Defined by Confucius.
Michael Nylan, The Five Confucian Classics (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001)
Week 9

SPRING RECESS
3

NO CLASS
Week 10
Emergence of New Alternatives
1) Learning of Mystery
2) Coming of Buddhism
Y Ying-shih, Individualism and the Neo-Taoist Movement in Wei-Chin China, in Individualism
and Holism: Studies in Confucian and Taoist Values, ed. Donald Munro (Ann Arbor: Center
for Chinese Studies, University of Michigan, 1985), 12155.
Arthur Wright, Buddhism in Chinese History (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1959), 3-127.
Ming-wood Liu, Seng-chao and the Mdhyamika Way of Refutation. Journal of Chinese
Philosophy 14 (1987): 97-110.
Week 11
Chinese Buddhism
1) Sinicization of Buddhism: Doctrines and Practices
2) DISCUSSION SECTION IV
Morten Schltter, Transmission and Enlightenment in Chan Buddhism Seen Through the
Platform Stra. Chung-hwa Buddhist Journal 21 (2007): 379-410.
Jinhua Chen, More Than a Philosopher: Fazang (643-712) as a Politician and Miracle-worker.
History of Religions 42.4 (May 2003), 320-58.
Antonino Forte, A Jewel in Indras Net: The Letter Sent by Fazang in China to isang in Korea.
Italian School of East Asian Studies Occasional Papers 8. Kyoto, 2000.
Week 12
Neo-Confucianism: Rediscovery of Confucian Learning
1) Key Concepts of Neo-Confucianism
2) Zhu Xi and Wang Yangming: Intellectualism and Intuitivism
Peter Bol, Neo-Confucianism in History (Cambridge: Harvard University Asia Center, 2009),
chapters 5 and 6.
Stephen Angle, Sagehood: The Contemporary Significance of Neo-Confucian Philosophy
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), chapter 2.
Chen Chun (1159-1223), Neo-Confucian Terms Explained, tr. Wing-tsit Chan (New York:
Columbia University Press, 1986), 46-56, 105-13, 168-74.
Week 13
Confucian Statecraft in Later Imperial China
1) DISCUSSION SECTION V
2) Radical Reforms, Conservative Reactions and an Overhaul of Confucian Statecraft
Peter Bol, Government, Society, and State: On the Political Visions of Ssu-ma Kuang and
Wang An-shih, in Ordering the World: Approaches to State and Society in Sung Dynasty
China, ed. Robert P. Hymes and Conrad Schirokauer (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1993): 128-92.
Lynn Struve, Huang Tsung-hsi (=Zongxi) in Context: A Reappraisal of His Major Writings,
Journal of Asian Studies 47.3 (Aug. 1988), 477-502.
Huang Zongxi, Waiting for the Dawn: A Plan for the Prince, tr. William Theodore de Bary (New
York: Columbia University Press, 2000)
Week 14

Modern Fates of Confucianism: Denunciation and Rehabilitation

4

1) A death of Confucius will save the nation: The May Fourth Movement and the Cultural
Revolution
2) Confucian Fervor in the late 20th century
Theodore Huters, The Closing of the Confucian Perspective in China, in Rethinking
Confucianism: Past and Present in China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam, eds. Benjamin
Elman, John Duncan, and Herman Ooms (Los Angeles: UCLA Asia Institute, 2002)
Michael Nylan, A Confusion of Confuciuses: Invoking Kongzi in the Modern World, in Lives of
Confucius (New York: Doubleday, 2010), 192-243.
Song Xianlin, Reconstructing the Confucian Ideal in 1980s China: The Culture Craze and
New Confucianism, in New Confucianism: a critical examination, ed. John Makeham
(New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003)
Week 15
Review
DISCUSSION SECTION VI
Wrap-up