Course Description

Ever since Max Weber’s analysis, Chinese cities before modern times have long been categorized as the typical “oriental-type-of-city”, or the administrative-centers. Compared with the Western European cities, which are characterized with the autonomy in social, political and economic life, as well the strong sense of citizenship, the Chinese cities seem to play a much less dynamic role in history. However, urban studies in the past decades increasingly remind us that the historical role of Chinese cities should not be overlooked just because of their differences from the Western counterparts. Instead, the study of Chinese cities would provide new perspectives to explore the development of Chinese society. 
The course will start from the general discussion of the characters and trends of Chinese cities. The second part focuses on special issues of urban studies: urban politics, urban space, urban community, urban culture and the development of new market towns in Jiangnan area. The last part deals with the modern transformation of Chinese cities in the 19th century. 
Students who successfully complete this course should be able to demonstrate familiarity with urban forms in China and the West and describe how they have changed over time. At the same time, they should reflect critically on spatial, political, social and economic aspects of urban life in different historical contexts.

Course Arrangement

Introduction

Week 1 Defining “City” in China

Reading:
Max Weber: “The City,” in Max Weber: Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpretive Sociology (New York: Bedminster Press, 1968), Chapter XVI. 
F.W. Mote, “Transformation of Nanking,” in G. William Skinner (ed.), The City in Late Imperial China (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1977), pp. 101-153. 
Si-yen Fei, Negotiating Urban Space: Urbanization and Late Ming Nanjing (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard East Asian Monographs, 2009)

Week 2 Urban Dwellers

Reading:
Ch’u T’ung-tsu, Local Government in China under the Ching (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1969)
Antonia Finnane, Speaking of Yangzhou: a Chinese City, 1550-1850 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2004)
Luo Xiaoxiang, “Soldiers and the city: urban experience of guard households in late Ming Nanjing”, Frontiers of History in China, vol.5, no.1, 2010.

Week 3 The Pattern of Urban Development in Late Imperial ChinaReading:
Mark Elvin, The Pattern of the Chinese Past: A Social and Economic Interpretation (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1979)
Gilbert Rozman, Urban Networks in Ch’ing China and Tokugawa Japan (Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press, 1973)

Cities and Towns of Early Modern Period

Week 4 Urban Politics

Reading:
Edward L. Farmer, Early Ming Government: the Evolution of Dual Capital (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1976)
Richard von Glahn, “Municipal Reform and Urban Social Conflict in Late Ming Jiangnan,” The Journal of Asian Studies, vol. 50, no. 2, pp. 280-307.

Week 5 Urban Space

Reading:
Xu Yinong, The Chinese City in Space and Time: the Development of Urban Form in Suzhou (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2000)
Si-yen Fei, Negotiating Urban Space: Urbanization and Late Ming Nanjing (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2009)

Week 6 Urban Community

Reading:
Susan Naquin, Peking: Temples and City Life, 1400-1900 (Berkeley: University of California Press, c2000)
William Rowe, Hankow: Conflict and Community in a Chinese City, 1796-1859 (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1989)

Week 7 Urban Culture

Reading:
Si-yen Fei, Negotiating Urban Space: Urbanization and Late Ming Nanjing (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2009), chapter 3 & chapter 4, pp. 124-238. 
Tobie Meyer-Fong, “The Printed World: Books, Publishing Culture, and Society in Late Imperial China,” The Journal of Asian Studies, vol. 66, no. 3, pp. 787-817.

Week 8 Between State and Society

Reading:
Antonia Finnane, Speaking of Yangzhou: a Chinese City, 1550-1850 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2004)
Tobie Meyer-Fong, Building Culture in Early Qing Yangzhou (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2003)
Richard von Glahn, “The Enchantment of Wealth: The God Wutong in the Social History of Jiangnan,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, vol. 51, no.2, pp. 651-714.

Week 9 New Market Towns

Reading:
Shih-chi Liu, Some Reflections on Urbanization and the Historical Development of Market Towns in the Lower Yangtze Region, ca. 1500-1900 (Nankang, Taiwan: Academia Sinica, 1985)
Linda Cooke Johnson, Shanghai: from Market Town to Treaty Port, 1074-1858 (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1995)

Week 10 Discussion
Topic: Great Divergence or Comparable Development?

City Transformed

Week 11 Taiping Rebellion

Reading:
Tobie Meyer-Fong, What Remains: Coming to Terms with Civil War in 19th Century China (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2013)
Susan Mann, The Talented Women of the Zhang Family (Berkeley: University of California Press, c 2007), chapter 4, pp. 130-164.

Week 12 Treaty-Ports

Reading:
Rhoads Murphey, “The Treaty Ports and China’s Modernization,” in Mark Elvin and G. William Skinner (eds.), The Chinese City between Two Worlds (Stanford, Calif., Stanford University Press, 1974), pp. 17-71.
Ruth Rogaski, Hygienic Modernity: Meanings of Health and Disease in Treaty-Port China (California: Californian University Press, 2004)

Week 13 Shanghai Modern

Reading:
Leo Ou-fan Lee, Shanghai Modern: the Flowering of a New Urban Culture in China (Harvard, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1999)
Wen-hsin Yeh, Shanghai Splendor: Economic Sentiments and the Making of Modern China, 1843-1949 (California: University of California Press, 2007)
Meng Yue, Shanghai and the Edges of the Empires (Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press, 2006)

Week 14 Market Towns and Provincial Towns

Reading:
Xu Xinwu, “The Struggle of the Handicraft Cotton Industry against Machine Textiles in China,” Modern China, vol.14, no.1, pp. 31-49. 
Qin Shao, Culturing Modernity: The Nantong Model, 1890-1930 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2004)

Week 15 The Making of Margins

Reading:
Emily Honig, Creating Chinese Ethnicity: Subei People in Shanghai, 1850-1980 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992)
Antonia Finnane, “The Origins of Prejudice: Malintegration of Subei in Late Imperial China,” Comparative Studies in Society and History, vol. 35, no.2, pp. 211-238.

Week 16 Discussion
Topic: “Impact-Response” Model Revisited

Evaluation
Attendance and Class Participation (Weighting: 30%)
Class Report (Length: equivalent to 2,000 words of edited prose; Weighting: 30%) 
Research Essay (Length: equivalent to 3,000 words of edited prose; Weighting: 40%)

Key Texts

Mark Elvin and G. William Skinner (eds.), The Chinese City between Two Worlds (Stanford, Calif., Stanford University Press, 1974)
G. William Skinner (ed.), The City in Late Imperial China (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1977)
Linda Cooke Johnson (ed.), Cities of Jiangnan in Late Imperial China (Albany: State University of New York Press, c 1993)
Linda Cooke Johnson, Shanghai: from Market Town to Treaty Port, 1074-1858 (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1995)
Si-yen Fei, Negotiating Urban Space: Urbanization and Late Ming Nanjing (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard East Asian Monographs, 2009)
Antonia Finnane, Speaking of Yangzhou: a Chinese City, 1550-1850 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2004)
William Rowe, Hankow: Conflict and Community in a Chinese City, 1796-1859 (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1989)
Zwia Lipkin, Useless to the State: Social Problems and Social Engineering in Nanjing 1927-1937 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2006)