Session	Dates	Price
Fall Semester 2008	August 28 - December 18, 2008	$8,995
Academic Year 2008-2009	August 28, 2008 - May 28, 2009	$16,995
Fall Semester 2009	Late August - Mid December 2009	TBA
Academic Year 2009-2010	Late August 2009 - Late May 2010	TBA

Full Description

COURSE DESCRIPTION

China’s long history has produced a great number of political thinkers. Imperial China (221 BC-1911 AD) produced important thinkers such as Confucius, Han Feizi, Wang Anshi, Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao, to name the few whom we shall look at more closely in this course. Imperial China bears their stamp in the form in which politics, society, and economics were shaped over a 2,000 year span.

Republican China (1911-1949) produced such thinkers as Sun Yatsen, one of China’s acknowledged leaders of the Chinese revolution of 1911, and its main thinker during the revolutionary and anarchic early years of the Chinese republic.

During these early years (1912-1935), impressionable young revolutionaries such as Qu Qiubai, Ai Siqi, Li Da and Mao Zedong were discovering Marxism. In 1945, the Communist Party of China (CPC) anointed “Mao Zedong Thought,” as the guiding light of the CPC, although most of Mao’s seminal Marxist thinking occurred during the Yan’an period of the Chinese Civil War (1935-1945).

The short history of the People’s Republic of China (1949-) has thus been dominated by “The Thought of Mao Zedong.” Since the death of Mao Zedong in 1976, Mao’s successors have attempted to make their mark, and thereby ensure their legacies in the pantheon of Marxist thinkers, by acknowledging their debts to Marx and Mao, and then attempting to put their unique stamp on contemporary Chinese political theory. Thus, since 1976, we have seen the rise of “Deng Xiaoping Theory,” “Jiang Zemin’s Important Thought (‘The Three Represents’),” and today, Chinese President Hu Jintao’s, “Harmonious Socialist Society,” which has yet to be labeled as a theory or as a thought. We may well find out the status of his thinking when the CPC meets for its 17th Party Plenum in October 2007.

READING MATERIALS

There is no required textbook for this course. Students will also be provided with important primary and secondary sources for each topic discussed during this course, some written by me, others by scholars in the field of Chinese studies.

Recommended Readings

Wm Theodore de Bary, et. al., Sources of Chinese Tradition, 1960

Wing-tsit Chan, A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy, 1963

Laurence Thompson, Chinese Religion: An Introduction, 1969

F.W. Mote, Imperial China, 900-1800, 2000 (Wang Anshi, pp. 138-144)

John King Fairbank and Merle Goldman, China: A New History. Enlarged Edition, 1999

Jonathan Spence, Mao ZeDong (Lipper, Viking Book, 1999)

Li Jui, The Early Revolutionary Activities of Comrade Mao Tse-tung [Mao Zedong], 1977

Stuart Schram, The Thought of Mao Tse-tung, 1990

Arif Dirlik, et al., Critical Perspectives on Mao Zedong’s Thought, 1997

Nick Night, Marxist Philosophy in China: From Qu Qiubai to Mao Zedong, 1923-1945, 2005

Edgar Snow, Red Star Over China, 1938, 2005

Mark Selden, The Yenan [Yanan] Way in Revolutionary China, 1972

CLASS ATTENDANCE AND BEHAVIOR

Class attendance is mandatory. Students will be permitted three unexcused absences, but each unexcused absence will deduct points off the final tally for determining class grades.

First unexcused absence: deduct 1 point.
Second: deduct 2 points.
Third: deduct 3 points.
Fourth, conference with teacher to determine whether or not to continue in the class. If the decision is to continue, deduct 4 points.
Fifth, automatic withdrawal from class.

Tests missed because of unexcused absences will not be made up, and the points will be deducted from the overall point tally that determines the class grade. Falling asleep in class will be treated as an unexcused absence. The class attendance system described above applies to sleeping in class.

CLASS PARTICIPATION

Class participation is highly encouraged, and will be rewarded positively. Entries on class participation are made at the conclusion of each class denoted by a “+” sign if the student has participated actively (class attendance in itself is not considered a positive sign of participation). Class participation may influence the outcome of the course grade where applicable. For example, class participation may increase a student’s grade who has a borderline score between a “B+” and “A-.”