HIST 321 - Bordering China

Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)

(Same as ASIA 321) This course explores both the conceptual and physical making of regions bordering modern China, such as Yunnan, Tibet, Xinjiang, Mancuria, and Hong Kong. Beginning with diverse human activities in th eighteenth century, the course investigates the processes of space-making in relation to expanding imperial projects and modern nation-state ideologies that rendered these regions remote borderlands, while simultaneously binding them to a unified territorial imagination. Course themes include representations of the environment and peoples; travels and expeditions under imperialism; experiences of colonization and decolonization and the interplay of ethnicity, warfare, and other forms of violence. Building on these perspectives, the course examines how literary writings, travel accounts, and mapping practices contributed to conceptualizations of geogrphic space at China’s edge, and how these have influenced contemporary Chinese discourses of ethnicity, territory, and sovereignty. Yu-chi Chang.

One 2-hour period.

Course Format: CLS