Syllabus

Weekly Reading Schedule

Note: please keep an eye on the online syllabus as it may be modified slightly over the course of the semester. Books and anthologies from which chapters and essays have been copied for e-reserves are available on main reserve. See reserve list (link can be found at top of each page of the course website). 

PART ONE.  INTRODUCTION TO CITIES IN CHINA 

WEEK ONE :: Grids and Graphs for the Course and for the City 

blog assignment 1.0: introduce yourself to colleagues in the conference by posting a photograph of your favorite city (anywhere in the world, of course). Please come to conference on Wednesday prepared to share your thoughts about it -- what makes it distinctive and memorable as a city to you? 

Sep 1 (W): What is a city? Critical problems of power and space. 

• Geremie Barmé, The Forbidden City (London: Profile Books, 2008), Introduction pp ix- xvi (online eBook). For your information, there is a reader's guide to this book by the China Heritage Project available online at http://ciw.anu.edu.au/projects/theforbiddencity/index.php

WEEK TWO :: Re-presenting Architecture
blog 2.0: design a structure using historical Chinese building techniques (be as imaginative as you like); post drawing to blog by Tuesday at 10 pm. No textual description required this time. To help you with your blog assignment, in addition to the Ledderose, you may want to browse: 

• Liang Sicheng, A pictorial history of Chinese architecture (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1984) (main reserve).

• Sun Dazhang, Ancient Chinese Architectural Drawings [Zhongguo gudai jianzhu caihua] (Beijing: China Architecture and Building Press, 2006). esp. pp. 192-303. (main reserve) 

Sept 6 (M): LABOUR DAY VACATION  

Sept 8 (W): Basic Building Blocks: Walls, Gates, Brackets, Bays (Cities in the Paleotechnological Age)

• Lothar Ledderose, Ten Thousand Things (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000), chapter on architecture, pp. 103-120, 132-137 (PDF) 

PART TWO. THE FORBIDDEN CITY IN LATE IMPERIAL CHINA (Qing dynasty 1644-1911)

WEEK THREE :: Representing Manchu Cultural Identity 

blog 3.0: select one painting or robe/textile object from any of the articles we're reading this week and post  it to the blog  

Sept 13 (M) - The European Jesuits at the Qing Court (1644-1911): Qing Court Style or Jesuit Style? 

• Wu Hung, "Emperor's Masquerade--'Costume Portraits' of Yongzheng and Qianlong." Orientations 26, no. 7 (July/August 1995): 25-41. (PDF) 

• Esther Pasztory, "Identity and Difference:   The Uses and Meanings of Ethnic Styles." In Cultural Differentiation and Cultural Identity in the Visual Arts, eds Susan Barnes and Walter S Melion (Washington, DC: National Gallery, 1989), (PDF NOTE read pp. 15-24 ONLY)

Sept 15 (W):  Manchu Costume  
Visit to MACS. MEET @ GALLERY A IN THE TELUS CENTRE, 11 am sharp. (The Telus Centre is next to the Timms Centre, and Gallery A is directly on your right as you walk through the double doors from the direction of FAB)

• Valery Garrett, Chinese Dress (New York: Tuttle, 2008), chapter 1 (PDF) 

• Ann Salmonson,"The Illustrated Regulations for Ceremonial
  Paraphernalia of the Qing Dynasty," in China's Imperial Modern, ed. Lisa Claypool (Edmonton: University of Alberta Museums, 2012), pp. 48-55 in the PDF; pp. 99-105 in the catalogue. (PDF)

WEEK FOUR :: Cultural Identity in Architecture

blog 4.0: draw a site map of the Retreat at Chengde based on STEPHEN WHITEMAN'S description (he has included a map in his article, but make sure you've got all of the main points of architectural interest and understand how they relate to each other); post to blog by Sunday at 10 pm. No textual description this time around.

Sept 20 (M): Retreat for Escaping the Summer Heat at Chengde: Manchu Mandala or Disneyland?

• BROWSE FOR PICTURES, NO NEED TO READ  Stephen Whiteman, "From Upper Camp to Mountain Estate: recovering historical narratives in Qing imperial landscapes," Studies in the History of Gardens and Designed Landscapes (2013): 1-25. (PDF) 

• Yifu Tuan, "Disneyland: Its place in world culture, " in Designing Disney's Theme Parks: The Architecture of Reassurance, ed. Karal Ann Marling (New York: Flammarion, 1997), 191-98. (PDF) 

• OPTIONAL: Robert Venturi, Learning from Las Vegas. 2d ed. (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1977), 3-72. (PDF) 

• For Library of Congress map of Rehe dating 1736-74, click here

Sept 22 (W) - Visit to MACS. MEET @ GALLERY A IN THE TELUS CENTRE, 11 am sharp. (The Telus Centre is next to the Timms Centre, and Gallery A is directly on your right as you walk through the double doors from the direction of FAB)

WEEK FIVE :: Collecting the World 

blog 5.0: post an image of one miniature object from the Forbidden City, and think carefully about its display. Post Sunday by 10 pm. 

Sept 27 (M):  The Miniature: Architecture as Treasure Box 

•  Barbara Maria Stafford and Frances Terpak, Devices of Wonder: From the World in a Box to Images on a Screen (Los Angeles: Getty Publications, 2000), 1-20, 148-165. (PDF)

• Barmé, The Forbidden City, ch 3. (online book)

• OPTIONAL: Shane McCausland, "The Emperor's Old Toys: Rethinking the Yongzheng Scroll of Antiquities," Transactions of the Oriental Ceramic Society 66 (2000-2001): 65-74.    

Sept 29 (W):   The Gigantic: Monument and Monumentality

• Harold Kahn, "A Matter of Taste: The Monumental and Exotic in the Qianlong Reign," in The Elegant Brush: Chinese Paintings under the Qianlong Emperor, ed. Chou Ju-hsi (Phoenix: Phoenix Art Museum, 1985), 288-302. (PDF).

• Barmé, The Forbidden City, ch 4. (online book)

•  CLASS MEETS TODAY ON ZOOM

• bibliographies: a style guide  

PART THREE. POST-IMPERIAL CITY (1912-2021) 

WEEK SIX :: Republican-era (1911-1949) Repositionings 

blog 6.0: locate one book in the Rutherford Library by an old "China hand" (i.e., a European or American who traveled through or lived in China) published between 1850-1949 (there are many!). You'll need to skim read a chapter ot two. Consider how it treats Chinese things and culture. Post  a quotation by Sunday at 10 pm. (250 words).

Oct 4 (M): Collecting the Forbidden City in Europe and America 

• James Hevia, "Looting Beijing: 1860, 1900," in Tokens of Exchange, ed. Lydia Liu (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999), 192-213. (PDF and online book) 

• Barmé, The Forbidden City, ch 5. (online book)

Oct 6 (W):   The Palace Museums: Taipei and Beijing 

We'll continue our discussion of loot in this session, and then turn to Chinese understandings of their own "patrimony" and the Forbidden City as one place it is housed. 

• Jeannette and David Shambaugh, The Odyssey of China's Imperial Art Treasures (Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, 2005), 75-97 (chapter 4 and beginning of chapter 5). (PDF)

• Barmé, The Forbidden City, ch 6. (online book)

• OPTIONAL:  Chang Lin-sheng, "The Formation of the Collection of the National Palace Museum," Orientations 26, no. 9 (October 1995): 50-57. (PDF) 

WEEK SEVEN :: Workshopping research projects

blog 7.0: post a photograph of an architectural structure or work of visual art that will serve as the central focus of your research project by Saturday, at 5 pm, along with the object exploratory (see requirements page).

Oct 11 (M): THANKSGIVING VACATION 

Oct 13 (W): WORKSHOP 

WEEK EIGHT :: From Imperial Utopia to Communist Utopia

blog 8.0: draw a map of Tiananmen Square as it looked in 1960 or 1980 and consider how the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) transformed a relic of the feudal past into an emblem of the socialist present; post by Tuesday at 10 pm. For photographs of the Forbidden City and Beijing dating to 1972 for your reference, please consult the "Serve the People" database (search terms: historical sites, Beijing). Please post the map -- no need to write anything for this blog assignment.

Oct 18 (M): WORKSHOP  

Oct 20 (W):  Tiananmen Gate 

• Wu Hung, Remaking Beijing, intro and ch 1 (main reserve)

• today we will finish up the exploratory presentations and discuss the transformation of an exploratory into a thesis    

WEEK NINE :: From Communist Utopia to Post-Socialist Vision

Instead of a blog post, redraft your exploratory into a 1-page thesis and email to Lisa by Friday at 5 pm. Include with it an annotated bibliography of four sources. If you have never written an annotated bibliography before, please consult the Cornell University website "How to Prepare an Annotated Bibliography" or the University of Toronto website on the development of writing skills. Basically, I am asking you to summarize the content of the article/book/chapter and to indicate how it is relevant to your project.

Oct 25 (M): Into the Panopticon: Mao and Tiananmen Gate 

• Wu Hung, Remaking Beijing, ch 2. (main reserve)

• Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish (1975), "Panopticism."

Oct 27 (W): Revisiting Mao

• Wu Hung, Remaking Beijing , 183-207. (main reserve)

• Francesca dal Lago, "Personal Mao: Reshaping an Icon in Contemporary Chinese Art," Art Journal 58, No. 2. (Summer, 1999): 46-59. (JSTOR and PDF)

• OPTIONAL: Xiaoping Lin, "These Parodic Images: A Glimpse of Contemporary Chinese Art," Leonardo 30, no. 2 (1997) (JSTOR) 

• OPTIONAL: Geremie Barmé, "EveryMao" and ‚"Modern Mao and Multi-Media Mao," in Shades of Mao (Armonk, NY:   ME Sharpe), 19-23, 39-42 (PDF). 

WEEK TEN :: The New City 

blog 9.0 Chose a performance or visual work from the readings (or from your own explorations online --any image/video/performance piece of your choice) that you would like to discuss in conference and post it to the blog by Sunday by 8 pm.Identify the artist, the title of the piece, and its date. No other textual description needed.

Nov 1 (M): Tiananmen Square: Site for Performance Art and Installation 
MEET TODAY AT THE TELUS CENTRE Mactaggart Art Storage 11 am sharp 

• OPTIONAL Barmé, The Forbidden City, ch 8. (online book)

• Wu Hung, Remaking Beijing, 208-233. (main reserve) 

Nov 3 (W): The Beijing Olympics 2008: Spectacle and the City

• Wu Hung, Remaking Beijing, "Coda: Entering the New Millennium," 234-244. (main reserve)

• Siegfried Kracauer, "Mass Ornament," in The Mass Ornament: Weimar Essays, tr. Thomas Levin (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1995), 75-88 (PDF)    

• images: 2008 Olympics website

WEEK ELEVEN :: READING WEEK! Enjoy those books 

WEEK TWELVE :: Art spaces as heterotopias

blog 10.0 load a photo of a heterotopia to the blog (anywhere on the planet)

Nov 15 (M):  798 as Heterotopia THIS CLASS WILL MEET VIA ZOOM

• Michel Foucault, "Of Other Spaces: Utopias and Heterotopias" inRethinking Architecture: A Reader in Cultural Theory, ed. Neil Leach (London and New York: Routledge, 1997), 350-56. (PDF)

• Beijing 798: Refections on Art, Architecture, and Society in China (Hong Kong: Timezone 8, 2004), essay by Wu Hung, "New Dashanzhai/798 as Seen from Southern California Institute of Architecture" starting on p. 174. (main reserve; please note that there is only ONE copy of this catalogue on main reserve, so you'll have to be especially careful to share it)

• FOR REVIEW ONLY Cheng Lei and Zhu Qi, eds. Beijing 798 Now: Changing Arts, Architecture and Soceity in China. Hong Kong: Timezone 8, 2009), OPTIONAL: read essays "Voices from the panel discussion 'Beijing and the World,'" Zhu Qi, Leng Lin, Shu Yang, Xu Yong, Cang Xin, Alexander Ochs, Marc Hungerbubler (main reserve)

• OPTIONAL Michael Dutton, Beijing Time (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008), ch 6 "Market Art, Art Market" (main reserve)

Nov 17 (W): Other Experimental Art Spaces

• no reading assignment today 

• Discussion of what a good presentation entails

WEEKS THIRTEEN + FOURTEEN :: CLASS SYMPOSIA!

Nov 24 (W):  Symposium

Nov 29 (M): Symposium 

Dec 1 (W):Symposium & Closing the City Gates

Dec 6 (M): Course wrap-up and CELEBRATION! 

• I will review very briefly where we have been over the course of the semester, some of the questions that we seem to keep circling back to, and then we will celebrate!

• final project due December 13 by 5 pm  EMAIL project to me as a word document (see details about format on course requirements page).

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