Prehistoric and Protohistoric Foundations of China (4 weeks)

1. Anthropology, culture, culture as a system, relevant theories of cultural development
2. Modern geography, resources, population distribution, etc.
3. Pleistocene landscapes (1.5 million years ago to 10,000 y.a.)
4. Human evolution, technology and land use
   
5. Modern landscapes where agriculture initially developed, native plants and animals (10,000 y.a. to present)
6. Examples of early food producing societies in China
7. Technology, family and lineage, ancestor worship
8. Social differentiation and specialization
   
9. Emergence of complex (state) societies--Xia, Shang and Zhou
10. Oracle inscriptions and archaeology on the family and kinship, royal lineages
11. Political controls and stratification
12. Leadership and hereditary aristocracy
    
13. Philosophical traditions--Confucianism, Taoism, Mohism, Legalism, etc.--and the rise of the scholar-gentry
14. Technology, iron, warfare and shifting power structure
15. Qin unification (Tomb of the terra cotta soldiers), suppression of classical learning, imposition of standardization
16. Cosmology and the city in ancient China
17. Exam on materials to date

Traditional China: snapshots of life (3 weeks)

1. Han Dynasty: government, social stratification and class
2. Han education, family and lineage
3. Han agriculture and land use, crafts and industry
4. Han supernatural beliefs, introduction of Buddhism, literature and intellect, city and rural life
   
5. Southern Sung Dynasty: government, social stratification and class
6. Southern Sung education, family and lineage
7. Southern Sung supernatural beliefs, literature and the intellect
8. Southern Sung developments in science and technology
   
9. Science, technology and the arts in later imperial Chinese culture
10. Qing: China the most populous and wealthiest society in the world, 1750 AD under foreign (Man) domination
11. Qing government, social stratification and class
12. Qing education, family and lineage
13. Han Chinese, the Man, and other minorities, languages and geographic distribution
14. Exam on Traditional China

Modern China (3 weeks including presentation of class projects dealing with China over the past five decades)

1. Brief history of Nationalist China, Japanese invasion, civil war and the emergence of the People's Republic of China in 1949
2. "The Last Emperor" Part I
3. Changes in family and kinship, political controls, status of women, supernatural beliefs, etc. in the early 20th C
4. People's Republic of China through the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution--culture war on the educated and foreign trained
5. "The Last Emperor" Part II
   
6. Emergence of China after Mao as a world economic power in the late 20th C and early 21st C
7. China today: economy, education, governance and change
8. China today: social change, urban life and village/rural life, judicial system and law
   
9. Project presentations
10. Project presentations
11. Project presentations
12. Project presentations
13. Final exam period--exam on Modern China, readings and project presentations