Course Description

This seminar examines Chinese archives and local documents from the Ming-Qing period to the present. We will be analyzing source materials such as imperial edicts, proclamations, business contracts, genealogies, inscriptions, family accounts and correspondences relating to each individual student’s research. This seminar is divided into three parts according to students’ own research needs. The first part introduces Hong Kong and the Mainland Archives and their collections. It will also discuss students’ research frameworks, geographical settings as well as archives and documents y that might be fundamental to individual research. The second part, using an integrated approach, introduces different types of source materials in the study of one particular research area (i.e.: a rural community, a business firm). The third part will introduce and analzye several special type of documents (i.e.: genealogy, inscriptions, Taoist texts, vernacular literature) and how they are read in the context of a particular social environment. Documents and archives read are related to participant students’ dissertation.

To be able to read these texts, written in classical or vernacular Chinese, students wishing to enroll in this seminar will be required to have high level of competency in both written and spoken Chinese. All students are required to write a research proposal, weekly reading notes and a research presentation integrating various first hand source materials read.

Topics for 2017-18 include: (documents read will be decided according to students’ research need)

(A)   Introduction:

                History from below

                Archives and folk documents  

(B)   Cycle 1: geographical settings and social structure: family, lineage and local communities:

                Wills

                Genealogies

                Landdeeds

                Steles and inscriptions

                Village handbooks

(C)   Cycle 2: Community activities, popular religion and festivals:

                Ritual documents

                Village notices

                Participant observation and field notes

                Performance as text

(D)    Cycle 3: Analysis and integration

               Readings: (individual readings list, to be confirmed)

Performance in class discussions 30%
Documents and archives collection and analysis 50%
End-of-Term Presentation 20%
Total 100%

Attention is drawn to University policy and regulations on honesty in academic work, and to the disciplinary guidelines and procedures applicable to breaches of such policy and regulations. Details may be found at here.

With each assignment, students will be required to submit a signed declaration that they are aware of these policies, regulations, guidelines and procedures.

• In the case of group projects, all members of the group should be asked to sign the declaration, each of whom is responsible and liable to disciplinary actions, irrespective of whether he/she has signed the declaration and whether he/she has contributed, directly or indirectly, to the problematic
• For assignments in the form of a computer-generated document that is principally text-based and submitted via VeriGuide, the statement, in the form of a receipt, will be issued by the system upon students’ uploading of the soft copy of the assignment. 
• Students are fully aware that their work may be investigated by AI content detection software to determine originality.
• Students are fully aware of the AI approach(es) adopted in the course. In the case where some AI tools are allowed, students have made proper acknowledgment and citations as instructed by the course teacher.

Assignments without the properly signed declaration will not be graded by teachers.

Only the final version of the assignment should be submitted via VeriGuide.

The submission of a piece of work, or a part of a piece of work, for more than one purpose (e.g. to satisfy the requirements in two different courses) without declaration to this effect shall be regarded as having committed undeclared multiple submissions. It is common and acceptable to reuse a turn of phrase or a sentence or two from one’s own work; but wholesale reuse is problematic. In any case, agreement from the course teacher(s) concerned should be obtained prior to the submission of the piece of work.

The copyright of the teaching materials, including lecture notes, assignments and examination questions etc., produced by staff members/ teachers of The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) belongs to CUHK. Students may download the teaching materials produced by the staff members/ teachers from the Learning Management Systems, e.g. Blackboard adopted by CUHK for their own educational use, but shall not distribute/ share/ copy the materials to a third-party without seeking prior permission from the staff members/ teachers concerned.