Designed to examine the history of family, gender and material culture in early modern societies in Asia and Europe, this is a senior seminar course that intends to have PhD students prepared for academic writing. It begins by introducing how fundamental structural changes in demography, legal, ethics, and religion related to gender and material culture, since the 17th century as those define the socio-cultural environment within which women, families and material culture operated in Asia and Europe as they (formulated) their ever-evolving adjustments. After a review of main interpretations for these historical changes, the course moves to show how the specific experiences of women, families and material culture in late-imperial and modern China exhibit both comparable similarities as well as important contrast with those in early modern and modern Europe.

As senior seminar, there will be no prerequisites required for this course. Other than following weekly readings, taking part in classroom discussions, every student is expected to finish a paper, having included available field study in Hong Kong or the region (Taiwan, Macau, China), which is may be publishable or presentable in academic conference.

1. Lecture I (12 Jan)
Introduction (Personal bios stating the reason of choosing this course)

Required Readings:

1. Laslett, Peter. The World We Have Lost. London: Methuen and Company, 1971 (chap. 1)
2. Stone, Lawrence. The Family, Sex and Marriage: in England, 1500-1800. New York: Harper & Row, 1979 (chap. 1)

2. Lecture II (19 Jan)
Domesticity and Private Sentiments (Submission of abstract for the final paper)

Required Readings:

1. 楊豫：〈西方家庭史研究的發展現狀與未來趨勢〉，載《新史學》，1990，第一卷第3期。頁89-115 
2. Ko, Dorothy. Teachers of the Inner Chamber: Women and Culture in the Seventeenth-century China. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1994 (chaps. 1, 3).

3. Lecture III (26 Jan)
Young and Old, Parent-Children Relations

Required Readings:

1. Trumbach, Randolph. The Rise of the Egalitarian Family: Aristocratic Kinship and Domestic Relations in Eighteenth-century England. New York: Academic Press, 1978 (chap. 3)
2. 熊秉真著，岳心怡譯：〈建構的感情：明清家庭的母子關係〉，載盧建榮編，《性別﹑政治與集體心態：中國新文化史。臺北：麥田出版社，2001。頁255-280
3. 劉詠聰：〈士大夫及平民階層的育兒狀況〉，載氏著《中國古代育兒》。臺北：台灣商務印書局，1998。頁111-184。

4. Lunar New Year Holiday (2 Feb)

5. Lecture IV (9 Feb)
    Men and Women or Husbands and Wives

Required Readings:

1. Mark Elvin, “Female Virtue and the State in China,” in Another History: Essays on China from a European Perspective. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1996: 302-351
2. 杜芳琴：〈陰陽乾坤說與中國兩性文化〉，收氏著《發現婦女的歷史：中國婦女史論集》。天津：天津社會科學院，1996。頁151-163。

6. Lecture V (16 Feb)
Public Sphere and Gender (Prepare the list of secondary references)

Required Readings:

1. Bray, Francesca. Technology and Gender: Fabrics of Power in Late Imperial China. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1997 (Introduction; chap. 3)
2. 葉漢明：〈女性主義史學與中國婦女社會史：當代西方研究的批判及中國婦女史學的展望〉，載張妙清等編，《性別學與婦女研究：華人社會的探索》。臺北：稻鄉出版社，1997。頁97-149。

7. Lecture VI (23 Feb)
China and the West in a Longer Perspective

Required Readings:

1. Davis, Natalie Z. Society and Culture in Early Modern France. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1975 (chap. 5)
2. Mann, Susan. “Grooming a Daughter for Marriage: Bride and Wives in the Mid-Ch’ing Period,” in Marriage and Inequality in Chinese Society, edited by Rubie S. Watson and Patricia Buckley Ebrey, 204-203. California: University of California, 1991

8. Lecture VII (2 Mar)
Eat and Drink: Material Culture in Late Imperial China

Required Readings:

1. Bray, Francesca. Technology and Gender: Fabrics of power in Late Imperial China. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1997 (Intro. & chap.3)
2. Davis, Natalie Z. Society and Culture in Early Modern France. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1975.

9. Lecture VIII (9 Mar)
Material Conditions and Daily Life

Required Readings:

1. Lee, James Z., and Wang Feng. One Quarter of Humanity: Malthusian Mythology and Chinese Realities, 1700-2000. Cambridge, Massachusetts, and London: Harvard University Press, 1999.
2. Laslett, Peter. The World We Have Lost. London: Methuen and Company, 1971 (chap.1)

10. Preliminary Discussion (16 Mar)

11. Preliminary Discussion (23 Mar)

12. Writing Period (30 Mar)

13. Writing Period (6 Apr)

14. Presentation (13 Apr)

15. Presentation (20 Apr)

16. Paper Due (27 Apr)

1) Discussion in class 20%

2) Oral presentation 30%

3) Term Paper 50%

Required Texts: (to be Reserved in ULS)

1. Bray, Francesca. Technology and Gender: Fabrics of Power in Late Imperial China. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1997.
2. Davis, Natalie Z. Society and Culture in Early Modern France. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1975.
3. Elvin, Mark. Another History: Essays on China from a European Perspective. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1996.
4. Furth, Charlotte. A Flourishing Yin: Gender in China’s Medical History, 960-1665. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1997.
5. Gay, Peter. The Bourgeois Experience: Victoria to Freud. Vol. 1, Education of the Senses. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984.
6. Ko, Dorothy. Teachers of the Inner Chamber: Women and Culture in the Seventeenth-century China. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1994.
7. Laslett, Peter. The World We Have Lost. London: Methuen and Company, 1971.
8. Lee, James Z., and Wang Feng. One Quarter of Humanity: Malthusian Mythology and Chinese Realities, 1700-2000. Cambridge, Massachusetts, and London: Harvard University Press, 1999.
9. Saari, Jon L. Legacies of Childhood: Growing up Chinese in a Time of Crisis, 1890- 1920. Cambridge, Massachusetts and London: Harvard University Press, 1990.
10. Stone, Lawrence. The Family, Sex and Marriage: in England, 1500-1800. New York: Harper & Row, 1979.
11. Trumbach, Randolph. The Rise of the Egalitarian Family: Aristocratic Kinship and Domestic Relations in Eighteenth-century England. New York: Academic Press, 1978.
12. Watson, Rubie S. and Patricia Buckley Ebrey, eds. Marriage and Inequality in Chinese Society. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991.
13. Zeldin, Theodore. An Intimate History of Humanity. New York: Harper Collins, 1995.
14. 杜芳琴：《發現婦女的歷史：中國婦女史論集》。天津：天津社會科學院，1996。
15. 劉詠聰：《中國古代育兒》。臺北：台灣商務印書局，1998。
16.葉漢明：〈女性主義史學與中國婦女社會史：當代西方研究的批判及中國婦女史學的展望〉，載張妙清等編，《性別學與婦女研究：華人社會的探索》。臺北：稻鄉出版社，1997。頁97-149。
17. 楊豫：〈西方家庭史研究的發展現狀與未來趨勢〉，載《新史學》，1990，第一卷第3期。頁89-115
18. 熊秉真著，岳心怡譯：〈建構的感情：明清家庭的母子關係〉，載盧建榮編，《性別﹑政治與集體心態：中國新文化史。臺北：麥田出版社，2001。頁255-280。

Recommended References:

1. Adshead, Samuel Adrian. Material Culture in Europe and China, 1400-1800: the Rise of Consumerism. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1997.
2. Ames, Roger T. ed. Self as Person in Asian Theory. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1994.
3. Aries, Philippe and Georges Duby eds. A History of Private Life. Cambridge, Massachusetts, and London: Harvard University Press, 1987.
4. Baker, Hugh D. R. Chinese Family and Kinship. London: Macmillan Press, 1979.
5. de Bary, William Theodore. Self and Society in Ming Though. New York: Columbia University press, 1970.
6. Benedict, Carol. Bubonic Plague in Nineteenth-century China. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996.
7. Bernhardt, Kathryn. “A Ming-Qing Transition in Chinese Women’s History,” in Remapping China, edited by G. Hershatter, et al. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996.
8. Braudel, Fernand. Civilization and Capitalism, 15th -18th Century, Vol. 3, The Structures of Everyday Life: The Limits of the Possible. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992.
9. Cochran, Sherman, Andrew C. K. Hsieh, Janis Cochran. One Day in China, May 21, 1936. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983.
10. Cohen, Myron L. House United. House Divided: The Chinese Family in Taiwan. New York: Columbia University Press, 1976.
11. Darton, F. J. Harvey. Children’s Books in England, Five Centuries of Social Life, third edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982.
12. Ebrey, Patricia B. The Inner Quarters: Marriage and the Lives of Chinese Women in the Sung Period. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993.
13. ———————. The Cambridge Illustrated History of China. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.
14. Edwards, Louise P. Men and Women in Q’ing China: Gender in The Red Chamber Dream. Leiden and New York: E. J. Brill, 1994.
15. Freedman, Maurice. Lineage Organization in Southeastern China. New York: Humanities Press, 1965.
16. Gélis, Jacques, Rosemary Morris trans. History of Childbirth: Fertility, Pregnancy, and Birth in Early Modern Europe. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1991.
17. Gernet, Jacques, H. M. Wright trans. Daily Life in China: on the Eve of the Mongol Invasion, 1250-1276. New York: Macmillan, 1962.
18. Gilmartin, Christina K., ed. Engendering China: Women, Culture, and the State. Cambridge and Mass: Harvard University Press, 1994.
19. Golden, Mark. Children and Childhood in Classic Athens. Baltimore and London: The John Hopkins University Press, 1990.
20. van Gulik, Robert H. Sexual Life in Ancient China: a Preliminary Survey of Chinese Sex and Society from ca. 1500 B.C. till 1644 A.D. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1974.
21. Harevena, Tanara and Andrejs Plakans. Family History at the Crossroads. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987.
22. Herlihy, David. Medieval Households. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1985.
23. Hetherington, Penelope. Childhood and Society in Western Australia. West Australia: University of Western Australia Press, 1988.
24. Heywood, Colin. Childhood in Nineteenth-century France: Work, Health, and Education Among the Classes Populaires. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988.
25. Hopkins, Eric. Childhood Transformed: Working-class Children in Nineteenth-century England. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1994.
26. Huang, Philip C. C. The Peasant Family and Rural Development in the Yangzi Delta, 1350-1988. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1990.
27. Hung, David. Parents and Children in History. New York: Harper & Row, 1970.
28. Kinney, Anne B. Chinese Views of Childhood. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1995.
29. Lee, James Z. and Cameron Campbell. Fate and Fortune in Rural China: Social Organization and Population Behavior in Liaoning 1774-1873. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.
30. Levy, Marion J. Jr. The Family Revolution in Modern China. New York: Octagon Books, 1971.
31. Lin, Yutang. The Guy Genius: the Life and Times of Su Tungpo. New York: John Day, 1947.
32. Macfarlane, Alan. The Origins of English Individualism, the Family, Property, and Social Transition. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1978.
33. McLaren Angus. A History of Contraception: from Antiquity to the Present Day. Oxford: Blackwell, 1990.
34. deMause, Lloyd, ed. The History of Childhood. New York: Psychohistory Press, 1974.
35. Mitterauer, Michael and Reinhard Sieder. The European Family, Patriarchy to Partnership from Middle Ages to the Present. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1977.
36. Morgan, Edmund S. The Puritan Family: Religion and Domestic Relations in Seventeenth Century New England. New York: Harper and Row, 1966.
37. Pruitt, Ida. A Daughter of Han: the Autobiography of a Chinese Working Women, from the Story Told Her by Ning Lao T’ai-t’ai. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1969.
38. Ransel, David L., ed. The Family in Imperial Russia, New Lines of Historical Research. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1978.
39. Skolnick, Arlene S. and Jerome H. Skolnick eds. Family in Transition, Rethinking Marriage, Sexuality, Child Rearing and Family Organization. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971.
40. Sommerville, C. John. The Rise and Fall of Childhood. Beverly Hills, London, New Delhi: Sage Publications, 1982.
41. Thorne, Barrie and Marilyn Yalom. Rethinking the Family: Some Feminist Questions. New York: Longman, 1982.
42. Waley, Arthur. Yüan Mei: Eighteenth Century Chinese Poet. London: G. Allen & Unwin, 1970.
43. Wang, Zheng. Women in the Chinese Enlightenment: Oral and Textual histories. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991.
44. Watson, Rubie S. and Patricia B. Ebrey, eds. Marriage and Inequality in Chinese Society. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991.
45. White, Merry. The Material Child: Coming of Age in Japan and America. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1989.
46. Wolf, Arthur P. and Chieh-shan Huang. Marriage and Adoption in China, 1845-1945. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1989.
47. Wolf, Margery and Roxane Witke, eds. Women in Chinese History. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1975.
48. Wolf, Margery. Women and the Family in Rural Taiwan. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1971.

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.

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