EAS105H1S

Modern East Asia

Winter 2015

Professor Andre Schmid

Dept. of East Asian Studies
Office: Robarts library #14145
Andre.schmid@utoronto.ca
Office Hours: T2-4
Resource TA: Erin Lofting (erin.lofting@mail.utoronto.ca)
Teaching Assistants: Joshua Baxter (josh.baxter@mail.utoronto.ca)
Yi Chen (Yitoronto.chen@mail.toronto.ca)
Nasil Heo (nasil.heo@mail.utoronto.ca)
Banu Kaygusuz banu.kaygusuz@mail.utoronto.ca
Shasha Liu (shasha.liu@mail.utoronto.ca )
Alexandre Paquet (alexandre.paquet@mail.utoronto.ca)
Yu Wen (yu.wen@mail.utoronto.ca)
This course strives to ask big questions and raise key problems in the
study of modern East Asia history. As a continuation of EAS103H, the
course moves forward in historical time, offering a general introduction
to the study of China, Japan, and Korea from roughly 1600 to the mid20th century. As a precursor to EAS209H, the course also seeks to begin
challenging students to ask themselves about how we think about the
past: What are the dominant ways we have of thinking about the East
Asian past and what are the consequences of these types of historical
thinking? We will ask such questions in our lectures by focusing on
one specific slice or problem every week. The course expects you to
read, think, and write with a critical and analytical self-awareness
about history.
You will be expected to identify major themes recurring in the
readings, textbook, lectures and tutorials. These themes will raise
issues concerning the conceptualization of modernization and the
East/West divide, the historical construction of gender, approaches to
bottom-up or popular history, the relation between consumption and
global capitalism, the rise of new forms of power in the modern period,
how basic historical knowledge (think your textbooks!) change over
time and the dilemmas of organizing history as national history to
name just a few. These big themes will be raised by examining specific
moments, events, personalities, and processes such that you just
might learn a little about the environmental impact of transplanting
rice, the life cycle of a sake brewing woman, the connection of opium
to the slave trade in the Caribbean, the rise of department store

culture, how Asian migratory labor became key to the patrolling of the
Canada-US border, and why we usually only hear about peasants when
they rise up in rebellion.

Readings
Students are responsible for completing two types of readings: i) a
textbook, offering a general synthesis of and arguments about the
periods we will cover; and ii) assigned articles, posted to the course
website, consisting of a more focused research article on a particular
topic or intellectual question. Both are required reading and will be the
basis of all assignments.
Neither the lectures nor the tutorials summarize these readings;
instead, after completing the readings you should always ask yourself
a key question before coming to class What was the authors point in
this reading? If you can answer this basic question, then you will be
well prepared for lectures and tutorials, which will make connections
between the readings and, in cases, move beyond them. This
question will also encourage you to treat all readings, even your
textbooks, as the creation of individual authors working in a specific
intellectual and temporal environment. The syllabus also lists some
italicized questions for each lecture and set of readings. These
questions will structure much of our discussion and are intended to
stimulate those gray cells in your cranium into thinking more deeply
about the readings. This last point cannot be emphasized enough:
dont just read the materials think about what the authors are doing
and why they are doing so.
Required Textbook: Jonathon Lipman, Barbara Molony, and
Michael Robinson. Modern East Asia: An Integrated History. Pearson,
2012. Available at the Bob Miller Bookroom, 180 Bloor St. West.
(opposite the ROM, lower concourse).

Tutorials
Tutorials will be held every week, starting the second week of the
semester (January 16). Active participation in tutorial discussions will
constitute ten per cent of your final mark, as determined by the
teaching assistant. Please arrive every week ready to talk, ask
questions and have fun please take advantage of the small group
session. Each week a specific reading will be assigned for discussion in
your tutorial session, as indicated in your syllabus. Since tutorials are
scheduled for the day after lecture, by the time you arrive you should
be able to triangulate between the lectures, the textbook and the
assigned reading.

Assignments
As this course is a continuation of EAS103H, all students will be
expected to have completed EAS103H before enrolling in this course.
Students will be responsible for three different forms of evaluation: i)
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during weeks two to five, you will have weekly one-page responses as
part of the read to write component of this class for a total of four
responses. Designed to boost your analytical skills, these four short
assignments are worth a total of 10%, on an upward sliding scale of 2%
(Jan.14), 2% (Jan. 21), 3% (Jan.28), and 3% (Feb.4) respectively. These
will be marked by your own teaching assistant and must be uploaded
by 10pm the night before the Thursday lecture. Late submissions are
penalized by one mark per day.
You will also have two 5-page take home essays, to be written on
a specific question, in one week between classes. Please be sure to
apportion sufficient time in your schedule for these assignments. You
will be asked questions that require you to reflect an understanding of
the assigned readings, such as Why is consumption a key to
understanding the global political economy of the Opium War? These
are not research essays and no extra reading is required to answer the
question; rather, top-notch essays will reflect a careful understanding
and analysis of the readings, textbook, lectures, and tutorial sessions.
Answers should be submitted electronically by noon on the due date.
Late responses are not accepted unless accompanied by a medical
note and submitted through your college registrar. Late penalty is one
mark per day. Proper citation practices, according to the Chicago style,
should be used to credit your readings.
Four responses
Take-home essay #1 (distributed Feb. 26; due March 5)
25%
Take-home essay #2 (distributed March26; due April 2)
25%
Tutorial Participation

10%

10%

The final exam will be worth 30% and will be scheduled by the Faculty
of Arts and Science. In the last class of the course, I will distribute a list
of possible exam questions for your own preparation. As you can see
from these forms of evaluations, memorization of names and dates is
not the priority of this course. Instead, you should direct your efforts at
writing essays in a clear, concise, and well-organized manner based on
a good understanding of the arguments in the readings. Writing quality
does matter! Besides our tutorials, where you will be discussing essay
writing, the university offers services to help with writing. Please see
both courses (http://www.writing.utoronto.ca/writing-courses) and
writing centres (http://www.writing.utoronto.ca/writing-centres).
Plagiarism is a serious academic offence. If you do not
understand what constitutes plagiarism, please ask me, your TA, or
refer to the essay How Not to Plagiarize
(http://www.writing.utoronto.ca/advice/using-sources/how-not-toplagiarize). The Department of East Asian Studies pursues such
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violations vigorously and according to the Faculty of Arts and Science

academic conduct code. Please do not tempt this fate.
LECTURE AND TUTORIAL SCHEDULE
January 8 Introduction to the ins-and-outs of this course
Textbook chapter 2
No tutorial this week
January 15

Rice, Silver, and People

1. Feeding a Growing Population

What were the consequences of population growth in China? Why rice?
Lloyd E. Eastman, Agriculture: An Overview. In his Family, Field,
and Ancestors. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988) 62-78.
Pomeranz and Topik, eds., People Patterns: Was the Real America
Sichuan? The World that Trade Created: Society, Culture, and the
World Economy, 1400 to the present. NY: M.E. Sharpe Inc., 2006:
55-58.
2. The Global Silver Economy
How deep were global connections in the early modern world and what
does this tell us about the integration of East Asia with the larger world
economy prior to the 19th century? Why no capitalism in pre-modern
East Asia or should we even be asking that question?
Pomeranz and Topik, eds., As Rich as Potos, The World that
Trade Created: Society, Culture, and the World Economy, 1400 to
the present. NY: M.E. Sharpe Inc., 2006: 151-154
Textbook ch.3.
Reading Response #1 due
Tutorial discussion: introductions & Pomeranz and Topik
January 22

Rethinking Qing History

If textbooks are an introduction to fundamental knowledge, why do

they change over time? What does it mean to think of the Qing as a

multiethnic empire as opposed to a Chinese dynasty? How does such a

major shift in historical understanding take place and what are the
consequences?
James Hevia, Cherishing Men From Afar: Qing Guest Ritual and the
MacCartney Embassy of 1793. Durham: Duke University Press,
1995: 29-56.
J.K. Fairbank, E.O Reischaier, and A. Craig, East Asia: tradition and
transformation. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1973: pages, TBA.
Textbook ch. 4
Tutorial discussion: contrast Hevia to Fairbank, et. Al.
Reading Response #2 due

Virtuous Women, Class, and the

Problem of Gender
January 29

What is gender as opposed to sex, or the history of gender as opposed

to the history of women? How did notions of the traditional woman
develop in the 20th century and what purposes did this serve? How did
class intersect with dominant definitions of gender roles?
Martina Deuchler, Propagating Female Virtues in Chosn Korea.
In Ko, Haboush, and Piggot, eds., Women and Confucian Cultures.
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003) 142-165.
Dorothy Ko, Pursuing Talent and Virtue: Education and Womens
Culture, Late Imperial China 13.1 (June 1992) 9-39.
Ann Walthall, The Life Cycle of Farm Women in Tokugawa Japan.
In Gail Bernstein, ed., Recreating Japanese Women, 1600-1945.
(University of California Press, 1991) pp.42-70.
Tutorial Discussion: Dorothy Ko.
Reading Response #3 due
February 5

The Arrival of Imperialism and the

Problem of
Eurocentrism
1. Eurocentrism as a Traveling Narrative

Is the history of East Asia possible without Europe? Is there an East

that is divisible from the West and how did this conception of space
develop?
J.M. Blaut, History Inside Out. In his The Colonizers Model of the
World: Geographical Diffusionism and Eurocentric History. (The
Guilford Press, 1993) 1-43.
2. The Opium War, Global Capitalism, and Consumption
How was the conflict in China related to social and consumer trends in
Britain and what does this tell us about the global economy? What
does this tell us about our own consumption today?
James Walvin, A Taste of Empire, 1600-1800, History Today 47.1
(January 1997) 11-16.
Pomeranz and Topik, eds., Brewing Up a Storm, and How Opium
Made the World Go Round,The World that Trade Created:
Society, Culture, and the World Economy, 1400 to the present. NY:
M.E. Sharpe Inc., 2006: 77-80 & 90-93, respectively
Textbook ch. 5
Tutorial Discussion: J.M. Blaut.
Reading Response #4 due
February 12

Meiji, Modernization, and

Capitalism
What was the Meiji? How does a bottom-up history view the Meiji
Restoration? What were the long term consequences of the Meiji
political settlement and how have they served as the basis of a critique
of Japanese modernity?
Mikiso Hane, Modernization and the Peasants. In his Peasants,
Rebels, and Outcastes: The Underside of Modern Japan (New York:
Pantheon Books, 1982) 3-27.
Fukuzawa Yukichi, selections. TBA.
Textbook ch. 6.
Tutorial Discussion: Mikiso Hane.
February 19

Reading Week enjoy your books!

February 26

Colonialism and the Nature of

Modern Power
How do Henry and Lee conceptualize colonial power beyond merely
brute force? What does Lee mean when he writes that the modern is
non-emancipatory?
Todd Henry, Sanitizing Empire: Japanese Articulations of Korean
Otherness and the Construction of early Colonial Seoul, 19051919. Journal of Asian Studies (August 2005), 64 (3), pg. 639675
Lee Chulwoo, Modernity, Legality, and Power in Korea Under
Japanese Rule. In Shin and Robinson, eds., Colonial Modernity in
Korea, 21-51.
Textbook ch. 7.
Tutorial Discussion: Chul Woo Lee
**First Take-home essay question distributed; due next week
March 5 Modernitys Obsession with the Past and the

Anachronistic Uses of the Nation

Is the nation a modern concept that denies its own modernity? How is
our understanding of the past shaped by the fact that most history is
written as national history? What is meant by the invention of
tradition?
Li Liu, Who were the ancestors? The origins of Chinese ancestral
cult and racial myths, Antiquity 73 (1999) 602-13.
Ito Kumio, The Invention of Wa and the Transformation of the
Image of Prince Shotoku in Modern Japan. In Stephen Vlasos, ed.,
Mirror of Modernity: Invented Traditions of Modern Japan.
(University of California Press, 1998) 37-47.
Tessa Morris-Suzuki, Japan. In her Re-inventing Japan: time,
space, nation. (M.E. Sharpe, c1998) pp.9-34.
Tutorial Discussion: Morris-Suzuki.
March 12 The Modern Girl Around the World

Why is the modern girl seen as a global phenomenon? How is the

moga related to changing consumer and urban patterns of living -and how about working class women?
Miriam Silverberg, The Modern Girl as Militant. In Gail Bernstein,
ed., Recreating Japanese Women, 1600-1945. Berkeley: University
of California Press, 1991: 239-266.
Madeleine Y. Dong, Who is Afraid of the Modern Chinese Girl?
The Modern Girl Around the World Research Group, ed., The
Modern Girl Around the World: Consumption, Modernity, and
Globalization.
Janice C.H. Kim, To Live to Work: Factory Women in Colonial Korea,
1910-1945. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2009: 7-100.
Tutorial: Silverberg
March 19 Transpacific Diasporas
How might a history of diaspora and race shift dominant
understandings of North American history? Where do we draw
boundaries of East Asian history and why?
Kornel S. Chang Introduction. In his Pacific Connections: The
Making of the U.S. Canadian Borderlands. Berkeley: University of
California Press, 2012: 1-16.
Lisa Lowe, The Intimacies of Four Continents. In Ann Laura
Stoler, ed., Haunted By Empire: Geographies of Intimacy in North
American History. Durham: Duke University Press, 2006: 191-212.
Textbook chapter 9.
Tutorial Discussion: Chang.
March 26 Marxism, Revolution, and 1949
How do Marxs conceptions of a universal history become reconciled
with the particular conditions of the Chinese Revolution? What is
meant by the sinification of Marxism?
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party. Section I and
II, http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communistmanifesto/

**Mao Zedong, Report on an Investigation of the Hunan Peasant

Movement. In W.T. deBary, ed., Sources of Chinese Tradition.
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1964) 204-215.
http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selectedworks/volume-1/mswv1_2.htm
Rebecca Karl, Toward the Peasant Revolution, 1921-1921, 21-34
and Establishing Revolutionary Bases: 35-50 Mao Zedong and
China in the 20th Century World. Durham and London: Duke
University Press, 2010.
Textbook chapter 8.
Tutorial discussion: Marx and Engels
**Second Take-home essay question distributed; due next week.
April 2

The Korean War, the Cold War, and the

Development of a Regional Political Economy

The Cold War a single war or many regional wars? How did the
Korean civil war shape the political economy of the Cold War East
Asian and/or global order?
Paul Wingrove, Who Started the Korean War? History Today 50.7 (July
2000) three pages.
One more article, TBA.
Textbook ch. 10.
Final exam questions distributed. Date of exam to be announced by
Faculty of Arts and Science

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