INSTITUTIONS, HISTORY AND CULTURE OF THE FIRST LANGUAGE OF CHOICE - CHINESE LANGUAGE

Degree course: 
Academic year when starting the degree: 
2024/2025
Year: 
1
Academic year in which the course will be held: 
2024/2025
Credits: 
10
Standard lectures hours: 
60
Requirements: 

It is highly recommended to take at least the first semester of the Chinese Language I year course before or while attending this course. A review of modern and contemporary history would also be useful, a good example of a valid textbook would be: Bayly C.A.,The Birth of the Modern World 1780-1914, London, Wiley-Blackwell, 2003 (ISBN-13: 978-0631236160)

Final Examination: 
Orale

NON-ATTENDING STUDENTS:
- The exam, focusing on the course content, is written only and consists of 10 closed questions (each with three answer options, only one of which is correct) and 3 open-ended questions. The open-ended questions are worth up to 5/30; of the closed questions, 4 are worth 1/30, the remaining 6 are worth 2/30. Questions not answered or answered incorrectly are worth 0. The exam must be completed within 2 hours.
- In the open-ended questions, the student is assessed on his/her ability: to organize one’s argumentation clearly and precisely; to refer correctly to the texts studied, correctly employing the specialized vocabulary learned; to correctly cite place and personal names, dates and concepts in Chinese relevant to the topics covered; to answer questions (which are always ‘legitimate questions’, i.e. with no unambiguously certain and a priori established answer) critically, developing the analysis of the topic and the argumentation of one's thesis in an original way.

ATTENDING STUDENTS:
- Attending students will be subject to forms of assessment in progress: 1 group work and 2 partial tests.
- The group work (‘Debate of the Hundred Schools’) takes the form of a role-playing game set at the time of the warring states, in which students are invited to immerse themselves in the reality of a lordly court of the time, dividing themselves into schools of thought to which the teacher submits a domestic policy problem and a foreign policy problem (both drawn from the historiographical literature on the period).
- The 2 partial tests are held in written form: the first consists of 6 closed multiple-choice questions; the second of 5 open-ended questions.
- The first partial testis held at the conclusion of the units covered in the first semester; the second at the conclusion of the units covered in the second semester.
- Each partial test can be worth a maximum of 10/30 before the final exam, which is in oral form.
- The objectives and assessment criteria for these partial tests are the same as those described above for the written exam for non-attending students.
- Those students who have taken and passed the partial tests will be able to limit their final exam to an oral test to complete the two partial tests taken during the semesters. The final oral exam will focus on the contents of one of the monographic texts to be chosen by the student from among the list included in the dedidcated bibliography (“Testi per l'esame orale riservato agli studenti frequentanti che hanno superato i parziali”).
- The final grade therefore takes into account the scores obtained in the partial tests (each test is worth 10/30). The points obtained in the group activity held during the course will be added to those obtained in the first two written partial tests. In the final exam, the final grade will result from the sum of the score obtained in this way with the evaluation of the oral test (provided that the latter has been passed, otherwise it will be possible for the student to retake the oral test at the following test date).

ATTENDING STUDENTS WHO HAVE NOT TAKEN (OR NOT PASSED) THE PARTIAL TESTS:
- Attending students who have not taken or have not passed the partial tests will take a written test (6 closed and 5 open questions) during the exam session. If they pass (18/30 or more), they can choose between: a) taking only the written test. In this case, the final grade will be that of the written test, plus any additional points obtained for the group activity, OR: b) also take the oral exam in the same session, which, as for those who took the partial tests, will focus on one of the monographic texts to be chosen by the student from the list proposed in the relevant bibliography. If the oral test is passed, the final grade will be the average of the written test and the oral test, plus any additional points obtained in the group activity.

Assessment: 
Voto Finale

This course aims to provide an overview of China's cultural history, the development of Chinese civilization and its basic elements. A common thread running throughout the course will be the focus on the dynamic and complex cross-cultural interactions that have provided key building blocks for the ongoing process shaping Chinese cultural identity.
EXPECTED LEARNING OUTCOMES
Students will learn to:
1. grapple with "legitimate questions" (questions that have no prefigured answers, but require study, reflection, analysis and argumentation to seek valid answers, according to von Foerster's well-known definition) about the transformations that China's territory, population, society, politics, economy and culture have experienced over the past three thousand years;
2. learn to make use of the linguistic, socio-historical and bibliographical tools that enable them to understand China today and to foreshadow its most likely scenarios of change;
3. recognize the epistemological contours of the so-called New Sinology, a scientific perspective marked by area studies, which aims to investigate Chinese cultural, social and political reality by drawing on multiple knowledge and disciplines, corroborating solid linguistic skills with contributions from philology, history, geography, cultural studies and social sciences (sociology, anthropology, economics, political science, etc.). An introduction to New Sinology may prove useful not only for the purposes proper to this course, but especially for the eventual continuation of studies in specialized fields more oriented in the Sinological direction.

The course, with a total duration of 60 hours, is divided into 12 thematic units of three hours. Each thematic unit has a tripartite structure, focusing on three legitimate questions salient to the study of Chinese cultural, social and political reality in a given historical period.
The 12 thematic units are as follows:
1. Introduction to the New Sinology and Human Geography of China (Method-Territory-Geopolitics)
2. The contemporary Chinese political system and its challenges (Party-State-Society)
3. The origins of Chinese civilization (The question of "Chineseness"-The legacy of antiquity-The textual canon)
4. Warring states and the hundred philosophical schools (Confucians and Moists - Legists - Taoists and Strategists)
5. The founding of the Empire (Qin and Han - the frontier with the steppe world - writing/bureaucracy/history)
6. The divided empire: (The Three Kingdoms - Mixing of peoples and cultures - Buddhism)
7. The Second Empire (Sui and Tang - cosmopolitanism and its critics - Han Yu and the quest for cultural unity)
8. From the Song to the Ming (the heavenly bureaucracy - the trauma of the Mongol invasion - the Ming restoration)
9. Rise and crisis of the last dynasty (the glory of the Qing empire - the "great divergence" - the clash with foreign imperialism)
10. Saving China (from Self-Strengthening to the Republic - the Warlord Era - the Nanjing Decade and the second Sino-Japanese War)
11. Mao's China (Liberation and rebirth - The Hundred Flowers and the Great Leap Forward - The Cultural Revolution)
12. China during the Reform Era from Deng Xiaoping to Xi Jinping (Reform and Opening - The Economic Miracle - The New Era of the Chinese Dream)

1. Introduction to the New Sinology and Human Geography of China (Method-Territory-Geopolitics)
2. The contemporary Chinese political system and its challenges (Party-State-Society)
3. The origins of Chinese civilization (The question of "Chineseness"-The legacy of antiquity-The textual canon)
4. Warring states and the hundred philosophical schools (Confucians and Moists - Legists - Taoists and Strategists)
5. The founding of the Empire (Qin and Han - the frontier with the steppe world - writing/bureaucracy/history)
6. The divided empire: (The Three Kingdoms - Mixing of peoples and cultures - Buddhism)
7. The Second Empire (Sui and Tang - cosmopolitanism and its critics - Han Yu and the quest for cultural unity)
8. From the Song to the Ming (the heavenly bureaucracy - the trauma of the Mongol invasion - the Ming restoration)
9. Rise and crisis of the last dynasty (the glory of the Qing empire - the "great divergence" - the clash with foreign imperialism)
10. Saving China (from Self-Strengthening to the Republic - the Warlord Era - the Nanjing Decade and the second Sino-Japanese War)
11. Mao's China (Liberation and rebirth - The Hundred Flowers and the Great Leap Forward - The Cultural Revolution)
12. China during the Reform Era from Deng Xiaoping to Xi Jinping (Reform and Opening - The Economic Miracle - The New Era of the Chinese Dream)

Convenzionale

Moments of frontal teaching, devoted to explaining the salient phenomena and concepts for each thematic unit, will alternate with moments of collective discussion, focusing on specific questions ("legitimate questions," according to the famous definition of Austrian physicist Heinz von Foerster). These moments are stimulated by the projection and/or sharing of maps, images, films, historical documents, articles and essays, etc. Students will be provided with bibliographical, sitographical and filmographic directions for further study of each unit covered in class.
Attending students, alongside frontal teaching and moments of collective discussion, will also be offered group work assignments (role-plays, term papers, debates) that will allow, together with partial verifications, an ongoing assessment of learning.

For appointment requests, the professor can be contacted by email (daniele.cologna@uninsubria.it; chiara.bertulessi@uninsubria.it)