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| Unit name |
Communists, Capitalists and Colonialists: Understanding the History of Republican-era Shanghai (Level C Special Topic) |
| Unit code |
HIST14027 |
| Credit points |
20 |
| Level of study |
C/4
|
| Teaching block(s) |
Teaching Block 2 (weeks 13 - 24)
|
| Unit director |
Emeritus Professor. Pemberton |
| Open unit status |
Not open |
| Pre-requisites |
None |
| Co-requisites |
None |
| School/department |
Department of History (Historical Studies) |
| Faculty |
Faculty of Arts |
Description including Unit Aims
Shanghai in the 1920s and 1930s has attained legendary status as a decadent but corrupt city where western imperialism met Chinese civilisation in a tumultuous period of modernisation and revolution. British bankers and American tycoons lived side by side with high-class Chinese and Russian dancing girls, dangerous underworld gang leaders and influential political and literary thinkers. This unit explores between the Republican Revolution of 1911 and the Communist Revolution of 1949 in the largest and most important city in China to separate myth from reality. Using primary sources and a range of secondary readings, students will learn to weigh up different interpretations of the past and reach their own conclusions. The various historiographic interpretations and debates encountered in the study of Chinese history in this period provide students with an introduction to issues they will encounter throughout undergraduate careers.
Aims:
- To place students in direct contact with the current research interests of academic tutors and to enable them to explore the issues surrounding the state of research in the field.
- To introduce students to working with primary sources
- To introduce students to issues relating to setting primary sources in their wider context
- To introduce students to the practice of learning independently within a small-group context
- To provide an understanding of republican-era China
Intended Learning Outcomes
By the end of the unit students should have:
- deepened their understanding of history of republican era Shanghai, 1911-49
- identified and analysed the significance of key themes in that history
- learned to weigh up and understand different views in historiographical debates
- learned how to work with primary sources
- developed their skills in contributing to and learning from a small-group environment.
Teaching Information
- Tutorial feedback on essay
- Access to tutorial consultation with unit tutor in office hours
Assessment Information
1 x 2 hour exam
Reading and References
- Marie-Claire Berg�re, Shanghai: Chinas Gateway to Modernity (Stanford, 2009).
- Robert Bickers, Empire Made Me: An Englishman Adrift in Shanghai (London, 2003).
- Lu Hanchao, Beyond the Neon Lights (Berkeley, 1999).
- Christian Henriot, Prostitution and Sexuality in Shanghai (Cambridge, 2001).
- S. A. Smith, A Road is Made: Communism in Shanghai, 1920-1927 (Richmond, 2000).
- Jeffrey Wasserstrom, Global Shanghai, 1850-2010 (Abingdon, 2009).
