Unit information: Internationalising Modern China 1850s - 1950 (Level H Special Subject) in 2012/13

Unit name	Internationalising Modern China 1850s - 1950 (Level H Special Subject)
Unit code	HIST37016
Credit points	20
Level of study	H/6
Teaching block(s)	Teaching Block 1 (weeks 1 - 12)
Unit director	Dr. Chatterton
Open unit status	Not open
Pre-requisites	None
Co-requisites	None
School/department	Department of History (Historical Studies)
Faculty	Faculty of Arts, Law and Social Sciences

Description including Unit Aims

This unit explores how the Customs and Protestant missionaries internationalised China and how, in different ways, they helped shape Western attitudes to China. The Customs and missionary staff were often complex interesting individuals, and the archives relating to this unit are rich with memoirs, official publications, travel accounts, trade, medical, and educational reports, and scholarly studies. Understanding the Customs and missionaries can help us understand China’s modern history, and its place in a changing and globalising world. The first series of seminars explores the Chinese Maritime Customs Service, the key revenue collecting agency of the Chinese state, and how it was officered and led by foreigners. Between 1854 and 1950 it became the most important institution mediating between China and foreign empires influencing foreign diplomacy. The second series of seminars focuses on the foreign Protestant missionaries who founded schools and hospitals whilst establishing and nurturing professional institutions such as the Nursing Association of China.

Aims:

• To place students in direct contact with the current research interests of the academic tutor

• To enable students to explore the issues surrounding the state of research into the internationalisation of China in the century after 1854

• To develop further students' ability to work with primary sources

• To develop further students' abilities to integrate both primary and secondary source material into a wider historical analysis

• To develop further students' ability to learn independently within a small-group context

• To develop students' understanding of key issues in modern Chinese history

• To develop students' knowledge of the history of elements of 19th and 20th century imperialism and globalisation.

Intended Learning Outcomes

By the end of the unit students should have:

• Developed an in depth understanding of the internationalisation of modern China

• Become more experienced and competent in working with an increasingly specialist range of primary sources

• Become more adept at contributing to and learning from a small-group environment

• Acquired a firm knowledge of key issues in the history of modern Chinas foreign relations

• Developed an advanced understanding of the literature generated by and about the Chinese Maritime Customs.

Teaching Information

• 10 x weekly 2 hour seminar

• Tutorial feedback on essay

• Access to tutorial consultation with unit tutor in office hours

Assessment Information

1 x 3-400 word essay (50%) and 1 x 2 hour exam (50%)

Reading and References

Robert Bickers, ‘Revisiting the Chinese Maritime Customs’, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 36:2 (2008)

Donna Brunero, Britain’s imperial cornerstone in China (London, 2006)

Documents illustrative of the origin, development and activities of the Chinese Customs Service (Shanghai, 1937-40)

John King Fairbank et al, The I.G. in Peking: Letters of Robert Hart (Cambridge MA, 1975)

Richard Smith et al, Robert Hart and China’s early modernization (Cambridge MA, 1991)

Thomas Lyons, China Maritime Customs and China’s trade statistics, 1859-1948 (2003)