HISTORY OF IMPERIAL CHINA

History of Historiography (Han to Song)

This course is one of the optional taught modules within the Master degree course in Languages and Civilization of Asia and Mediterranean Africa.

The course sets out to analyse the diachronic development and the role of premodern Chinese historiography, from the 2nd century BC to the 13th century AD.

Learning objectives of the course are:
-to acquire the methodological tools necessary to analyse the methods and purposes of premodern Chinese historiography, and in particular to obtain an understanding of issues concerning the birth and development of different historical genres (chronicles and annals, biographies, treatises, dynastic histories, geographical treatises, institutional compendia), the figure of the historian and more generally the role of historiography in imperial China;
- to enhance understanding and critical assessment of the primary sources and the secondary literature;
- to be able to conduct autonomous scientific research and produce written essays.

Knowledge and understanding
At the end of the course the student will have acquired a knowledge of the diachronic development of the history of the pre-modern Chinese historical text, will be able to contextualize the main sources, their structure, textual history; will have acquired the tools for evaluation and critical analysis of primary sources; will be able to critically analyse secondary sources; will also be able to conduct autonomous research on topics related to the history of imperial historiography.

Ability to apply knowledge and communication skills
The student will be able to elaborate (in the form of short written essays and oral presentations) the available secondary literature, will have learned to formulate hypotheses and arguments and to assess different solutions and critical alternatives on the basis of objective textual evidence; will have acquired the ability to cite sources adequately and to take care of the formal aspects of textual production.

A good knowledge of classical Chinese and a basic knowledge of the history of imperial China is desirable.

The course will explore the following topics:
1. The annalistic tradition and the pre-imperial heritage
2. The composite genre (jizhuanti 紀傳體) and the dynastic histories
3. Chronicles and local history in the medieval period
4. Tang Taizong and the Tang Historiographical Office
5. Historians writing about historians and historiography: Liu Zhiji's Shitong
6. Geography and administration: manuals and pre-modern geographical treatises
7. Historian or official? “Private” vs. official historiography
8. Historical and institutional encyclopaedias
9. The birth of modern historiography (12th century)
10. Historiography, history teaching and imperial examinations in the Southern Song (13th century)

An updated list of reference texts and course material will be published in moodle shortly before the beginning of the course. A bibliography of supplementary texts and recommended readings on the topics dealt with in class will also be available in moodle.

Chaussende, Damien; Morgan, Daniel Patrick. Monographs in Tang Official Historiography: Perspectives from the Technical Treatises of the History of Sui (Sui shu). Springer International Publishing, 2019. [una selezione di capitoli]

Chittick, Andrew. “The Development of Local Writing in Early Medieval China,” Early Medieval China (2003): 35-70.

De Weerdt, Hilde. “The Discourse of Loss in Private and Court Book Collecting in Imperial” China, Library Trends 55.3 (2007): 404-420.

Dien, Albert. “Historiography of the Six Dynasties Period (220-581), The Oxford History of Historical Writing., Volume I (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), pp. 509-535.

Dudbridge, Glen. The Lost Books of Medieval China. The Panizzi Lectures. London The British Library: 1999.

Durrant, Stephen. “The Han Histories,” The Oxford History of Historical Writing, Chapter Chapter, Volume I (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), pp. 485-508.

Durrant, Stephen. “The Place of Hou Hanshu in Early Chinese Historiography,” Monumenta Serica 67.1 (2019):165-181.

Hartman, Charles; De Blasi, Anthony, “The Growth of Historical Method in Tang China,” The Oxford History of Historical Writing, Volume II (Oxford University Press, 2012), pp. 17-37.

Hartman, Charles “Chinese Historiography in the Age of Maturity, 960-1368,” The Oxford History of Historical Writing, Volume II (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), pp. 37-58.

Klein, Esther Sunkyung. Reading Sima Qian from Han to Song. The Father of History in Pre-Modern China. Leiden, Boston: E.J. Brill, 2018. [a selection of chapters]

Kurz, Johannes. “The Compilation and Publication of the Taiping yulan and Cefu yuangui.” In Qu’était-ce qu’écrire une encyclopédie en Chine? Extreme-Orient, Extreme-Occident, Cahiers de recherches comparatives, 2007, pp. 39-73.

Lewis, Mark Edward “Historiography and Empire,” The Oxford History of Historical Writing, Volume I (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), pp. 440-463.

Lorge, Peter “Institutional Histories,” The Oxford History of Historical Writing, Volume II (Oxford University Press, 2012), pp. 476-495.

Nylan, Michael, “Historians Writing about Historians, Fan Ye (398–446), Liu Zhiji (661–721), and Ban Gu (32–92),” Monumenta Serica 67.1 (2019): 187-213.

Twitchett, Denis. “The Tang Official Historian,” The Historian, His Readers, and the Passage of Time. The Fu Ssi-nien Memorial Lectures, Institute of History and Philology, Academia Sinica, 1996, pp. 57-77.

van Ess, Hans. “The Late Western Han Historian Chu Shaosun,” in Michael Nylan und Griet Vankeerberghen (eds.), Chang’an 26 BCE. An Augustan Age in China. Seattle: University of Washington Press, pp. 477-504.

A final written exam (two hours) with open questions (70%).
A written paper (approx. 1500 words, bibliography and notes excluded) on an agreed topic. The papers will be presented in class in turn by the students (20% written paper, 10% presentation).
Details on the delivery, presentation and topics will be provided in class during the first lesson and will be available in moodle.

Each partial grade will be expressed in 30ths and the overall grade will be the average of the parts.

Non-attending students are kindly requested to contact the teacher at the beginning of the semester. The paper will be replaced by a longer paper (approx. 3000 words, bibliography and footnotes excluded).

The teaching will be organized in:
- Frontal lessons;
- Thematic readings. Students will be requested to read of essays on the theme of the lesson;
- Presentation in class of written papers;
- Translation of selected texts from primary sources. The selected texts and the methods of preparation will be indicated in the course of the first lesson.

Italian

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