HIST1000B History for Today

The study of history is at once a science, an art and a craft. Why? In what sense? This course answers this question with concrete case studies. Different types of historical archives will be selected, and ways with which these archives are interpreted will be demonstrated. Major themes of historical study will also be introduced. 

Learning Outcomes

 By the end of the course, students will:
*   Have enhanced awareness and curiosity of professional historical knowledge and its relevance to today’s major issues or personal concerns;
*   Have enhanced judgment to distinguish narratives from facts;
*   Have enhanced ability to practice the craft, science and art of historical research;
*   Have enhanced reading, writing, and oral expression skills.

Two Important Websites

*   CUHK Blackboard in which all course materials are uploaded:
 https://blackboard.cuhk.edu.hk

*   CUHK History Department Course Website:
 https://www.history.cuhk.edu.hk/201920_hist1000b.html

Lecture 01 (To be revised): Introduction and Methodology I: History in Three Keys
Paul Cohen, History in Three Keys: the Boxers as Event, Experience, and Myth (New York: Columbia University Press., 1997). 

Lecture 02 (To be revised): Methodology II: Historical Imagination
(1)  Footlight Parade. Directed by Lloyd Bacon. United States: Warner Bros, 1933.
(2)  Shanhai Gaeri No Ri Ru上海帰りのリル. Directed by Shima Koji島耕二. Tokyo: Shintoho新東寶and Sougeiporo総芸プロ, 1952.
(3)  Shanghai Lil and the Sun Luck Kid, also known as Hao Ke豪客. Directed by Chu-Ko Ching-Yun諸葛青雲and Yang Ching-Chen楊靜塵. Hong Kong: The Shaw Brothers, 1973. 

Lecture 03 (To be revised): Social History I
Natalie Zemon Davis, The Return of Martin Guerre (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press 1983). 

Lecture 04 (To be revised): Social History II
Robert Darnton, The Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History (New York, NY: Basic Books, 1999).
James Watson, “Standardizing the gods: the promotion of T’ien Hou (‘Empress of Heaven’) along the South China Coast”, in Popular Culture in Late Imperial China eds. David Johnson, Andrew Nathan and Evelyn Rawski (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985), pp. 292-324.

Lecture 05 (To be revised): Political History I: From IMC to CMC
Hans van de Ven, Breaking with the Past: the Maritime Customs Service and the Global Origins of Modernity in China (New York: Columbia University Press, 2014).

Lecture 06 (To be revised): Political History II: The CLC
Xu Guoqi, Strangers on the Western Front: Chinese Workers in the Great War (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2011).

Lecture 07 (To be revised): Semester Paper Workshop (I)
Anthony Grafton, The Footnote: a Curious History (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1997).

Lecture 08 (To be revised): Semester Paper Workshop (II)

Lecture 09 (To be revised): Semester Paper Workshop (III)

Lecture 10 (To be revised): Semester Paper Workshop (IV)

Lecture 11 (To be revised): Semester Paper Workshop (V)

Lecture 12 (To be revised): Semester Paper Workshop (VI)

Lecture 13 (To be revised): Semester Paper Workshop (VII) and Conclusion

Semester Paper: 100%

* Minimum 5,000 English words including footnotes.

* No bibliography is needed.

* To be submitted to Veriguide on or before                         (one week after the last lecture). 

* Delay of submission by one day leads to deduction of 10 marks, for instance, from 90 to 80, and so forth.

* Topic of the semester paper: To be announced
* Archives for tutorial presentation and discussion: To be announced

• There will be THREE tutorial groups, each containing SIX sessions, all students are expected to join one of the three groups, attend all tutorials and make one oral presentation of about 10-15 minutes. Ideally, each tutorial group should contain no more than 25 students.

• Each student is to make an oral presentation of about 10 to 15 minutes based on historical archives (to be announced soon).

• Tutorial counts for 10% of the total mark (100). Ten percent might mean little, but is vital to the writing of semester paper. So do please make an effort to attend all the tutorial sessions.

Tutorial Schedule:

To be revised

Attention is drawn to University policy and regulations on honesty in academic work, and to the disciplinary guidelines and procedures applicable to breaches of such policy and regulations. Details may be found at http://www.cuhk.edu.hk/policy/academichonesty/.

With each assignment, students will be required to submit a signed declaration that they are aware of these policies, regulations, guidelines and procedures.

• In the case of group projects, all members of the group should be asked to sign the declaration, each of whom is responsible and liable to disciplinary actions, irrespective of whether he/she has signed the declaration and whether he/she has contributed, directly or indirectly, to the problematic contents.
• For assignments in the form of a computer-generated document that is principally text-based and submitted via VeriGuide, the statement, in the form of a receipt, will be issued by the system upon students’ uploading of the soft copy of the assignment.

Assignments without the properly signed declaration will not be graded by teachers.

Only the final version of the assignment should be submitted via VeriGuide.

The submission of a piece of work, or a part of a piece of work, for more than one purpose (e.g. to satisfy the requirements in two different courses) without declaration to this effect shall be regarded as having committed undeclared multiple submissions. It is common and acceptable to reuse a turn of phrase or a sentence or two from one’s own work; but wholesale reuse is problematic. In any case, agreement from the course teacher(s) concerned should be obtained prior to the submission of the piece of work.