HIST3404 Historical Literature and Documents: The Medieval World of Marco Polo

Introduction

In the year 1296, the Italian merchant Marco Polo was captured by enemies from the rival city of Genoa. While in captivity, he befriended a romance writer named Rustichello of Pisa to whom he told his amazing life story. Marco came from a family of merchants who traded in precious goods that were brought to Europe from China along the famous Silk Road. As a young man, he set out with his father and uncle in the year 1269 into Asia, which was then dominated by the powerful Mongol Empire of Kublai Khan. Marco would spend twenty-four years in China and become the first Western European to gain detailed knowledge of the country and its people.

We know his story thanks to Rustichello, who wrote the work that we know today as The Travels of Marco Polo. The work is as fascinating as it is controversial. Was Marco telling the truth? How reliable was Rustichello’s account? What does it say about medieval Europeans’ views of China? This course will give students the chance to explore these questions and more through a focused reading of The Travels of Marco Polo and a supplementary selection of documents and other historical evidence. Instead of a traditional lecture format, we will meet in seminars to discuss each week’s topic, emphasising active participation and lively debate.

Learning Goals

This course has three main goals:

1. To introduce you to the story of Marco Polo and the controversies that surround the text.
2. To explore how medieval Europeans viewed China and what it reveals about pre-modern concepts of cultural difference and similarity.
3. To help you develop the fundamental skillset and sensibility of a historian: how to understand scholarly debates, how to think critically about historical narratives, and how to effectively communicate your analysis to others.

Need Help?

It’s ok to ask for it! I understand that you may not have studied this subject before. If you have any difficulties with the readings, assignments, discussions, or any other aspects of the course, let me know and I will be happy to help you – that is what I am here for. You should feel free to email me and I will answer any questions that you have. Also, if you have a question during a seminar or tutorial, go ahead and ask me there and then; other students in the class may have the same question and you might be helping them too!

Online Contingency Plans

As things stand at the end of 2020, our plan is to hold the class in-person. However, classes will also be taught simultaneously over Zoom. This means that you will be able to attend the class online through Zoom if you are unable to attend in person. Further information on log-in details, updates to contingency plans, etc. will be provided closer to the start of the semester.

Assessment Overview

Your performance in the course will be assessed on the cumulative basis of different types of assignment (described in more detail below) and your attendance. There will not be an exam or quiz component. The weighting of the different factors is as follows:

Final Essay                                    30%
Discussion Participation            30%
Reading Summaries                   20%
Topic Presentation                     10%
Attendance                                   10%

Your final letter grade will be determined by your overall course percentage. You will not be graded on a curve. Grades will be assigned according to the following set thresholds:

A      90%                     C+  65%
A-     85%                     C    60%      
B+    80%                     C-   55%
B      75%                     D    50%
B-     70%                     F     >50%

Grade Descriptions

A                     Exceptional: Exceeds expectations. Demonstrates impressive knowledge, clarity, analytical ability, and a firm grasp of course material.

A-                    Strong: Has most of the qualities of A-grade work but has some minor areas for improvement.

B (+/-)             Good: Shows a solid understanding of course material. Has some flaws in writing or argumentation and may contain minor errors or misunderstandings.

C (+/-)             Satisfactory: Demonstrates an acceptable level of knowledge but suffers from lack of clarity, misunderstandings, historical errors, or weak argumentation.

D                     Unsatisfactory: Achieves the minimum passing grade but fails to meet most expectations of knowledge and argumentation.

F                      Failed: Does not meet basic expectations of knowledge, understanding, and/or timeliness in submission.

Course Readings

You will be assigned about 40–50 pages of reading each week. The main text will be Ronald Latham’s 1972 edition of The Travels of Marco Polo. While there are other translations available online and in libraries, these often differ from one another on account of the work’s complicated manuscript history. To make sure that we are all on the same page, I will make each week’s reading available online on the Blackboard course site.

You will also read an article or book chapter every week that sheds light on the relevant section of Marco Polo using documents or other historical evidence from outside the text. These readings will be posted online on Blackboard.

If you would like a general introduction to the period and the topic, I can recommend the following (non-compulsory) readings, all of which are available online or in the CUHK library system:

Beckwith, C.I. Empires of the Silk Road: A History of Central Eurasia from the Bronze Age to the Present. Princeton, NJ, 2009.

Bergreen, L. Marco Polo: From Venice to Xanadu. New York, 2007.

Brook, T. The Troubled Empire: China in the Yuan and Ming Dynasties. Cambridge, MA, 2010.

Ferraro, J.M. Venice: History of the Floating City. Cambridge, 2012.

Park, H. Mapping the Chinese and Islamic Worlds: Cross-Cultural Exchange in Pre-Modern Asia. Cambridge, 2012.

Whitfield, S. Silk, Slaves, and Stupas: Material Culture of the Silk Road. Berkeley, CA, 2018.

Wickham, C. Medieval Europe. New Haven, 2016.

Reading Summaries

Before each class, you will complete the readings assigned for that week and then write a short summary (max. 500 words) that you will submit in hard copy during the class. The summary should describe the content of what you have read (both the reading from Marco Polo and the secondary reading). This is a reading comprehension exercise that will help to develop your skills in analysing and explaining texts in a short space.

For the Marco Polo readings, you should focus on summarising the general content of what is described and anything that the text emphasises or describes at length. For the secondary reading, you should describe both its content (what it is about) and the author’s central argument, if there is one. Sample reading summaries will be available on the course Blackboard site to give you a clear idea of what to aim for.

I will only ask you to write reading summaries for ten out of the thirteen weeks. This means that you get to skip three reading summaries; you can choose which ones.

Topic Presentation

Each class will begin with a topic presentation by a student or students to get the discussion started. This will constitute 10% of your overall course grade and every student will be expected to present once (no more, no less). Depending on the size of the class, you may be presenting alongside other students, in which case you should work together on your topic presentation as a team.

Topic presentations should be about 10–15 minutes (and absolutely no more than 20 minutes). In your presentation, you should explain what you found most interesting about the week’s readings and why. I would also like you to pose at least five questions to the class that will help to get the discussion moving. If you want, you can supplement your presentation with a short PowerPoint slideshow or use other kinds of visual/audio accompaniment as appropriate. Feel free to get creative – remember, the goal is to spark the most interesting discussion that you can!

Final Essay

I will ask you to write a final essay (2,000–2,500 words) at the end of the semester, due on 17^th May. I will provide you with a selection of five topics at the end of the lecture in week 11. You will choose one of the five topics to write about. The essay will require you to reflect on the major themes of the course and to use examples from the readings to make an argument that relates to a significant debate within historical scholarship on Marco Polo and 13^th-century Eurasia.

The essay should be written to academic standards with a central thesis, reference to primary sources and secondary literature, and appropriate citations in footnotes. You are free to follow any accepted academic citation style such as Chicago, Harvard, or MLA. If you are not sure about how to write citations, I recommend looking at the Chicago Manual of Style quick citation guide: https://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/tools_citationguide.html

If you have any questions about either of the essays, let me know and I will be happy to answer.

Assignment Submission, Extensions, and Lateness Penalties

You will be expected to submit your final essay by 11:59pm on the date specified in the course schedule below by uploading it to the relevant section of the Blackboard course website along with a signed declaration of academic honesty from VeriGuide.

Scheduling conflicts and unforeseen circumstances can sometimes make it difficult to meet deadlines. If you are unable to submit your work on time, please contact me as soon as possible and I will be happy to grant you an extension if you have a legitimate reason to require one.

If you fail to submit work on time and I have not granted you an extension, you will incur a daily lateness penalty of 1 percentage point. For example, if you submit your final essay (worth 30%) 3 days after the deadline, you will lose 3 of the 30% available for that assignment; if you submit it 5 days late, you will lose 5 of the 20%, etc. I will not accept any further submissions after 7 days have passed unless I have granted special permission.

Participation

Instead of holding separate tutorial sessions, the tutorials will be merged into the regular seminar meetings. This means that our seminar meetings will now be 2 hours and 15 minutes long, but you will not have to attend separate tutorials during the semester. Remember that active participation in seminars is expected and will be 30% of your overall course grade – so don’t be shy!

Attendance and Absences

You are expected to attend all seminars a. This will comprise 10% of your overall course grade. If you have a valid reason for being absent from a seminar (such as a doctor’s appointment, a family emergency, or similar), please contact me as soon as possible to ask for permission.

Plagiarism and Academic Ethics

Studying at the university level requires a high standard of professionalism and honesty in your academic work and personal conduct. This falls under the broad category of academic ethics, a matter that the History Department at CUHK takes very seriously. I expect you all to behave in an honest and respectful manner in class and in your assignments. Unethical behaviour, including plagiarism, will not be tolerated. You can find more information on university policy at http://www.cuhk.edu.hk/policy/academichonesty/.

If you are unsure about the definition of plagiarism or academic ethics, feel free to ask me and I will be happy to discuss it with you in more detail.

Open-Door Hours

I open my office door every week from 2 to 5pm on Friday so that anyone can drop in and speak to me about anything they want. If you would like to chat with me about any aspect of the course, your university studies, career development, favourite historical books and movies, or anything else, feel free to drop by and I will be happy to see you. If you would like to talk to me but can’t make it to my open-door hours, just send me an email and we can set up an appointment at a more convenient time.

In the event that face-to-face teaching becomes impossible, I will instead hold open-door hours by Zoom. I will provide log-in details on the Blackboard course website.

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.