AP/HIST 1074 6.00

The Chinese Body in Cross-Cultural Perspective: Medicine, Food, and Footbinding

Course Director: Prof. J. Judge - judge@yorku.ca

This course uses the Chinese body as an entry point into the richness and complexity of daily life as it was lived and experienced in Chinese history. It focuses on two preeminent concerns in Chinese civilization—health and food—and on one of the most mysterious, widely condemned, and little understood Chinese bodily practices—footbinding.

Expanded Course Description (expanded from course calendar description):

This course uses the Chinese body as an entry point into the richness and complexity of daily life as it was experienced in Chinese history. It focuses on two preeminent concerns in Chinese civilization—health and food—and on one of the most widely condemned and little understood Chinese bodily practices—footbinding.

The course is divided into three sections:

HEALING THE CHINESE BODY

NOURISHING THE CHINESE BODY

FOOTBINDING AND THE CHINESE BODY

We explore these themes through readings, images, film, and literature. Throughout these explorations we continue to revisit the following overriding questions: How does an examination of everyday bodily experience deepen our understanding of Chinese history and highlight the particularities of Chinese history in comparative perspective? How do Chinese and Western notions of the body differ and what do these differences signal about broader cultural differences? 

Required Course Text/Readings: *TENTATIVE*

We will use three kinds of materials in class:

-books that you are encouraged to purchase

-electronic resources which will be posted on our class Moodle site

-electronic resources you can access through your York library account

BOOKS

The main course textbook:

Patricia Buckley Ebrey. The Cambridge Illustrated History of China. Cambridge University Press; 2nd edition, 2010.

Our main textbook for the section on food:

E. N. Anderson. The Food of China. Yale University Press, 1990.

A novel we will read in the third part of the course on footbinding:

Feng Jicai. The Three-Inch Golden Lotus: A Novel on Foot Binding. University of Hawaii Press: 1994.

Weighting of Course:  *TENTATIVE Grade Breakdown*

Participation: 20%

Small assignments: 10%

Exams: 30%

Short essay: 15%

Final essay: 25%