Early 20th century saw the demise of China’s traditional educational and examination system referred to as the Imperial Exams (keju 科舉) that had been recruiting and authorizing scholars for positions in China’s civil service for centuries. Ideas about how to educate modern citizens of the new Chinese nation state had entered the Chinese discourse from abroad during the latter half of the 19th century, alongside many other aspects of modernity and the modern sciences. Modern education, curricula and school textbooks, together with systematic teachers’ education, became institutionalized and part of the Chinese state’s endeavors at modernization and national strengthening in late Qing and during the republican period. New conceptual schemes from educational science and from the modern sciences became essential features of China’s quest for modernity. These discourses and the conceptual changes that ensued will be the focus of this course during the spring semester 2020.
Students will engage with discourse analysis and conceptual history to make sense of the immense changes that occurred during the period between 1905 and 1949 regarding ideas about general public education and educational practices.
Students will be introduced to theories and methodologies of discourse analysis and conceptual history, engage with the secondary literature on modern Chinese education, and develop a term paper on a topic of his/her own choice on one aspect of “Chinese modern education – discourse and concepts”.
Students will present one monograph or a series of articles in class, and will also present a preliminary version of her/his term paper in class during the semester.
Students will in addition, in conjunction with these presentations, be asked to serve as opponents during presentations.