The sequence of four courses proposes a multidisciplinary approach to studying Chinese cultural history. It is conceived as a series of modes of rationality, including bureaucratic and philosophical. It will focus on moments when one mode of rationality is replaced by another. Each of these events will be covered in detail with cultural facts, artifacts, literature, and rituala. A brief exploration into the Han (220 CE-220 CE) is included. The social and cultural foundations of imperial rationality were laid by the Warring States. However, the Period of Division witnessed the Buddhist conquest of China, and the rise of an ideology defined by opposition of the Three Teachings of Shamanism to it. This is a stark contrast between popular and elite culture.
Third and fourth courses will be about the modernization of China during the Song-Yuan period (960-1368), and today's China from 1850 to present. The modern assault on religion (also known as "superstition") led to not only religious reform movements, but also a society where science and nation were the main value systems that the state promoted.
