Response Papers.

From time to time throughout the semester I will be assigning short response papers, basically a 300– to 600–word response to one of the assigned texts.

What I will be looking for in these papers is:

1. evidence that you read the text: a brief summary (no longer than a paragraph) of what the text is about, with some attention to who wrote it and why. If it is a secondary source (as in assignments 1, 3, 4, and 5—see below), identifying the author’s thesis and argument would be useful.
2. evidence that you thought about how the text enhances or complicates our understanding of landscapes and gardens in a given time and place. This should form the bulk of the paper.
3. good writing.

Within these parameters, you can go in any direction you want with these papers. If the text makes you think about gender roles, religious practice, the politics of the time, or contemporary Asian society (just to give a few examples), please write about it. I am hoping that these papers will stimulate your thinking about different aspects of landscape paintings and gardens and that this will deepen your understanding of Chinese and Japanese culture and society.

Please refer to the notes in your syllabus about appropriate formats for written work and about plagiarism. (Yes, plagiarism even matters here: if you quote from the text in your paper, please use a parenthetical reference or footnote.)

If you have further questions about writing response papers, you might visit the HWS Writes website (http://www.hws.edu/academics/ctl/hws_writes.aspx).

Assignments.

1. Due Thursday, Jan. 28: Shuen-fu Lin, “A Good Place Need Not Be a Nowhere: The Garden and Utopian Thought in the Six Dynasties,” in Chinese Aesthetics: The Ordering of Literature, the Arts, and the Universe in the Six Dynasties, ed. Zong-qi Cai (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2004), 123–66;
   
   
2. Due Thursday, Feb. 4: Susan Bush and Hsio-yen Shih, comp. and ed., “The Landscape Texts,” chapter 4 of Early Chinese Texts on Painting (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard-Yenching Institute, Harvard University Press, 1985), 141–90.
   
   
3. Due Thursday, Feb. 18: Terukazu Akiyama, “The Door Paintings in the Phoenix Hall of the Byōdōin as Yamatoe,” Artibus Asiae 53, no. 1/2 (1993): 144–67.
   
   
4. Due Thursday, Feb. 25: Joseph D. Parker, “Attaining Landscapes in the Mind: Nature Poetry and Painting in Gozan Zen,” Monumenta Nipponica 52, no. 2 (Summer 1997): 235–57.
   
   
5. For ARTH 336 students only, due Tuesday, Mar. 29: Katherine Bedingfield, “Wang Shi Yuan: A Study of Space in a Chinese Garden,” The Journal of Architecture 2 (1997): 11–41;
   -OR-
   Craig Clunas, Fruitful Sites: Garden Culture in Ming Dynasty China (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1996), 22–59.

Format for written work:
One of the things you will learn in an art history class is the importance of presentation. This applies to your written work as well:

1. Type all work in a 12-point font.
2. Double-space.
3. Leave one-inch margins on all sides.
4. Number your pages.
5. Put your name and the date on the first page.
6. Check that your spelling, grammar, and punctuation are correct—these are crucial to effective communication of your ideas. Your grade will drop if you have excessive errors.
7. If you cite another source, you must use a.) parenthetical references or footnotes, and
   b.) a list of works cited, as explained in The Chicago Manual of Style (http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/tools_citationguide.html), the documentation style typically used by art historians. (See A note about cheating and plagiarism below.)
8. Include pictures (with captions) of works of art that you discuss.

You can submit written work via Canvas. Please upload a Microsoft Word document (.doc, .docx), Rich Text Format file (.rtf), or a Portable Document Format file (.pdf): these are the only formats that Canvas will accept. Alternatively, you can turn in a stapled hard copy during the class period. PLEASE NOTE: I do not accept papers via e-mail.

A note about cheating and plagiarism:
I will not tolerate any form of academic dishonesty. It destroys the trust that I have in you to do your best, it is unfair to the other students, and obviously you will not learn anything if you resort to cheating. If I find that you have cheated on a test or on a written assignment, you will receive a zero for the assignment and I will contact the Deans and/or the Committee on Standards about your case. If a case goes to the Committee on Standards, I follow the Committee's recommendation; if it also finds evidence of cheating or plagiarism, the recommendation is usually failure of the course at a minimum. See the Colleges’ Principle of Academic Integrity and General Academic Regulations (http://www.hws.edu/catalogue/policies.aspx) and the Handbook of Community Standards (http://www.hws.edu/studentlife/pdf/community_standards.pdf), pp. 38–40.

Now, just in case you are not clear about what plagiarism is: plagiarism is the use of someone else’s words or ideas without giving that person credit. In application, this means that in your writing assignments, you need to cite your sources. When quoting directly from a text—say, five words or more in succession—you need to put those words in quotation marks and include a parenthetical reference or footnote citing the source. When rewriting a passage from a text in your own words, you don’t need the quotation marks but you do still need the parenthetical reference or footnote. If you don’t understand exactly what constitutes plagiarism, or how to use parenthetical references or footnotes, please ask me. I would prefer to explain what it is and how to avoid it before it happens rather than after.