Lectures: F 1:30-4:15pm, Houghton House Library
Office hours: M 2:30-3:30pm, W 3:30-4:30pm, or by appointment, 208 Houghton House

Course description:
How are the feminine and masculine represented in art? This seminar will consider the role of gender in Chinese painting, focusing on the Song and Yuan dynasties (spanning the tenth to fourteenth centuries). Topics will include the setting of figure paintings in gendered space, the coding of landscapes and bird-and-flower paintings as masculine or feminine, and ways that images of women (an often marginalized genre of Chinese art) help to construct ideas of both femininity and masculinity. Throughout, we will examine the differing roles of men and women as patrons, collectors, and painters. The course is cross-listed with Asian Languages & Cultures and Women's Studies. It addresses Goals 6 (an intellectually grounded foundation for the understanding of differences and inequalities of gender, race, and class) and 7 (knowledge of the multiplicity of world cultures).

Textbooks:

• Patricia Buckley Ebrey, The Inner Quarters: Marriage and the Lives of Chinese Women in the Sung Period (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1993).
• Burton Watson, ed. and trans., The Columbia Book of Chinese Poetry: From Early Times to the Thirteenth Century (New York: Columbia University Press, 1984).

Weekly schedule:

Week 1.           Jan. 21. Introduction: an outline of Song and Yuan history.

• Patricia Buckley Ebrey, The Cambridge Illustrated History of China (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 136-89.

Week 2.           Jan. 28. Setting the terms: Western and Chinese theories of gender and representation.

• Norma Broude and Mary D. Garrard, “Introduction: The Expanding Discourse,” in The Expanding Discourse: Feminism and Art History, ed. Norma Broude and Mary D. Garrard (New York: IconEditions, 1992), 1-25.
• Lisa Raphals, “Yin and Yang,” in Sharing the Light: Representations of Women and Virtue in Early China (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1998), 139-168.
• M. H. Abrams, “Figurative Language,” “Imagery,” and “Motif and Theme,” in A Glossary of Literary Terms, 6th ed. (Fort Worth: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc., 1993), 66-70, 86-87, 121.
• Martin J. Powers, “Discourses of Representation in Tenth and Eleventh Century China,” in The Art of Interpreting, ed. Susan C. Scott (University Park, Pa.: The Department of Art History, The Pennsylvania State University, 1995), 88-127.

Week 3.           Feb. 4.  Gendered space.

*RESPONSE PAPER due*

• Ebrey, The Inner Quarters, 21-44.
• Raphals, “Nei-wai: Distinctions between Men and Women,” in Sharing the Light, 195-213.
• Lara C. W. Blanchard, "Lonely Women and the Absent Man: The Masculine Landscape as Metaphor in the Song Dynasty Painting of Women," in Gendered Landscapes: An Interdisciplinary Exploration of Past Place and Space, ed. Bonj Szczygiel, Josephine Carubia and Lorraine Dowler (University Park, Pa.: The Center for Studies in Landscape History, The Pennsylvania State University, 2000), 33-47.
• Irene S. Leung, “The Frontier Imaginary in the Song Dynasty (960-1279): Revisiting Cai Yan’s Barbarian Captivity and Return” (Ph.D. diss., The University of Michigan, 2001), 57-97.

Week 4.           Feb. 11. Men on the road: court and literati paintings of landscapes and river scenes.

*RESPONSE PAPER due*

• Susan Bush and Hsio-yen Shih, comp. and ed., “The Significance of Landscape” and “Figures in Landscape,” in Early Chinese Texts on Painting (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard-Yenching Institute, Harvard University Press, 1985), 150-156.
• Richard Barnhart, “Figures in Landscape,” Archives of Asian Art 42 (1989): 62-70. <JSTOR>
• Peter C. Sturman, “The Donkey Rider as Icon: Li Cheng and Early Chinese Landscape Painting,” Artibus Asiae 55, no. 1/2 (1995): 43-97. <JSTOR>

Week 5.           Feb. 18. Reclusion and homosociality: landscapes of scholars in the wilderness.

*RESPONSE PAPER due*

• Watson, ed. and trans., The Columbia Book of Chinese Poetry, 129-131, 134-136, 142-143.
• Burton Watson, “The Poetry of Reclusion,” Chapter 5 of Chinese Lyricism: Shih Poetry from the Second to the Twelfth Century, with Translations (New York: Columbia University Press, 1971), 68-89.
• Hans H. Frankel, “Man in His Relations with Other Men,” Chapter 3 of The Flowering Plum and the Palace Lady: Interpretations of Chinese Poetry (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1976), 33-40.
• Li Chi, “The Changing Concept of the Recluse in Chinese Literature,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 24 (1962-1963): 234-247. <JSTOR>

Week 6.           Feb. 25. Bird-and-flower paintings as feminine or masculine.

*RESEARCH PROJECT PROPOSAL due*

• Watson, ed. and trans., The Columbia Book of Chinese Poetry, 54-66.
• Hui-shu Lee, “Art and Imperial Images at the Late Southern Sung Court,” in Arts of the Sung and Yüan, ed. Maxwell K. Hearn and Judith G. Smith (New York: Department of Asian Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1996), 249-69.
• Robert E. Harrist, Jr., “Ch’ien Hsüan’s Pear Blossoms: The Tradition of Flower Painting and Poetry from Sung to Yüan,” Metropolitan Museum Journal 22 (1987): 53-70. <JSTOR>

Week 7.           Mar. 4. The immortal figure.

*RESPONSE PAPER due*

• Watson, ed. and trans., The Columbia Book of Chinese Poetry, 54-66 (reread), 116-21.
• Hsio-yen Shih, “Poetry Illustration and the Works of Ku K’ai-chih,” in The Translation of Art: Essays on Chinese Painting and Poetry, ed. James C. Y. Watt (Hong Kong: Centre for Translation Projects, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1976), 6-29.
• Susan E. Nelson, “Tao Yuanming’s Sashes: Or, The Gendering of Immortality,” Ars Orientalis 29 (1999): 1-27. <JSTOR>

Week 8.           Mar. 11. Marriage and motherhood: representations of female virtue.

• Ebrey, The Inner Quarters, 114-30, 152-87.
• Watson, ed. and trans., The Columbia Book of Chinese Poetry, 82-92, 320, 365.
• Julia K. Murray, “Didactic Art for Women: The Ladies’ Classic of Filial Piety,” in Flowering in the Shadows: Women in the History of Chinese and Japanese Painting, ed. Marsha Weidner (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1990), 27-53.
• Julia Ching, “Sung Philosophers on Women,” Monumenta Serica: Journal of Oriental Studies 42 (1994): 259-74.
• Martin J. Powers, “Love and Marriage in Song China: Tao Yuanming Comes Home,” Ars Orientalis 28 (1998): 51-62. <JSTOR>

[March 12-20, SPRING BREAK]

Week 9.           Mar. 25. Women’s work: representations of female duty.

• Ebrey, The Inner Quarters, 130-51.
• Watson, ed. and trans., The Columbia Book of Chinese Poetry, 176.
• Francesca Bray, “Fabrics of Power: The Canonical Meaning of Women’s Work,” in Technology and Gender: Fabrics of Power in Late Imperial China (Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of California Press, 1997), 183-205.
• Lara C. W. Blanchard, “Huizong’s New Clothes: Desire and Allegory in Court Ladies Preparing Newly Woven Silk,” Ars Orientalis 36 (2006): 111-35.

Week 10.         Apr. 1. Transgression and femininity: female entertainers.

*ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY due*

• Ebrey, The Inner Quarters, 217-54.
• Watson, ed. and trans., The Columbia Book of Chinese Poetry, 249-52.
• Marsha L. Wagner, “Popular Tz’u Poetry in the Entertainment Quarters after 755,” Chapter 4 of The Lotus Boat: The Origins of Chinese “Tz’u” Poetry in T’ang Popular Culture (New York: Columbia University Press, 1984), 79-103.
• Beverly Bossler, “Shifting Identities: Courtesans and Literati in Song China,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 62, no. 1 (2002): 5-37. <JSTOR>

Week 11.         Apr. 8. Loneliness and femininity: abandoned women.

*RESPONSE PAPER due*

• Watson, ed. and trans., The Columbia Book of Chinese Poetry, 176.
• Ellen Johnston Laing, “Chinese Palace-Style Poetry and the Depiction of A Palace Beauty,” Art Bulletin 72, no. 1 (March 1990): 284-95. <JSTOR>
• Anne M. Birrell, “The Dusty Mirror: Courtly Portraits of Woman in Southern Dynasties Love Poetry,” in Expressions of Self in Chinese Literature, ed. Robert E. Hegel and Richard C. Hessney (New York: Columbia University Press, 1985), 33-69.
• Hans H. Frankel, “Lonely Women,” Chapter 6 of The Flowering Plum and the Palace Lady: Interpretations of Chinese Poetry (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1976), 56-61.

Week 12.         Apr. 15. Female patrons, collectors, and painters.

*RESPONSE PAPER due*

• Stephen Owen, “The Snares of Memory,” Chapter 5 of Remembrances: The Experience of the Past in Classical Chinese Literature (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1986), 80-98.
• Shen C. Y. Fu, “Princess Sengge Ragi: Collector of Painting and Calligraphy,” trans. Marsha Weidner, in Flowering in the Shadows: Women in the History of Chinese and Japanese Painting, ed. Marsha Weidner (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1990), 55-80.
• Marsha Weidner, “Women in the History of Chinese Painting,” in Views from Jade Terrace: Chinese Women Artists 1300-1912 (Indianapolis: Indianapolis Museum of Art, 1988), 12-29.
• James Robinson, catalogue entries 1 and 2, in Views from Jade Terrace, 66-70.

Week 13.         Apr. 22. Presentations.

Week 14.         Apr. 29. Presentations.

Finals Week.   TBA. Research papers due.

Course requirements:

1.         Class participation (20%). This includes regular and punctual attendance (see Attendance policy below) and participating in class discussions, especially important in a seminar! I grade participation on a daily basis, as follows: A for speaking up in class (even to ask a question or to answer one of my questions incorrectly), B for showing up to class but not speaking, C for not paying attention or coming in late, zero (0) for not coming to class at all.

2.         Response papers (30%). Throughout the semester you will write several one-page papers responding to some of the readings. More details to follow.

3.         Research paper (30%), due TBA. This long research paper must consider connections between gender and painting in 10th- to 14th-century China. More details to follow.

4.         Presentation (20%), Apr. 22 or 29, TBA. This oral presentation with images will be based on your research paper. More details to follow.

Office hours:
I am happy to meet with you outside of class during my office hours (see top of syllabus) or at another time that is convenient for you, in 208 Houghton House.  The best way to set up an appointment is by e-mail, but please note that I regularly read e-mail only between 9:00am and 4:30pm.

Attendance policy:
I consider attendance at lectures to be mandatory. Asian art history is a challenging subject; don’t make it impossible by skipping class! That said, if you have a reasonable excuse for missing a class, I expect you to notify me as soon as possible—preferably in advance—and to turn in a one-page essay on the topics covered on the day of your absence, within a week. Not doing so will directly impact your participation grade. If you are absent twice or more, you should be prepared for me to notify the Deans about your performance. I will be taking attendance regularly.

Attendance and religious holidays:
“The Colleges accept the responsibility of making available to each student who is absent from class because of religious obligations and practices an equivalent opportunity to make up any examination, study or work requirement missed.”
Please inform me in advance of any religious holidays when you will be out of class. I do my best to avoid religious holidays with regard to due dates, but there are times when that is impossible.  Please talk to me if you have any difficulties!

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. Staple your work.
6. Put your name on every page and the date on the first page.
7. Check that your spelling, grammar and punctuation are correct--these are crucial to effective communication of your ideas. I will lower your grade if you have excessive errors.
8. If you cite another source, use either parenthetical references or footnotes. (See A note about cheating and plagiarism below.) Make sure that you follow one of the documentation styles (ideally the one found in the Chicago Manual of Style (which is what art historians most typically use).
9. Include pictures with captions if appropriate (and please attach them to a clean sheet of paper--do not give me loose postcards, illustrations torn from magazines, or copies of the books you found the pictures in. Black-and-white photocopies are okay).

A note about cheating and plagiarism:
I will not tolerate any form of academic dishonesty. Not only does it destroy 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.

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.

Grading:
The research paper will receive a letter grade. Presentations and response papers will receive a check-plus, check, or check-minus. Make-up written assignments, which count as part of your participation grade, will receive a check or a check-minus. If you are unsatisfied with a grade, please prepare a written statement explaining what grade you think you should have received and why, and submit it to me along with the assignment for review.

Papers are due during the class period on the due date. Please turn in a hard copy. PLEASE NOTE:  I mark down one-third of a letter grade (for example, from A to A-) for each calendar day that a paper is late. If you think you will need an extension, you should talk to me as early as possible.

My grading scale is as follows:

A note about the Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL):
At Hobart and William Smith Colleges, we encourage students to seek the academic collaboration and resources that will enable them to do their best work. The CTL offers a variety of resources that can help students achieve academic success, including Teaching Fellows (for course content help in the departments of Anthropology/Sociology, Biology, Chemistry, Economics, Geoscience, Philosophy, Physics, Psychology, Spanish & Hispanic Studies), Writing Colleagues (for help on papers), Study Mentors (for help with study skills and time management), Group Study Tables (for content help in specific courses), and more.

Disability accommodations:
If you are a student with a disability for which you may need accommodations, you should self-identify and register for services with the Coordinator of Disability Services at the Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL), and provide documentation of your disability.  Disability related accommodations and services generally will not be provided until the registration and documentation process is complete.  The guidelines for documenting disabilities can be found here.

Please direct questions about this process or Disability Services at HWS to David Silver, Coordinator of Disability Services, x3351.

Websites:
There are two websites for this course: one at my homepage and one at Blackboard. This syllabus, paper assignments, and links to online resources for Chinese pictures can be found at both. The Blackboard site also has a course calendar, daily handouts, a discussion board, and an online gradebook.