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

TBA.

Course Requirements

TBA.

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. NOTE: leaving early for or returning late from Spring Break does not count as an excused absence.

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.