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1 Department of History University of British Columbia HIST 597C – The Spectre of Difference Section 201, Winter 2011-12, 2nd term Timothy Brook / Buchanan 1117 / 604-822-5192 / [email protected] Office hours: Tues 2-3, Thurs 11-12 This course explores comparison as a historical method. Although comparative history has not always found favour in the academy, historians always implicitly compare. We will review the intellectual foundations of the comparative approach, consider how comparison has been done, and investigate the assumptions that make it possible. We will meet weekly for the first ten weeks to discuss issues of historical comparison, at which point each student is invited to work on a research paper (ideally linked to your thesis), consulting with the instructor as needed. Those who do not wish to write a research paper may instead do further readings. You are asked to submit two pieces of written work: 1. a short paper (5-6 pp.), either a prospectus for the research paper, or an analysis of the uses of comparative method in an influential work in your area of expertise; due Monday, February 13; 2. either a research paper (18-20 pp.), or an essay that explore a set of problems that arise when writing a comparative history (12-15 pp.), due Wednesday, April 18. Seminar Topics 1. Course introduction: comparison as method January 4 2. Comparison as perspective: Orientalism January 11 Edward Said in 1978 enunciated what has become the classic critique of the Eurocentric interpretive position. Bernard Lewis’ attack is just as classic. Said, Orientalism, pp. 1-123 Lewis, “The Question of Orientalism” Grafflin, “Orientalism’s Attack on Orientalism” 3. European structures of knowledge of the other January 18 Mediaeval Christianity supplied European intellectuals with certain assumptions about their own history, and therefore also the history of others. Brook and Blue, China and Historical Capitalism, ch. 3 Marshall and Williams, The Great Map of Mankind, ch. 5 van Kley, “Europe’s ‘Discovery’ of China and the Writing of World History” 4. Hegel imagines the world January 25 As the world came into view, Hegel theorized its essence. After reading the Introduction, look ahead to a section about which you have some knowledge (the choices are Asia, Greece, Rome, Germany, and modern Europe) and see what Hegel is saying. Hegel, The Philosophy of History,1857 ed.: pp. 1-27, 56-111, 456-77; 1956 ed.: pp. 1-26, 54-115, 438-57 2 Lemon, “Hegel’s Philosophy of History” Guha, History at the Limit of World History, pp. 1-47 5. Weber models the world February 1 The emergence of the social sciences depended on difference. Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, pp. 13-78 Collins, Weberian Sociological Theory 6. Capitalism February 8 Capitalism as a concept has relied heavily on the comparative method, as we have already seen from Weber. In the 1990s, China moved forward as the chief comparator. Goody, Capitalism and Modernity, chs. 2-3, 5-6 Brook and Blue, China and Historical Capitalism, ch. 4 Schiel, Despotism and Capitalism 7. The challenge of California School: reciprocal comparison February 15 European capitalism could no longer be explained by invoking non-capitalism elsewhere. Wong and Pomeranz argue in favour of pursuing reciprocal comparison. Wong, China Transformed, pp. 1-151 Pomeranz, The Great Divergence 8. Foucault and the comparative history of the body February 29 It was the body that presented Foucault with the material from which to start unravelling established assumptions. for while everyone has a body, but not all cultures inhabit the body, nor represent it, in the same way. Our joint example is the Chinese body in pain; bring in others for discussion. Foucault, TBA Flynn, “Foucault’s Mapping of History” Brook, Bourgon, and Blue, Death by a Thousand Cuts, chs. 1, 5-9 9. Other cultures March 7 Comparison has had to learn to deal with the heterogeneity of cultures in the global context. We will read Zhang Longxi, but each member is asked to present an instance from his/her own field that involves making comparisons across cultures. Zhang, Mighty Opposites, chs. 1, 2, 4, 6 10. Is modernity the end of comparison? March 14 Lang, “Modern, Postmodern, World” Sachsenmaier, Reflections on Multiple Modernities: Introduction, chs. 3, 4, 10 Harootunian, Overcome by Modernity, Preface Woodside, Lost Modernities 11. Presentation of research April 4 3 Bibliography Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso, 1983. 2nd ed.,1989. 3rd ed., 2006. -----. The Spectre of Comparison: Nationalism, Southeast Asia, and the World. London: Verso, 1998. DS685 A737 App, Urs. The Birth of Orientalism. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010. Braudel, Fernand. The Perspective of the World. Civilization and Capitalism, vol. 3. London: Collins, 1984. Brook, Timothy, and Gregory Blue, eds. China and Historical Capitalism: Genealogies of Sinological Knowledge. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. Brook, Timothy, Jérôme Bourgon, and Gregory Blue. Death by a Thousand Cuts. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2008. Cole, Juan. Comparing Muslim Societies: Knowledge and the State in a World Civilization. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1992. Collins, Randall. Weberian Sociological Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986. HM22 G3 W4257 Flynn, Thomas. “Foucault’s Mapping of History.” Ch. 1 of Cambridge Companion to Foucault, ed. Gary Gutting, 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. B2430 F724 C36 Frank, Andre Gunder. Re-Orient: Global Economy in the Asian Age. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998. Goody, Jack. Capitalism and Modernity: The Great Debate. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2004. HN13 G66 -----. The Theft of History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006. D16.9 G63 Grafflin, Dennis. “Orientalism’s Attack on Orientalism.” Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars 15:3 (1983), pp. 71-74. Guha, Ranajit. History at the Limit of World History. New York: Columbia University Press, 2002. D20 G756 Harootunian, Harry. Overcome by Modernity: History, Culture, and Community in Interwar Japan. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000. Hegel, G. W. F. The Philosophy of History, trans. J. Sibree. London: Henry Bohn, 1857 [available @ books.google.ca]. Reprint: New York: Dover, 1956. Kuran, Timur. The Long Divergence: How Islamic Law Held Back the Middle East. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010. Lach, Donald. Asia in the Making of Europe. 9 vols. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1965-93. Especially vol. 7 (Vol. 2, Bk. 3): “The Scholarly Disciplines.” Land, Michael. “Modern, Postmodern. World.” In World Histories, ed. Marnie HughesWarrington, pp. 168-88. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006. D13 P323 Lemon, M. C. “Hegel’s Philosophy of History.” Ch. 9 of his Philosophy of History: A Guide for Students (Routledge, 2003), pp. 201-37. D16.8 L464 [online@UBC] Lewis, Bernard. “The Question of Orientalism.” Review of Said, Orientalism. New York Review of Books 29:11 (24 June 1982). Lewis, Martin, and Kären Wigen. The Myth of Continents: A Critique of Metageography. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997. 4 Lindau, Juan, and Timothy Cheek, eds. Market Economics and Political Change: Comparing China and Mexico. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 1998. HC 472.92 M388 Lincoln, Bruce. Holy Terrors: Thinking about Religion after September 11. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003. Marshall, P.J., and Glyndwr Williams. The Great Map of Mankind: British Perceptions of the World in the Age of Enlightenment. London: J.M. Dent, 1982. Pomeranz, Kenneth. The Great Divergence: Europe, China, and the Making of the Modern World Economy. Princeton University Press, 2000. HC240 P5965 Porter, David. Ideographia: The Chinese Cipher in Early Modern Europe. Stanford: Stanford University Press,2001. Rosenthal, Jean-Laurent, and R. Bin Wong. Before and Beyond Divergence: The Politics of Economic Change in China and Europe. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2011. Sachsenmaier, Dominic, and Jens Riedel, eds. Reflections on Multiple Modernities: European, Chinese and Other Interpretations. Leiden: Brill, 2002. HM449 M85 Said, Edward. Orientalism. New York: Vintage, 1979. Schiel, Tilman. Despotism and Capitalism: A Historical Comparison of Europe and Indonesia. Fort Lauderdale: Breitenbach, 1985. HC448 J4 S336 Tilly, Charles. Big Structures, Large Processes, Huge Comparisons. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1984. HM101 T55 van Kley, Edwin. “Europe’s ‘Discovery’ of China and the Writing of World History.” American Historical Review 76:2 (1971), 358-85. Vries, Peer. “Are Coal and Colonies Really Crucial? Kenneth Pomeranz and the Great Divergence.” Journal of World History 12:2 (Fall, 2001), pp. 407-446. -----. “Is California the Measure of All Things Global?” World History Connected 2:2 (2005). Weber, Max. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. Wong, R. Bin. China Transformed: Historical Change and the Limits of European Experience. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1997. Woodside, Alexander. Lost Modernities: China, Vietnam, Korea, and the Hazards of World History. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006. Zhang, Longxi. Mighty Opposites: From Dichotomies to Differences in the Comparative Study of China. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998.