Download Name: The Empress Wu Zetian This site evaluates place in Chinese

Name: ______________________________
The Empress Wu Zetian
This site evaluates place in Chinese history of reign of Empress Wu Zetian of the Tang
Dynasty.
http://womeninworldhistory.com/heroine6.html
Questions for exploration.
What was the status of women during the Tang Dynasty?
What aspect of traditional court politics in the pre-modern world did Wu's political struggles exemplify?
In what ways did she seek to raise the status of women?
According to this essay, the Empress Wu's rule was both constructive and tyrannical. What was an
example of each of these aspects of her administration?
Chinese Poetry
This site explores Chinese poetry’s revelations about Chinese society.
http://www.bookrags.com/biography/po-chu-i/
http://www.questia.com/library/encyclopedia/su_tung_po.jsp
http://www.poemhunter.com/su-tung-po/biography/
http://public.wsu.edu/~wldciv/world_civ_reader/world_civ_reader_1/chinese_poetry.html
Questions for exploration.
How does the poetry of Po Chu-I and Su Tung-po offer critical judgments on the often-vaunted Chinese
imperial state?
How does the poetry of Fu Husuan and Mei Yao Ch'en illuminate the status of women in Chinese society?
What images do they evoke to show the emotional sterility Chinese women might face in the home and
the labor they were expected to perform without complaint?
What Chinese folk belief does Mei Yao Ch'en draw upon to show that not all husbands were, at least
after their wife's death, ignorant of the value of the love offered them by their wives?
China: Ancient Arts and Sciences
This site explores the arts and sciences of China.
http://www.4panda.com/chinatips/culture/tech-sciene.htm
http://sln.fi.edu/tfi/info/current/inventions.html
Questions for further exploration:
Scholars maintain that, from 600 AD until 1500 AD, China was the world's most technologically
advanced society. What are the bases of this claim?
Why is it also true that ancient Chinese crafts were equally advanced?
What place did the natural world have in the development of Chinese craft-working?
The Restoration of the Chinese Empire under the Tang and Song
This site explores the Chinese Empire and its restoration.
http://www-chaos.umd.edu/history/imperial2.html
Questions for exploration.
One of the achievements of the Tang and Song administrative orders was that they attempted to
broaden the base of power. How did the Tang and Song attempt to broaden and liberalize the
bureaucracy nonetheless ultimately serve to concentrate power in the hands of a few?
What role did the neo-Confucian philosophy of Zhu Xi, so liberal and humanistic, become a means of
supporting a rigid of political hierarchy?
The Tang Chinese Imperial City of Chang’an
These sites discuss the nature of the design and function of the Tang Dynasty capital city.
http://www.pitt.edu/~asian/week-10/week-10.html
http://arts.cultural-china.com/en/83Arts7518.html
http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/core9/phalsall/images/changan.gif (city map)
Questions for exploration.
Scroll down to the section treating the Imperial City. What principles governed the planning of the city of
Chang’an?
How was it oriented in terms of the four cardinal directions?
How was the city laid out in terms of its inhabitants (merchants, Emperors, etc.)?
How were the people of the city regulated and served by the municipal administration?
The Exoticism of the Tang
This site discusses the influence of foreign trade on Tang culture and the place of foreigners
in Chinese society.
http://www.silk-road.com/artl/tang.shtml
Questions for further exploration:
How did the great opportunities for foreign trade and foreign visitors during the Tang dynasty enrich
Chinese culture? Give specific examples of this process.
How did the Chinese then regard and treat foreigners?
What developments hastened a change in Chinese policy toward them?