Snowflake Challenge 3: Wish list

[forestofglory]

This year I've actually been taking part in the Snowflake Challenge but most over on Mastodon. But I started writing up this wish list and it got a bit long so I'm posting it here.

My sign up for fandomtrees covers most of the fanworks I'd like to receive

Other than that:

I would love to receive fanart or graphics for any of my fic, not just the ones in fandoms I requested for fandom trees!

I want more people to watch The Long Ballad and yell at me about their feelings

I would love some sources (in English) about the material culture of the First Turkic Khaganate. I've found basically nothing and it would be really helpful for the fic I'm writing!

I want advice on which stories in the Taiping Guangji I should try reading with my Classical Chinese tutor

I'd like more time and energy and less hand pain so I can write more

Comments

[libitina]

I loved The Long Ballad.

What have you tried already in researching - i.e. where should I start looking?

[forestofglory]

I've been thinking about how to answer this question for a bit and I'm still not sure I can explain in a helpful way. I've tried searching various terms in google scholar and JSTOR -- I don't remember all of them. Stuff like various names for the First Turkic Khaganate. Mongolian archeology I think? Maybe I should keep better records.

My usual trick of finding a something useful an then reading all the interesting looking references and things that cite it is failing because I keep running into sources in Russian, German, Mandarin, ect that I can't read

But a friend elsenet sent me this https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2352226718300047 and I found "The Tomb of Pugu Yitu (635–678) in Mongolia:Tang-Turkic Diplomacy and Ritual" by Jonathan Karam Skaff file buried in my files (Thanks zotero!) and they both have a couple of interesting looking sources in English so I think I might be finally making some progress here!

[libitina]

And you're looking for material culture things like furniture, textiles, carriages, and stuff?

[libitina]

I did a quick search of just TURKIC and skimmed the first 200 out of 550 results, and these look the most promising for history.


Duturaeva, D. (2022). Qarakhanid Roads to China: A History of Sino-Turkic Relations. Brill. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1163/j.ctv2kqx01p (open access)

Mediaeval Manichaean book art : a codicological study of Iranian and Turkic illuminated book fragments from 8th-11th century east Central Asia / by Zsuzanna Gulácsi (EBSCOhost)

Sui-Tang China and its Turko-Mongol neighbors : culture, power and connections, 580-800 / Jonathan Karam Skaff (Oxford)


Some of the physical books I could get access to:
The Uygur-Turkic biography of the seventh-century Chinese Buddhist Pilgrim Xuanzang : ninth and tenth chapters / edited and translated with a commentary by Kahar Barat

The Turkic speaking peoples : 2,000 years of art and culture from inner Asia to the Balkans / Ergun Çağatay and Doğan Kuban (eds.) ; [English translation: Adair Mill]

An introduction to the history of the Turkic peoples : ethnogenesis and state-formation in medieval and early modern Eurasia and the Middle East / Peter B. Golden

History of the Turkic peoples in the pre-Islamic period / edited by Hans Robert Roemer ; with the assistance of Wolfgang-Ekkehard Scharlipp = Histoire des peuples turcs à l'époque pré-islamique / édité par Hans Robert Roemer ; avec l'assistance de Wolfgang-Ekkehard Scharlipp

Who gets the past? : competition for ancestors among non-Russian intellectuals in Russia / Victor A. Shnirelman

~*~

And then for art books

Turks : a journey of a thousand years, 600-1600 / edited by David J. Roxburgh

Uygur patronage in Dunhuang : regional art centres on the northern Silk Road in the tenth and eleventh centuries / by Lilla Russell-Smith (after when you're looking, but possibly still randomly interesting)

Arts of the Hellenized East : precious metalwork and gems of the Pre-Islamic era / Martha L. Carter ; with contributions by Prudence O. Harper and Pieter Meyers

[forestofglory]

Thank you! This so helpful. I wouldn't have thought to look for art books, but I think they are likely to be very helpful. My library consortium only has the 1st of these art books but I've requested it ILL.

I'll have to see which else of these I can get my hands on. (I do have copy of Sui-Tang China and its Turko-Mongol neighbors which is very relivent to The Long Ballad, but only has a smattering of material culture stuff -- its one of the things where all the interesting references are in languages I can't read!)

[libitina]

OMG!!!! There's a class this semester that you should take!!!! Let me see if I can paste the syllabus into comments

University of Pennsylvania
Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations
EALC 1702/6702
East Asian Environments


Readings and schedule are subject to change depending on enrollment.



Spring, 2024

Instructor: Dr. Wenjiao Cai (wenjiao@sas.upenn.edu)

Class: Thursdays, 3:30–4:59, COHN 337

Office hours: Tuesdays, 1–2:30 pm, immediately after class, or by appointment



Yichang-Three-Gorges-Dam-Yangtze-River-China.webpScreenshot 2024-01-10 at 12.59.19 AM-1.png



COURSE DESCRIPTION

Home to vibrant societies, East Asia is undergoing profound environmental transformations. These developments, crucial for understanding the crises of our time, have deep roots in the past. This seminar course investigates key topics in East Asian environmental history over the last three millennia as we think about the region’s role in the global ecological future. Focusing on China, Korea, and Japan, we will explore not only how East Asian societies shaped and were shaped by the natural world they inhabited, but also how an environmental perspective helps us view issues such as economic development, ethnicity, state-building, urbanization, and colonialism in a new light. In examining narratives of ecological change in East Asia, we will gain a deeper understanding of the region and the role of the environment in history and historiography.



COURSE COMPONENTS

Active Attendance (20%): As this course is based on discussion, careful preparation and active participation are crucial for its success. Students are expected to attend having completed the readings and ready to contribute. They should also have all reading materials for each week at hand. In the first half of each meeting, each student will present a one-paragraph critique of an assigned reading, focusing on the author’s argument and supporting evidence.

Those who need to miss a class should notify the instructor in advance. Unexcused absences will result in deductions from the final course grade.



Web Posting (20%): As part of preparation for class, students are to post short responses (200–500 words) to each week’s readings on Canvas. These should critically engage with one or two key issues in the readings for the week and include two questions for discussion. Responses may consider one or more of the following elements: 1) one or two points of personal interest in the readings, 2) the authors’ approaches to the week’s topic, and 3) notable primary sources cited in the readings and their effectiveness in supporting the author’s arguments. Prompts specific to each week’s topic may be posted on Canvas. Responses are due 4:00 PM the day before class (Wednesday afternoons).



Show-and-Tell (10%): On February 15, students will give a 10-minute presentation in class about a primary source representing some aspect of East Asian environmental history. The primary source could be a text, an image (e.g., a photograph of a polluted river), or an object (e.g., a shirt button manufactured in a Chinese factory), and presentations should contain a clear take-away message. To help students prepare for this assignment, we will devote one section to discussing what constitutes a primary source for historians and how environmental historians combine various kinds of information to yield fruitful conclusions.



Book Review (10%): Students will write a review (750–1000 words) of a monograph or multiple articles chosen in consultation with the instructor. Ideally, they will write this review with their final project in mind.



Final Project Proposal (10%): To initiate their final project, students are to conduct preliminary research on a topic of their choice and write up a proposal (1.5­–2 single-spaced pages) to be reviewed by the instructor. They will also give oral presentations on the proposal in class to receive feedback from their peers. The proposal should include but not be limited to the following elements: 1) the historical topic or question to be addressed, 2) the reason for choosing the topic, 3) a working thesis, 4) a plan for conducting research, and 5) a bibliography listing at least four relevant published sources. The proposal is due April 4, 8 PM, via Canvas.



Final Project (30%): Students will write a research essay of 3000 words on any topic relating to our course themes. It should be based on discoveries using interpretive strategies and research skills developed throughout the course. A good paper should advance a clear argument with supporting evidence and engage with existing secondary scholarship.



The project may also take the form of a podcast (around 3 minutes), movie (around 3 minutes), narrated Powerpoint/Keynote presentation. Other formats and media may also be used with instructor’s approval. Digital projects must be accompanied by a short (1–1.5 page, single-spaced) writeup that contextualizes the interpretive choices made in your project.



The final project is due on Sunday, May 5, at 8 PM.



A Note on the Syllabus:

All required readings are reserved at the Van Pelt Library or accessible online via Franklin. Most of the readings are also available on our course Canvas site. As we progress through the course, I may adjust the readings to better address students’ needs. Updates will be given both in class and on Canvas.



SCHEDULE OF MEETINGS AND READINGS



Week 1 (1/18) Opening Discussion



Week 2 (1/25) Asia in the Anthropocene

Dipesh Chakrabarty, “The Climate of History: Four Theses,” Critical Inquiry 35 (winter 2009), 197–222.

Mark J. Hudson, “Placing Asia in the Anthropocene: Histories, Vulnerabilities, Responses,” Journal of Asian Studies 73, no. 4 (November 2014): 941–962.

Elizabeth Chatterjee, “The Asian Anthropocene: Electricity and Fossil Developmentalism,” The Journal of Asian Studies 79, no. 1 (2020): 3-24.



Week 3 (2/1) Thinking Long-Term

Library Session: Our class meets at the Van Pelt Library, East Asian Studies Seminar Room (526)



Mark Elvin, “Tree Thousand Years of Unsustainable Development: China's Environment from Archaic Times to the Present,” East Asian History no. 6 (1993): 7–46.

Brian Lander, The King’s Harvest (New Haven, Yale University Press, 2021), “How People Came to Build their own Ecosystem,” 32–73.

Ian Miller, “Forestry and the Politics of Sustainability in Early China,” Environmental History 22, no. 4 (2017): 594–617.



Week 4 (2/8) Water, State, and Society

Ling Zhang, “Changing with the Yellow River: An Environmental History of Hebei, 1048-1128,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 69, no. 1 (2009): 1–36.

Ling Zhang, “Manipulating the Yellow River and the State Building of the Northern Song Dynasty,” in Nature, Environment and Culture in East Asia: the Challenge of Climate Change (Boston: Brill, 2013), 137–160.

Ruth Mostern, The Yellow River: a Natural and Unnatural History (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2021), “Introduction” and “Loess Is More: The Middle Period Tipping Point,” 1–21 and 121–178.



Watch in class China’s Mega Dam, Discovery Channel Documentary, 2006.



Week 5 (2/15) Forestry and Sustainability



Conrad Totman, “Forestry in Early Modern Japan, 1650-1850: A Preliminary Survey,” Agricultural History, vol. 60, no. 3 (Summer 1986): 23–51.

John Lee, “Postwar Pines: The Military and the Expansion of State Forests in Post-Imjin Korea, 1598–1684,” The Journal of Asian Studies 77. 2 (2018): 319–32.

Zhang Meng, “Financing Market-Oriented Reforestation: Securitization of Timberlands and Shareholding Practices in Southwest China, 1750–1900,” Late Imperial China 38, no. 2 (12, 2017): 109-151.



Show-and-tell in class



Week 6 (2/22) Nature and Ethnicity

David Bello, “To Go Where No Han Could Go for Long: Malaria and the Qing Construction of Ethnic Administrative Space in Frontier Yunnan,” Modern China, 31.3 (July 2005): 283–317.

–––––. “Relieving Mongols of their Pastoral Identity: The Environment of Disaster Management on the 18th Century Qing China Steppe,” Environmental History, 19.3 (July 2014): 480–504.



Mark Frank, “Hacking the Yak: The Chinese Effort to Improve a Tibetan Animal in the Early Twentieth Century,” East Asian Science, Technology, and Medicine, no. 48 (2018): 17–48.



Week 7 (2/29) Field Trip to the Morris Arboretum

Book review due on February 28, 8 PM, via Canvas



Week 8 (3/7) Spring Break––No Class



Week 9 (3/14) Empire and the Environment



David Fedman, “Wartime Forestry and the ‘Low Temperature Lifestyle’ in Late Colonial Korea, 1937–1945,” The Journal of Asian Studies 77. 2 (2018): 333–50.

Sakura Christmas, “Japanese Imperialism and Environmental Disease on a Soy Frontier, 1890–1940,” The Journal of Asian Studies 78. 4 (2019): 809–36.

Joseph Seeley, “Cattle, Viral Invasions, and State-Society Relations in a Colonial Korean Borderland,” Journal of Korean Studies 28. 1 (2023): 5–31.



Week 10 (3/21): Animals



Brett Walker, The Lost Wolves of Japan (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2000), “Preface,” “Introduction,” and “Wolf Bounties and the Ecologies of Progress,” xv-xviii, 3–23, and 158–183.

Ian Jared Miller, The Nature of the Beasts: Exhibition and Environment at the Tokyo Imperial Zoo (Berkeley: UC Press, 2013), “The Great Zoo Massacre,” 120–164.

Joseph Seeley, “Tigers—Real and Imagined—in Korea’s Physical and Cultural Landscape,” Environmental History 20, no. 3 (2015): 475–503.



Week 11 (3/28) War and the Environment



Lisa Brady, “Life in the DMZ: Turning a Diplomatic Failure into an Environmental Success,” Diplomatic History 32, no. 4 (2008): 585–611.

Eleana Kim, Making Peace with Nature: Ecological Encounters along the Korean DMZ (Durham: Duke University Press, 2022), “Birds,” 87–118.

Lisa Brady, “From war zone to biosphere reserve: the Korean DMZ as a scientific landscape,” Notes and Records 75 (2020):189–205.


Final Project Proposal Due on March 28, 8 PM, via Canvas



Week 12 (4/4) Nature’s Metropolis



Paul Kreitman, “Attacked by Excrement: The Political Ecology of Shit in Wartime and Postwar Tokyo,” Environmental history 23, no. 2 (2018): 342–366.

Shen Hou, “Nature’s Tonic: Beer, Ecology, and Urbanization in a Chinese City, 1900–50,” Environmental history 24, no. 2 (2019): 282–306.

Joshua Goldstein, Remains of the Everyday:A Century of Recycling in Beijing (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2021), “Top of the Heap,”187–222.

Hyojin Pak, “Between Memory and Amnesia: Seoul’s Nanjido Landfill, 1978–1993,” in Forces of Nature: New Perspectives on Korean Environments (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2023),76–86.



Watch in Class Plastic China, directed by Jiuliang Wang, 2016.



Week 13 (4/11) Ecological Bodies and Toxic Ecologies



Brett Walker, Toxic Archipelago: A History of Industrial Disease in Japan (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2010), “Introduction,” “Engineering Pain in the Jinzū River Basin,” and “Mercury’s Offspring,” 3–21, 108–136, and 137–175.

Brian Tilt, The Struggle for Sustainability in Rural China: Environmental Values and Civil Society (New York: Columbia University Press, 2009), “The Environmental Costs of Progress” and “Pollution, Perceptions, and Environmental Values,” 64–82 and 83–107.



Week 14 (4/18) The Atomic Age



Oguma Eiji, “The Hidden Face of Disaster: 3.11, the Historical Structure and Future of Japan’s Northeast,” Japan Focus, Vol. 9, Issue 31, No. 6 (August 2011): 1–12.


Sara Pritchard, “An Envirotechnical Disaster: Nature, Technology, and Politics at Fukushima,” Environmental History17, No. 2 (February 2012): 219–243.

Ryo Morimoto, “A Wild Boar Chase: Ecology of Harm and Half-Life Politics in Coastal Fukushima,” Cultural Anthropology 37, no. 1 (2022): 69–98.



Watch in Class Containment, directed by Peter Galison and Robb Moss, 2015.



Week 15 (4/25) Presentations and Peer Review



Final project due on May 6 at 8PM

[forestofglory]

I don't know that I'm up to taking a whole class but that is an excellent syllabus, thank you for sharing it, there's lot of interesting looking reading material there