Harvard offers a wide range of courses on China and Chinese Studies from across the arts, humanities, social sciences, and professional schools. Check out our guide to courses for undergraduate and graduate students for the Spring 2025 semester. (See graduate-level courses below.)
Language Courses
Harvard offers language courses at all levels in Chaghatay, Mandarin Chinese, Manchu, Mongolian, and Uyghur through the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations. Classical Tibetan and Colloquial Tibetan are offered through the Department of South Asian Studies. Other languages like Taiwanese/Southern Min are offered subject to petition and instructor availability.
For current details, be sure to check the Harvard Course Catalog: https://courses.my.harvard.edu/
Spring 2025: For Undergraduates and Graduate Students
| Course ID | Course Title | Course Description |
| ANTHRO 1210 | Chinese Archaeology: Neolithic to Qin Chenrui Zhang | What are the origins of Chinese civilization? What was society like before the development of the large states that would eventually merge to form the Chinese empire over 2000 years ago, essentially forming the basis of modern China? How does this process of development compare with other early civilizations? This course surveys the archaeology of China from the Neolithic up to the Qin Empire, with an emphasis on great transitions in human history. The course will focus both on specific, detailed discussions of some of the most important archaeological finds from China, as well as more general discussions of various anthropological themes as they relate to data from early Chinese contexts and emerging complex society. The lectures are generally organized in chronological order, starting with the Neolithic and subsequently focusing on the Bronze Age. We end by considering the period when China was unified by the Qin Empire in 221 BC. The main focus is on understanding how we can reconstruct various aspects of ancient Chinese society using archaeological evidence. Important themes covered in the course include the origins of agriculture, early urbanism and settlement patterns, changes in burial practices and religion, ritual, writing, and production, the development of complex society, and the process of political unification. The course will provide students with a basic understanding of these topics in relation to early China. Occasional discussions will review the lecture material and focus on clarifying, deconstructing and debating topics in Chinese archaeology about which there is little consensus. Students will develop a thorough familiarity with Chinese archaeological sites and cultures over the course of this term and also explore the way that Chinese archaeology relates to general issues in anthropological archaeology. Students of any level, from first-year undergraduates to graduate students, are welcome. |
| CHNSE 106B | Introduction to Literary Sinitic Matthew Wild | Introduction to pre-Qin philosophical texts. |
| CHNSE 107B | Intermediate Literary Sinitic Matthew Wild | A continuation of Chinese 107a, introducing more prose styles as well as poetry and lyric. |
| CHNSE 163 | Business Chinese Jing Cai | Designed for students interested in international business, employment or internships in Chinese-speaking communities (China, Taiwan, Singapore), or for students who simply want to improve their Chinese proficiency with a focus on authentic social and professional interactions. Students will develop their professional communication skills (both spoken and written), as well as gaining a broad business vocabulary. No specific background in business or economics is required. |
| CHNSE 166R | Chinese in the Humanities Jennifer Li-Chia Liu & David Wang | Advanced language practice through the reading and analysis of authentic academic texts in humanities disciplines (e.g., art, literature, cinematic studies). May be offered independently in Chinese, or linked with an English-language content course. Specific content varies by year. |
| CHNSE 187 | Art and Violence in the Cultural Revolution Xiaofei Tian | Examines the cultural implications of the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976). We will examine how art was violent towards people and how violence was turned into an art. We will also consider the link between violence, trauma, memory and writing. Materials include memoir, fiction, essay, “revolutionary Peking Opera,” and film. |
| CHNSHIS 146 | The Modern History of Rural China Michael Szonyi | It’s only in the last twenty years that China has become known as a place of cities and factories. Before then, the majority of Chinese people lived not in cities but in villages in the countryside, and made their living from agriculture. This lecture/discussion course, intended mainly for undergraduates, will introduce you to the modern history of rural China. We’ll approach that history chronologically, thematically, and historiographically. No background knowledge of China is required, but the course might interest you even if you have some previous background, because it will show you the People’s Republic of China from a very different angle than what you’ve likely encountered before: that of its villages and the people who live in them. You’ll come to appreciate their perspective better through taking their role in two interactive games. You’ll also learn why the fate of China’s countryside matters to the future not only of China but also the whole world. |
| CHNSLIT 139 | Gender, Body, and Boundaries in Chinese Culture Wai-yee Li | We will explore gender and sexuality in Chinese culture through a series of topics: how is the human body and gender represented in literary, historical, and religious and philosophical writings? How have normative gender roles developed and changed? How does literature confirm or challenge these norms? How do writings on gender and sexuality help us understand desire, rituals, politics, marriage, family? |
| EASTD 139 | Tibetan Buddhisms Janet Gyatso | This course will study the variety of Buddhisms in Tibet, along with their connection to indigenous religions on the plateau. We will take up this vast topic through four main lenses. One will be facilitated by reading autobiographies and biographies of individual lives, written by women and men from various social positions and historical contexts, as a way to study how ritual practices and philosophical doctrines impact human relations, especially teacher-student, and lay-monastic, in Tibetan Buddhist worlds. The autobiographers range from the current Dalai Lama to an impoverished hermitess of the 17th century, a cave-dwelling visionary, a powerful aristocrat, a philosopher/monk, and others. Secondly, we will have the fortune to have a visiting lecturer for 3 classes, Dr. Tashi Dekyi, originally from Khams, who studies indigenous values and ways that the land itself is an agent in moral person-building in Tibet. This perspective will impact the way we study all of our readings for the semester. Thirdly, the course as a whole will take an eco-feminist perspective on the range of Buddhisms in Tibet, including an introductory study of tantric Buddhism, in anticipation of another course, on Buddhist tantra, to be taught in fall 2025. And finally we will pay attention throughout to religio-medical understandings of the human body in Tibetan Buddhism, including yogic practices and death practices. No previous background in Buddhism is required; both advanced and introductory students will be accommodated. |
| EASTD 140 | Major Religious Texts of East Asia Ryuichi Abe | This course aims at enabling students to read and analyze in depth major religious texts of East Asia, representing diverse traditions and genres. The course encourages students to take up their reading of texts not only as ways to acquire knowledge on Asian religious traditions, but as practice, labor, and play in which their ordinary way of understanding/experiencing the world and themselves will be challenged, reaffirmed, and renewed. |
| EASTD 141 | East Asian Religions: Traditions and Transformations James Robson | This course provides an introduction to the study of East Asian religions. It covers the development of Buddhism, Daoism, Confucianism and Shinto. It is not a comprehensive survey, but is designed around major conceptual themes, such as ritual, image veneration, mysticism, meditation, death, and category formation in the study of religion. The emphasis throughout the course is on the hermeneutic difficulties attendant upon the study of religion in general, and East Asian religions in particular. |
| HIST 1602 | Modern China: 1894-Present Arunabh Gosh | This lecture course will provide a survey of some of the major issues in the history of post-imperial China (1912- ). Beginning with the decline of the Qing and the dramatic collapse of China’s imperial system in 1911, the course shall examine how China has sought to redefine itself anew over the past one-hundred years. The revolutionary years of 1911, 1949, and 1978 will serve as our three fulcra, as we investigate how China has tussled with a variety of ‘isms’ (such as republicanism, militarism, nationalism, socialism, and state capitalism) in its pursuit of an appropriate system of governance and social organization. In so doing, we shall also explore the social, economic, cultural, and scientific changes wrought by these varied attempts at state-building. |
| HIST 1915 | Waste Not: Histories of Excrement David Howell | Does excrement have a history? After all, everyone poops, and whatever the variation from person to person and toilet visit to toilet visit, pooping is pooping, always has been, always will be. True enough, but what happens after we poop is deeply historical. In this seminar we will examine the history of human excrement with one overriding question in mind: is excrement “waste” or is it a “thing of utility”? We will look at writings about excrement across time and space, with an emphasis on East Asia. |
| HLS 2392 | The Conduct of Life in Western and Eastern Philosophy Roberto Mangabeira Unger & Michael J. Puett | A study of approaches in the philosophical traditions of the West and the East to the conduct of life. Philosophical ethics has often been understood as meta-ethics: the development of a method of moral inquiry or justification. Here we focus instead on what philosophy has to tell us about the first-order question: How should we live our lives? This year a major concern will be the study and contrast of two such orientations to existence. One is the philosophical tradition focused on ideas of self-reliance, self-construction, and nonconformity (exemplified by Emerson and Nietzsche). The other is a way of thinking (notably represented by Confucius) that puts its hope in a dynamic of mutual responsibility, shaped by role and ritual and informed by imaginative empathy. |
| SOCIOL 1141 | Contemporary Chinese Society Ya-wen Lei | This course will equip you with the basic literacy required to comprehend contemporary Chinese society, which is an increasingly essential skill for informed citizens in our present global context. No prior knowledge or language proficiency is necessary to enroll in this class. We will delve into the profound transformations that have occurred during the post-1978 reform period, including China’s shift to a market economy, the emergence of the digital economy, the implementation of population policy by the government, urbanization, rising inequality, and contentious politics. The course will analyze how these changes have influenced social relations and how they have been experienced and understood by individuals. From a sociological perspective, this course will address topics related to the state, development, market, population, migration, urbanization, inequality, gender, labor and work, civil society, the public sphere, and social movements. Although the course is listed in the sociology catalog, readings and topics covered in the course are situated at the intersection of sociology, political science, law, anthropology, and history. |
| WOMGEN 1216 | Women’s Voices in Asian and Asian American Literature Jung Choi | This course introduces students to the writings of both canonical and lesser-known Asian and Asian American women writers. The course especially examines the works by Chinese/ Chinese American, Japanese/ Japanese American, Korean/ Korean American women writers. Moving from the pre-modern to contemporary era, the course will explore a range of women’s voices and experiences as reflected through poetry, fiction, diaries, and epistles. Authors will include Murasaki Shikibu, Ban Zhao, Ono no Komachi, Lady Hyegyŏng, Qui Jin, Higuchi Ichiyo, Kim Wŏn-ju, Han Kang, Yoshimoto Banana, Maxine Hong Kingston, Julie Otsuka, and Min Jin Lee. Topics will include family, marriage, loyalty, motherhood, women’s rights, sexual violence, same- sex desire, censorship, and gender and race politics. |
Spring 2025: Primarily for Undergraduate Students
| School | Course ID | Course Title | Course Description |
| FAS | EASTD 97AB | Introduction to the Study of East Asia: Issues and Methods Shigehisa Kuriyama | This interdisciplinary and team-taught course provides an introduction to several of the approaches and methods through which the societies and cultures of East Asia can be studied at Harvard, including history, philosophy, literary studies, political science, film studies, anthropology and gender studies. We consider both commonalities and differences across the region, and explore how larger processes of imperialism, modernization, and globalization have shaped contemporary East Asian societies and their future trajectories. |
| FAS | FYSEMR 73R | The United States and China William Kirby | This seminar examines the present and future of U.S.-China relations in the light of their past. What are the enduring patterns and issues in China’s relations with the United States? How have these two countries perceived each other over time? How has trade defined the relationship, and how do Chinese and American companies navigate today’s geopolitical divide? How has war shaped experiences in the United States and China, and what are the risks of military confrontation today? How has Taiwan survived and thrived between Beijing and Washington? What are the prospects for cooperation on global crises such as climate change? What is the role of American and Chinese universities, such as Harvard and Tsinghua, in shaping our future relations? |
| FAS | GOV 94IA | Sino-US Relations in an Era of Rising Chinese Power Alastair Johnston | Focuses on the theoretically informed explanations for changing levels of conflict and cooperation in US-China relations. Examines the role of history, ideology, power, economics, and ethnicity/identity. Main assignment is an original research paper that tests alternative explanations for some puzzle in US-China relations. |
| FAS | GOV 94YW | Comparative Political Development Yuhua Wang | This course examines the historical development of different political institutions in the world. Why did modern nation states and representative governments emerge in Europe? What was the path of political development in other parts of Eurasia, such as China and the Middle East? How did different political institutions influence economic development in the long term? We explore these big questions drawing materials from political science, history, sociology, anthropology, and economic history. A major course objective is to understand how the roots of political development in different countries connect with their politics and economies today. |
| FAS | HIST 89J | The United States and China: Opium War to the Present Erez Manela | This research seminar will focus on the history of Sino-American relations and interactions since the Opium War (1840s). It will examine major episodes such as the Boxer intervention, the first and second world wars, the Korea and Vietnam wars, the Mao-Nixon rapprochement, and the post-Mao transformations, and explore central themes such as immigration, trade, culture, diplomacy, and security. |
| FAS | SOC-STD 98MR | Exile, Migration, Diaspora Kai Yui & Samuel Chan | Increasingly people are on the move, but not on equal terms. In this class, we will study contemporary regimes of movement, explore the diasporic experiences of navigating and resisting these regimes, and reflect upon the broader environment these regimes are embedded in. In that process, we will learn to uncover our biases, expand our horizons with perspectives from different positionalities, and incorporate texts of different disciplines, times, and places into our research.We will begin by interpreting the narratives of exile across space and time, engaging with exiles ranging from those in ancient Greece to those from contemporary Tibet. Through these narratives, we will discuss the implications of statelessness, rethink themes of political membership and belonging, and reflect upon the roles of exiles in transforming democratic and anti-colonial politics. In the second part of the course, we will zoom out from individual exiles and examine migration trends and policies. Drawing on migration studies and political theory, we will attend to histories of migrant categorization, emerging practices of bordering, and the politics of immigrant resistance. Thus grounded, we will scrutinize the normative grounds for the state to control its territorial and membership boundaries. In the final part of the course, we will turn to the theme of diaspora. In dialogue with scholars of sociology and international relations, we will interrogate competing conceptions of diaspora, parse the triangular relations between a diaspora, its “home state”, and its “host state”, and evaluate the promises and challenges of transnationalism as disclosed by diasporic politics. This is a junior tutorial. |
Spring 2025: Primarily for Graduate Students
| School | Course ID | Course Title | Course Description |
| FAS | ANTHRO 2802 | Anthropology and the Geopolitical: China and Africa entanglements in ethnographic perspective Elisa Tamburo | The course interrogates the engagement of China on the African continent in the past century, mostly through ethnographic writing. We will critically evaluate the involvement of China in the region through various analytical lenses. The course is divided in three parts. Part 1 will explore the history of China’s involvement in Africa starting from the 1950s up to the emergence of the New Silk Roads with the ‘One Belt, One Road Initiative’ in 2013. It will focus on the debates that have framed this engagement, from the denunciation of new forms of colonialism, to debates on African agency. Part 2 will delve into aspects of political economy and economic cooperation by discussing some of the sectors in which Chinese capital has been prominent in Africa: mining and the extractive industry, agriculture, and infrastructural building will be taken as a case. Part 3 will be descending to the dimension of the everyday and zoom into people’s ordinary lives. Migration, labor, marriage, and new landscapes of morality will be some of the central themes. The course is structured for students to consider various scale of analysis, from the macro-perspectives of government-to-government relations to the everyday interactions among ordinary people. Such a transversal focus will allow students to reflect on the ways in which ethnography can contribute to the study of the geo-political from a multiscalar perspective. |
| FAS | CHNSHIS 230R | Reading Local Documents for Ming-Qing History Michael Szonyi | This seminar introduces students to the different genres of documents that are found in private hands in villages, and explores how these materials can be used for historical research. Reading knowledge of modern and literary Chinese required. Topic for Fall 2022: land and property deeds. |
| FAS | CHNSHIS 235R | Topics in Warring States History: Seminar (三国历史) Michael J. Puett | Close reading of texts from the Warring States period. |
| FAS | CHNSHIS 269 | Wenxue 文學 in Suzhou, 14th-17th Century Peter K. Bol | This course is concerned with the field of wenxue 文學, broadly conceived, from the fourteenth to the late seventeenth century. It investigates changes in the status of wenxue relative to moral thought (Daoxue), Classical studies, and statecraft learning, and it looks at changes in theories and methods of cultural practice over time. It pursues these aims through case studies of the works of literati in Suzhou and its environs. It introduces research methods in the digital humanities, including prosopography, “distant” reading, spatial and network analysis, and visualizations, in addition to the careful contextual reading of influential writings and artworks. |
| FAS | CHNSLIT 212 | Modern Chinese Literary Discourse: A Comparative Survey David Wang | This course aims to investigate modern Chinese literary thought by examining a range of writings, debates, and provocations from the 1910s to the 1960s. The course will guide students to read criticism by figures such as Liang Qichao, Lu Xun, and Wang Guowei; it also calls attention to writings that are less associated with literary criticism, such as those by Zhang Taiyan, Chen Yinke, and Li Zehou. Above all, The course seeks to examine the linkages between these critical discourses with both premodern Chinese literary thought and Western intellectual traditions. |
| FAS | CHNSLIT 229R | Topics in Early Medieval Literature Xiaofei Tian | This semester’s focus is on narrative and anecdotal accounts of early medieval China: historical, religious, geographical, and bibliographical. Issues for discussion include the problematic of “history” (shi), “small talk” (xiaoshuo); nostalgia; mobility, travel, and translation; ethnic relations; and the notion of self and identity-formation in early medieval times. |
| FAS | CHNSLIT 232 | Early Qing Literature and Culture Wai-yee Li | Examines works in Qing prose, poetry, fiction, and drama. Focuses on memory and representation of the fall of the Ming in early Qing. Explores how this preoccupation merges and co-exists with developments in this period. |
| FAS | COMPLIT 210Y | Transmediating Love Literature Ursula Friedman | How do queer and crip accounts of love and desire redefine “modernity” in Greater China and Latin America? How do the Sinophone and Hispanophone worlds encounter each in translation and transmediation? What is the relationship between love and passion, infatuation and desire? How are conceptions of love culturally contingent? How do cultural, economic, social and political factors shape expressions and narratives of love and desire in Sinophone and Hispanophone contexts? How do myth, illusion, and projection influence our romantic philosophies? In what ways do non-normative, non-ableist, queer and crip accounts of gender, sexuality, and desire redefine “modernity”?In this course, we examine modern and contemporary Sinophone and Hispanophone “love stories” and their transmediated afterlives (films, plays, operas, digital archives, and so forth), with an emphasis on romantic encounters in queer literature, magical realism, dystopian, and sci-fi/speculative fiction. We cover a range of works by Jorge Luis Borges, Gabriel García Márquez, Sandra Cisneros, Julio Cortázar, Rosario Ferré, Isabel Allende, Kenneth Pai, Eileen Chang, Liu Cixin, and Wang Xiaobo, paired with transmedial adaptations by Zhang Yuan, Wong Kar-wai, Jonathan Basile, Manuel Antín, Jason Brauer, and Fernando Frías. Course evaluation will be based on discussions, oral presentations, thesis-based papers, and creative assignments. |
| FAS | EABS 256R | Chinese Buddhist Texts – Readings in Medieval Buddho-Daoist Documents: Seminar James Robson | This seminar focuses on the careful textual study and translation of a variety of Chinese Buddho-Daoist texts through the medieval period. |
| FAS | EAFM 226 | East Asian Documentary Media Chan Yong Bu | This seminar aims to explore the concept of documentary as a gateway for the lived-reality within the geopolitical and technological contexts of East Asia. Chronologically tracing the major historical movements of documentary film in East Asia from the early 20th century to the present day, we will examine how documentary’s truth claims have been mobilized and revisited in tandem with various intellectual discourses and technological developments in East Asia. Central here is to understand that documentary theorists and practitioners’ pursuit of reality did not neatly converge into a single cultural essence of East Asia, but rather proceeded to reveal the material and ideological conditions that shape the notion of reality and acknowledge its malleability. |
| FAS | HAA 281K | Embodied Architecture: Art in Stupa-Towers Eugene Wang | The Chinese stupa-tower is a distinct architectural medium. It stages and choreographs disparate images either through its external or internal decorative programs or the deposits interred inside. More importantly, it is keyed to the conceptual core of a biological extinction and imaginary postmortem scenography. The course follows the development from early memorial towers in Buddhist caves to stupa-towers in the Forbidden City. |
Spring 2025: Graduate School Courses
| School | Course ID | Course Title | Course Description |
| HBS | HBSMBA 1575 | Doing Business with China 2035 William Kirby | By 2035 China will be the largest economy in the world and an innovation superpower. Engagement with China—as entrepreneurs, investors, or partners—is part of our collective future. But in 2024, Chinese firms—and foreign firms in China—face challenges and opportunities under President Xi Jinping. We will delve into China’s domestic business environment and the changing relationship between the private sector and the Chinese Communist Party. Students will gain an understanding of the dynamics between state-owned enterprises and private firms, the regulatory environment, and the role of the government in business activities. Furthermore, as relations between the world’s two largest economies, the U.S. and China, deteriorate further, companies must find creative solutions to counter ongoing global trade and technology wars while still responding to ever-changing policy directions in Beijing, Washington, and Europe. Our course will examine case studies of firms that have faced these challenges and will equip students with strategies for managing geopolitical risk in a deglobalizing business environment. |
| HBS | HBSMBA 6575 | Field Course: The United States and China: Challenges for your Business William Kirby | This Q4 class focuses on the strategies of firms as they navigate an ever more challenging political and regulatory landscape in both China and the United States. The class is an optional continuation of Q3, designed for students, working individually or in groups, who wish to pursue an advanced project, under faculty guidance. It assists students who wish to pursue business opportunities in or with Greater China (the People’s Republic, Taiwan, and Hong Kong), or for Greater China-based businesses that seek to expand internationally, particularly in the United States. It presumes basic knowledge of the Chinese business, economic, and political scene, as taught in Doing Business with China. Students are encouraged to research and write an HBS-like case on a company or sector that must deal with the political and business risks of today’s geopolitics. The project may also take the form of a business plan for an enterprise in China, Hong Kong, or Taiwan; or of a Chinese firm in the United States. Students will work closely with faculty to identify a topic and relevant source materials. |
| HDS | HDS 3235 | Taking the World Seriously: A Madhyamaka Buddhist Perspective on Engagement Jay Garfield | The Madhyamaka, or Middle Way tradition teaches that the entire world is illusory and ultimately empty, only conventionally real. How then are we supposed to take the world seriously? How can we make sense of reality, of knowledge, and of the importance of ethics? This problem preoccupied 7th and 8th century Mādhyamikas in India and their commentators in medieval Tibet. Candrakīrti (c. 600-650) addresses the metaphysical and epistemological challenge in Introduction to the Middle Way (Madhyamakāvatāra). Śāntideva (8th c.) addresses the ethical challenge in How to Lead an Awakened Life (Bodhicāryāvatāra), a text that builds on Candrakīrti’s. Their answers inform much subsequent Madhyamaka Buddhist thought and are important for contemporary debates and practice as well. We will read these two texts with relevant canonical commentary and contemporary secondary literature to develop an understanding of how this tradition engages seriously with a world it takes to be ultimately empty. |
| GSD | HIS 4486 | Displaced Becomings –The Many Faces of Modern Architecture in Sinophone Asia Chuntei Tseng | The idea was that in [a] society, one that’s incompletely modernized… the temporal dynamics of that society, and of the modernism that it produces, will be much more striking… [I]t is through the experience of time that modern is apprehended. –Fredric Jameson interview with Michael Speaks Jameson on Jameson: Conversations on Cultural MarxismModern architecture was much more than “the International Style” as proclaimed by the vanguard in 1932. Modern architecture sprung up all over the world, in all political systems, in all geographical regions, in all kinds of conditions specific to each case. In many cases, through the drift and shift of transformation, adaptation, and intervention, modern architecture gained its momentum going forward and expanded its groundings both professionally, theoretically, and socially. After all, modernity also indicates battling the preexistent colonialism, imperialism, neocolonialism, as well as institutionalized chauvinism of all kinds. As such is the case of modern architecture in Sinophone Asia, which include Mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong/Macau, Singapore and some part of Nusantara, the Southeast Asian archipelago. The cases, topics, and areas which the course covers.¨The course provides an exploratory study of the histories, theories, ideologies in which the discipline practiced as well as currently practices over time and across cultures and geographies under the umbrella of modern architecture. The idea is to call for a [re]discovery of multiplicity and diverseness of modern architecture. The emphasis is on plural reading and understanding of modern architecture through multiple cultural and critical lenses. The lecture discusses significant projects, prominent figures, noteworthy historical moments, and momentous social and political events. The lecture also examines the architectural movements and the other-isms as well as offers a glimpse of the recent Grands Projects and the work of the emergent generation.The course is structured around faculty presentations, guest lectures, and collective discussions. The students will be tasked with completing two assignments. The first being a case study assignment, the second a short end-of-the-semester paper on a topic related to the course. There are no prerequisites. |
| HLS | HLS 2461 | Comparative Law: Why Law? The Experience of China William Alford | This course uses the example of China as a springboard for asking fundamental questions about the nature of law, and the ways in which it may (or may not) differ in different societies. Historically, China is said to have developed one of the world’s great civilizations while according law a far less prominent role than in virtually any other. This course will test that assertion by commencing with an examination of classic Chinese thinking about the role of law in a well-ordered society and a consideration of the nature of legal institutions, formal and informal, in pre-20th century China-all in a richly comparative setting. It will then examine the history of Sino-Western interaction through law, intriguing and important both in itself and for the broader inquiry into which it opens concerning the transmission of ideas of law cross culturally. |
| HLS | HLS 3137 | China and the International Legal Order Mark Wu | In the Xi era, China has started to cast aside the long-standing maxim of keeping a low profile and biding one’s time in international affairs. What does China’s rise portend for the international legal order? In what ways is China seeking to reshape global norms versus uphold a status quo order exhibiting increasing fragility? This seminar examines this question for various domains of international law, including climate change, economics, sovereignty, human rights, and development. It will consider the ways in which history, geostrategic competition, as well as domestic economic and political interests impact these questions. |
| HLS | HLS 3182 | Tibet and China Lobsang Sangay | This Reading Group will focus on the question of and solutions for Tibet. It will look at the historical status of Tibet and the current situation of the Tibetan people. The class will examine the guarantees and practices of national minority rights under the Constitution of the People’s Republic of China in light of international human rights standards. Do China’s guarantees respecting national minority rights meet international standards regarding the right to self-determination or the protection of minorities. Might reference to the rights of indigenous people be helpful? The approach of the seminar will be to interrogate the best ways to address these issues and find solutions. We will look at the evolution and major changes in the stand of the Dalai Lama from seeking independence, to what he has described as a zone of peace for Tibet, and finally to “genuine autonomy for Tibetan people” within the framework of the Constitution of the PRC. His efforts have included nine rounds of dialogue between envoys of the Dalai Lama and the PRC government. We will also explore comparative issues of Hong Kong and Xinjiang to understand PRC approaches toward regional autonomy. The Reading Group will also explore the unique approach of the Dalai Lama in developing a democratic polity in exile, as well as complex religious issues relating to reincarnation and religious freedom. Finally, we will examine the US Tibetan Policy and Support Act of 2020 to understand the role of the US government in respect of political, diplomatic and legal obligations relating to Tibet and its people. |