This course examines the periodization, parameters, and implications of some of the many ways that China’s path to modernity has been theorizing by reviewing scholarship on what defines and constitutes China’s Early Modern era. From early twentieth-century adaptations of social and historical theories from European languages into Chinese historiographical discussions to post-Mao attempts to trace the “sprouts of capitalism” that might justify China’s socialist revolution as a valid one, from theories of Song dynasty absolutism and Ming autocracy, from the Great Divergence to urban history, this course surveys the many ways in which the study of China’s pre-modern experiences have been shaped to answer questions about China’s particular path to modernity.
