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Modern and Contemporary East Asian History

Code: 101542 ECTS Credits: 6
2024/2025
Degree Type Year
2500244 East Asian Studies OB 3
2504012 Spanish and Chinese Studies: Language, Literature and Culture OT 4

Contact

Name:
Josep Puigsech Farrās
Email:
josep.puigsech@uab.cat

Teachers

Miguel Angel del Rio Morillas

Teaching groups languages

You can view this information at the end of this document.


Prerequisites

Specifically, this subject requires prior knowledge obtained through the following subjects: History of Asia, Premodern History of East Asia.


Objectives and Contextualisation

The purpose of this subject is for students to learn about and analyse the history of East Asia (China, Japan, Korea and Taiwan) from the mid-Nineteenth century to the present. The subject covers fundamental historical events, as well as historical and cultural relations and interaction between the countries in question.


Competences

    East Asian Studies
  • Developing critical thinking and reasoning and communicating them effectively both in your own and other languages.
  • Developing self-learning strategies.
  • Ensuring the quality of one's own work.
  • Following the characteristic code of ethics of the professional practice.
  • Having interpersonal skills.
  • Knowing and comprehending the pre-modern, modern and late modern history of East Asia.
  • Knowing, understanding, describing, analysing, and assessing the history, thought and literature of East Asia.
  • Producing innovative and competitive proposals in research and professional activity.
  • Respecting the diversity and plurality of ideas, people and situations.
  • Respecting the gender equality.
  • Working in interdisciplinary and intercultural groups.
  • Working in teams in an international, multilingual and multicultural context.
    Spanish and Chinese Studies: Language, Literature and Culture
  • Act with ethical responsibility and respect for fundamental rights and duties, diversity and democratic values.
  • Demonstrate skills that facilitate teamworking.
  • Recognise the bases of the history of East Asia in general and China in particular, and interpret the historical and cultural relations and interactions between Europe and Asia.
  • Students must be capable of collecting and interpreting relevant data (usually within their area of study) in order to make statements that reflect social, scientific or ethical relevant issues.
  • Students must be capable of communicating information, ideas, problems and solutions to both specialised and non-specialised audiences.
  • Students must develop the necessary learning skills to undertake further training with a high degree of autonomy.
  • Use techniques for compilation, organisation and use of information and documentation with precision.

Learning Outcomes

  1. Describe, analyse and valorise the history, thought and literature of East Asia.
  2. Develop critical thought and reasoning and know how to communicate them effectively in both your own and in a third language.
  3. Develop strategies for autonomous learning.
  4. Developing critical thinking and reasoning and communicating them effectively both in your own and other languages.
  5. Developing self-learning strategies.
  6. Ensure quality standards for your own work.
  7. Ensuring the quality of one's own work.
  8. Evaluate the result obtained in the process of searching for documentation and information and to update knowledge of the history, literature, language, thought and art.
  9. Explain the explicit or implicit code of practice of one's own area of knowledge.
  10. Following the characteristic code of ethics of the professional practice.
  11. Having interpersonal skills.
  12. Identify and describe the processes and events of pre-modern, modern and contemporary history.
  13. Identify the need to mobilise cultural knowledge to be able to translate.
  14. Know and understand the pre-modern, modern and contemporary history of East Asia.
  15. Knowing and comprehending the pre-modern, modern and late modern history of East Asia.
  16. Knowing, understanding, describing, analysing, and assessing the history, thought and literature of East Asia.
  17. Make document searches in the languages of East Asian countries.
  18. Possess interpersonal skills.
  19. Producing innovative and competitive proposals in research and professional activity.
  20. Recognise the need to mobilise cultural knowledge to be able to interpret.
  21. Respecting the diversity and plurality of ideas, people and situations.
  22. Respecting the gender equality.
  23. Use different tools for specific purposes in the field of history.
  24. Working in interdisciplinary and intercultural groups.
  25. Working in teams in an international, multilingual and multicultural context.

Content

I: Imperialism in Asia

Topic 1. From the First Sino-Japanese War to the Russo-Japanese War (1894-1905)

 II: Nationalism in East Asia

Topic 2. China: (1900-1937)

• Two Chinas: the Kuomintang (KMT) and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) until the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War in 1937.

Topic 3: Japan (1900-1937)

• Japan between 1920 and 1941: the Japanese invasion of Manchuria, the development of Japanese fascism and the Japanese imperial plan.

Topic 4: Korea (1910-1945)

• Japanese colonization

III: The Second World War in Asia (1937-1945)

Topic 5. The Second World War in China

Topic 6. The Second World War in Japan, Korea and Taiwan

IV: Cold War (1947-1991)

Topic 7. The Second Chinese Civil War (1946-1949)

Topic 8. The Korean War (1950-1953)

Topic 9. China under Mao (1949-1976):

• The establishment of the People's Republic of China (1949-1952)

• The first Five Year Plan (1953-1957)

• The Hundred Flowers Campaign (1956-1957)

• The Great Leap Forward (1958-1965)

• The Cultural Revolution (1966-1976)

Topic 10. Korea (1952-1989):

• South Korea: military dictatorships (1953-1988)

• North Korea: Kim Il-sung (1948-1994)

Topic 11. Japan (1945-1990)

• US occupation (1945-1952)

• The 1955 system and socio-economic development (1955-1990)

Topic 12. Vietnam and Taiwan (1955-1988):

• Vietnam War (1955-1975)

• Taiwan: the dictatorship of Chiang Kai-shek (1949-1975) and Chiang Ching-kuo (1975-1988).

V: From the end of the Cold War in Asia to the present (1991-today)

Topic 13. China after Mao:

• The limits of the reformism of Deng Xiaoping (1979-1997) and Tiananmen incident (1989)

• Jiang Zemin,Hu Jintao and the rise of the socialist market economy (1993-2013)

Topic 14. South Korea and Taiwan from the 90's:

• The struggles on the street: the process of democratization in South Korea and Taiwan.


Activities and Methodology

Title Hours ECTS Learning Outcomes
Type: Directed      
Lectures 50 2 4, 7, 10, 11, 15, 16, 19, 21, 22, 24, 25
Type: Supervised      
Exercise, essays, tutorials 25 1 3, 4, 5, 7, 15, 16, 19, 21
Type: Autonomous      
Study, papers reading 63 2.52 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 19, 20, 21, 23

- Lectures.
- Debates and discussions.
- Reading and understanding historical texts.
- Learning to compile historical information.
- Conducting reviews and drafting analytical papers.
- Individual study.

Annotation: Within the schedule set by the centre or degree programme, 15 minutes of one class will be reserved for students to evaluate their lecturers and their courses or modules through questionnaires.


Assessment

Continous Assessment Activities

Title Weighting Hours ECTS Learning Outcomes
Exams 30% 4 0.16 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 14, 15, 16, 19, 23
Group assignment 40% 2 0.08 1, 2, 4, 5, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25
Individual assignment 30% 6 0.24 3, 5, 6, 7, 10, 15, 16, 19, 21, 23

Continuous assessment

Students must provide evidence of their progress by completing various tasks and tests. These activities are detailed in the table at the end of this section of the Study Guide.

Review

When publishing final marks prior to recording them on students' transcripts, the lecturer will provide written notification of a date and time for reviewing assessment activities. Students must arrange reviews in agreement with the lecturer.

Missed/failed assessment activities

Students may retake assessment activities they have failed or compensate for any they have missed, provided that those they have actually performed account for a minimum of 66.6% (two thirds) of the subject's final mark and that they have a weighted average mark of at least 3.5.

The lecturer will inform students of the procedure involved, in writing, when publishing final marks prior to recording them on transcripts. The lecturer may set one assignment per failed or missed assessment activity or a single assignment to cover a number of such activities. Under no circumstances may an assessment activity worth 100% of the final mark be retaken or compensated for. In case of retaking, maximum grade will be 5 (Pass).

Classification as "not assessable"

In the event of the assessment activities a student has performed accounting for just 25% or less of the subject's final mark, their work will be classified as "not assessable" on their transcript.

Misconduct in assessment activities

Students who engage in misconduct (plagiarism, copying, personation, etc.) in an assessment activity will receive a mark of “0” for the activity in question. In the case of misconduct in more than one assessment activity, the student involved will be given a final mark of “0” for the subject. Assessment activities in whichirregularities have occurred (e.g. plagiarism, copying, impersonation) are excluded from recovery.

Activities:

- Exam: 30%
- Group work: 40%
- Comprehensive work: 30%

Single assessment:

This subject may be assessed under the single assessment system in accordance with the terms established in the academic regulations of the UAB and the assessment criteria of the Faculty of Translation and Interpreting.

Students must make an online request within the period established by the faculty and send a copy to the teacher responsible for the subject, for the record.

Single assessment will be carried out in person on one day during week 16 or 17 of the semester. The Academic Management Office will publish the exact date and time on the faculty website.

On the day of the single assessment, teaching staff will ask the student for identification, which should be presented as a valid identification document with a recent photograph (student card, DNI/NIE or passport).

Single assessment activities

The final grade for the subject will be calculated according to the following percentages:

- Written test (develop concepts): 30%
- Multiple choice test: 30%
-Work with exposition: 40%

Grade revision and resit procedures for the subject are the same as those for continual assessment. See the section above in this study guide.


Bibliography

GENERAL

-          HOLCOMBE, C.: Una historia de Asia Oriental. De los orígenes de la civilización al siglo XXI, Fondo de Cultura Económica, Ciudad de México, 2016.

CHINA

-          DIKÖTTER, F.: La tragedia de la liberación. Una historia de la revolución china (1945-1957), Acantilado, Barcelona, 2019.
-          ESTEBAN RODRÍGUEZ, M.: China después de Tian’anmen. Nacionalismo y cambio político, Edicions Bellaterra, Barcelona, 2007.
-          FISAC, T. y TSANG, S. (eds): China en trasición. Sociedad, cultura, política y economía, Edicions Bellaterra, Barcelona, 2000.
-          GAO, M.: Construyendo China. Visiones enfrentadas sobre la República Popular China, Edicions Bellaterra, Barcelona, 2018.
-          GELBER, H.: El dragón y los demonios extranjeros. China y el mundo a lo largo de la historia, RBA, Barcelona, 2008.
-          GERNET, J.: El mundo chino, Crítica, Barcelona, 2005.
-          LOVELL, J.: Maoísmo. Una historia global, Debate, Barcelona, 2021.
-          MACFARQUHAR, R. y SCHOENHALS, M.: La revolución cultural china, Crítica, Barcelona, 2009.
-          OLLÉ, M.: Made in China. El despertar social, político y cultural de la China contemporánea, Destino, Barcelona, 2005.
-          SÁIZ LÓPEZ, A.: Utopía y género. Las mujeres chinas en el siglo XX, Edicions Bellaterra, Barcelona, 2001.
-          SPENCE, J. D.: En busca de la China moderna, Tusquets Editores, Barcelona, 2011.
-          RÍOS, X.: China pide paso. De Hu Jintao a Xi Jinping, Icaria, Barcelona, 2012.

JAPAN

-          BEASLEY, W. G.: La restauración Meiji, Editorial Satori, Gijón, 2007.
-          CHARTRAND, R.: Japanese War Art and Uniforms, 1853-1930, Schiffer, 2011.
-          CRESPÍN PERALES, M.: Feminismo e identidades de género en Japón, Edicions Bellaterra, Barcelona, 2021.
-          DOWER, J.D.: Embracing Defeat. Japan in the Wake of World War II, WW. Norton & Company- The New Press, New York, 2000.
-          GORDON, A.: A Modern History of Japan. From Tokugawa Time to the Present, Oxford University Press, 2009.
-          GOTO-JONES, C.: Modern Japan. A very Short Introduction, Oxford University Press, 2009.
-          HENSHALL, K.: A History of Japan. From Stone Age to Superpower, Palgrave Macmillan, 2004.
-          KINGSTON, J.: Contemporary Japan. History, Politics and the Social change since the 1980s, Blackwell Publish, 2011.
-          MIMURA, J.: Planning for Empire. Reform Bureaucrats and the Japanese Wartime State, Cornell University Press,Ithaca and London, 2011.
-          RODAO, F.: La soledad del país vulnerable. Japón desde 1945, Crítica, Barcelona, 2019.
-          VARGAS, F.: Izquierda y revolución. Una história política del Japón de posguerra (1945-1972), Edicions Bellaterra, Barcelona, 2020.

COREA

-          CUMINGS, B.: Korea´s place in the sun. A modern history, Norton, New York y London, 1997.
-          HALBERTAM, D.: La Guerra Olvidada. Una historia de la Guerra de Corea, Crítica, Barcelona, 2008.
-          YANG, E.: Corea. Historia de un proceso de reunificación, La Catarata, Madrid, 2007.

TAIWAN

-          LU, Y.: Taiwan, Historia, política e identidad, Edicions Bellaterra, Barcelona, 2010.
-          RÍOS, X.: Taiwán, el problema de China, La Catarata, Madrid, 2005.
-          ROY, D.: Taiwan. A Political History, Cornell University Press, Ithaca and London, 2003.


Software

No software will be used. 


Language list

Name Group Language Semester Turn
(TE) Theory 1 Catalan/Spanish second semester morning-mixed