Describe the profound change of Chinese intellectuals’ attitudes towards and topical discourses about and in Confucianism, from Ming to Qing and the New Cultural Movement during the Republic of China. How did these things change? Why changed? How is the change related to the social and cultural transformation of each society?
2. Compare The Story of the Stone (Dream in the Red Chamber) to one of three Ming novels that we have read in class, and analyze the similarity and difference in terms of theme, character, plot construction, setting, etc., and examine the development of novel form in the Qing culture. How is the literary development associated with the context of the changing Qing society?
3. From Ming Christianity to the Western invasion and Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, to the Reform movement and the New Cultural Movement, the Chinese conception of and attitude towards the West or European civilization had significantly changed, and thereby rebuilt its own worldview and self-identity in relation to the Other, i.e. the West. Describe the complex Chinese understandings of the West in the modern history and how they had changed over time, and thereby how they had led to China’s new understanding of itself in the world.
4. Choose one Ming novel, i.e. Romance or Water Margin, and one of the contemporary films, To Live or Summer Palace, and compare how they deals with the issue that one’s personal life is necessarily involved in political reality or political changes in the society. In what sense are their ways of dealing with this issue similar and different?
