HIST 436 - Science and Technology in Early Modern and Modern East Asia

FC SSCI CD WADV

4 credits
This course focuses on science and technology in East Asia from the sixteenth to the early twentieth centuries. This was a period in which China, Japan, and Korea experienced tumultuous social, political, and economic changes and grappled with the forces of global modernity. Much attention will be given to two questions: What was the role of science and technology in shaping East Asia’s early modern and modern history? How did people with existing traditions of inquiry and artifice perceive, absorb, and modify Western scientific and technological practices? Focusing on historiography and scholarly works, this course will also explore primary sources such as a seventeenth-century Chinese technological encyclopedia.

This course is cross-listed with EAST-436