HISTORY 206
Historical Inquiry on the Silk Road
Summer / Fall Term 2008
Mary E. Frederickson
Office Phone: 529-5145
Secretary Phone: 529-5121
E-mail:
[email protected]
Class Meeting: Tuesdays, 2-4:40 PM
Office: 242 Upham Hall
Office Hours: T & Th 1-3 PM, or by appointment
COURSE DESCRIPTION
This course will introduce you to the study of history through an examination of the methods and
approaches that historians have used to study the Silk Road, one of the world's oldest and most important
trade routes that profoundly influenced the history of China, Central Asia and the West. In the course of
investigating the Silk Road, we will examine the discipline of history, explore the types of questions
historians ask, consider a multitude of sources and many different kinds of historical writing. Using the Silk
Road as a site of historical inquiry, you will learn basic research skills, including: how to locate, examine
and analyze historical sources, construct a research bibliography, make an historical argument, design a
research project, evaluate divergent historical interpretations and engage the historiography of a specific
topic.
As we focus on the long history of the Silk Road, we will examine what history actually is and the various
ways that it has been transmitted over time. Throughout the course, we will look at different approaches to
the study of the past, examine the use of various types of historical evidence, and reflect on the process of
interpretation. Finally, as we explore Silk Road studies from both historical and interdisciplinary
perspectives, we will consider how generations of scholars documenting the same places in different
historical periods have generated their own questions and drawn their own conclusions.
The course revolves around learning the research and writing skills involved in the historian's craft.
Through a series of assignments, you will become adept at examining primary and secondary sources,
sorting evidence, drafting research proposals, and writing historical works of your own design.
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COURSE REQUIREMENTS
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Class Attendance: Tuesdays, 2:00 – 4:40 PM
Participation in class discussions.
A series of short writing assignments.
A 10 page research paper on the Silk Road.
FORMAT
The class will follow a discussion format. It will be conducted as a seminar, and you are expected to come
to class having done the reading, prepared to participate in our discussion. Written assignments are due
the day listed in the syllabus, for our conversation will often focus on the work you have prepared for class.
Your grade will reflect your engagement with both written assignments and class discussion. Your
attendance is essential and students who miss class will not pass the course.
REQUIRED BOOKS
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Marc Bloch, The Historian’s Craft, 1992
Anthony Brundage, Going to the Sources: A Guide to Historical Research, 2002
Andrew McMichael, History on the Web: Using and Evaluating the Internet , 2005
Peter Hopkirk, Foreign Devils on the Silk Road: The Search for the Lost Cities and Treasures of
Chinese Central Asia, 1996
William Kelleher Storey, Writing History: A Guide for Students. 2004
Alexandra Tolstoy, The Last Secrets of the Silk Road: In the Footsteps of Marco Polo by Horse and
Camel, 2003
Susan Whitfield, Life Along the Silk Road, 2001
Frances Wood, The Silk Road: Two Thousand Years in the Heart of Asia, 2004
GRADING
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20% - Class Participation
40% - Short Writing Assignments
o 5% primary source evaluation
o 5% bibliography
o 5% Foreign Devils response paper
o 5% prospectus
o 5% website analysis
o 5% travel accounts
o 5% Gertrude Bell paper
o 5% response to Last Secrets
20% - Final Paper
20% - Final Exam
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WEEKLY ASSIGNMENTS
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WEEK 1 Introduction to the Course / Orientation to the Silk Road
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WEEK 2 What is history? What do historians do?
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WEEK 3 Reading and writing history on the Silk Road
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WEEK 4 Introduction to the archives: Analyzing primary sources.
WRITING ASSIGNMENT: Close reading of three primary sources from the International
Dunhuang Project, available on the web at http://idp.bl.uk/ Assignment due in class next week.
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WEEK 5
Exploring the library: the search for secondary sources.
READ: Brundage, Going to the Sources, chapters 4-5
WRITING ASSIGNMENT: Prepare a bibliography on one aspect of Silk Road History. Due in
class next week. The topic you select will be the subject of your final paper.
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WEEK 6
Making history: from research to argument.
WRITING ASSIGNMENT: Write a 1-2 page response paper to Foreign Devils. What is the focus
of Hopkirk's research? What is his argument? What are your observations about how the book is
constructed? What questions did the text leave you with? Due in class next week.
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WEEK 7 Conceptualizing a paper and writing a prospectus.
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WRITING ASSIGNMENT: Write a prospectus on the Silk Road topic you have selected. (2
pages). Assignment due in class next week.
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WEEK 8 History on the web: exploring the Silk Road via cyberspace.
WRITING ASSIGNMENT: Evaluate one of the following Silk Road websites (3 pages). Focus
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conceptualization, historical authority, design and accessibility. Who is the target
audience? How can you validate the reliability of the site? What are the advantages and
disadvantages of presenting Silk Road materials on the web? Assignment due in class next
week.
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WEEK 9 Historic Preservation on the Silk Road
Exploring Bamiyan: Professor Tarzi's Survey and Excavation Archaeological Mission, 2003,
article by Zemaryalai Tarzi, The Marc Bloch University, Strasbourg,
http://silkroadfoundation.org/newsletter/december/bamiyan.htm
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WEEK 10 Travelogues as History: Writers on the Silk Road
Examine the written works of one of the following four long distance travelers on the Silk Road:
Xuanzang (Hsuan Tsang), 629-645 CE: perhaps the most famous Chinese traveler of the Silk
Road. Xuanzang, like Fa Xian, was a Buddhist monk in search of the true texts of Buddhism. His
travels to India brought him into many adventures. These adventures were recorded and became a
basic document of Chinese foreign policy for many centuries to come. Later his story became the
basis for one of the most famous of Chinese novels, Journey to the West.
Marco Polo, 1244-1323 CE: the record written by this most famous European traveler of the Silk
Road formed much of Europe’s impression of East Asia for most of the last millennium
Gertrude Bell, 1868-1926 CE, was an archaeologist, mountaineer, diplomat of the Middle East,
and world traveler. Bell received a first class degree in Modern History from Oxford University at
the age of 20, the first woman to do so. She traveled extensively in the Middle East in the years
that followed, and completed two trips around the world (1897-1898 and 1902-1903).
Aurel Stein, 1900-1914 CE: Stein was one of the famous archaeologists and treasure seekers
who reopened the Silk Road in the imaginations of the Euro-Americans in the 20th century. His
accounts allow us to see the remains of the days of glory as well as the gritty but real continuation
of trade and travel across the old route.
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WRITING ASSIGNMENT: As you read about the traveler you have selected, explore his or her
written travel accounts and then prepare a 2-3 page paper analyzing the traveler's journey.
Describe the political/historical context of the Silk Road in the traveler's time. What was the
motivation for the journey? Mode of travel? Barrier to movement? Was this traveler open to
cultural exchange? What is the point of view in the traveler's written account? Would you use the
texts created by this traveler in writing an historical analysis of the Silk Road? Why, or why not?
What do these texts reveal? What do they conceal?
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WEEK 11 Biographical Histories of the Silk Road
WRITING ASSIGNMENT: Write a brief (3 page) biography of Silk Road traveler Gertrude Bell
based on secondary source materials on the Silk Road and on the primary sources available in
Bell's extensive correspondence and diaries, available from the Gertrude Bell Project, online at:
http://www.gerty.ncl.ac.uk/ Assignment due in class next week.
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WEEK 12 Visual History: Art of the Silk Road
Explore the Silk Road Seattle Virtual Art Exhibit and prepare a brief (5-8 minute) in-class
presentation on one artifact or aspect of Silk Road art, located in a specitic time and place.
Silk Road Seattle Virtual Art Exhibit
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WEEK 13 Music: Cultural Exchange on the Silk Road
How can historians use music as text?
Explore the Silk Road Project organized by cellist Yo-Yo Ma, who wrote in May, 2002: "It was only
18 months ago that we took the leap of faith, gathering musicians from all corners of the world—Azerbaijan to
China, Iran to Uzbekistan—at the first Silk Road Project workshop at Tanglewood. Since that time,
momentum at the Silk Road Project has been building—lately we’ve been able to gauge this movement in a
very tangible fashion on an almost weekly basis". He adds: "By listening to and learning from the voices
of an authentic musical tradition, we become increasingly able to advocate for the worlds they
represent." Come to class prepared to discuss the question: How can historians use music as
text?
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WEEK 14 Using History to Revive Contemporary Culture on the Silk Road
Working in three groups, analyze one of the following in terms of the relationship between
history and contemporary culture.
1. The Issyk-Kul Declaration on Dialogue among Cultures and Civilizations in Eurasia adopted by
the International Conference "Eurasia in the 21st Century – Dialogue of Cultures or Conflict of
Civilizations?"
http://www.unesco.kg/en/forum/declaration.html
2. The section on "Art, Culture and Science" in the Turkish publication NEWSPOT
http://www.byegm.gov.tr/YAYINLARIMIZ/newspot/2005/mar-apr/n24.htm
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Max L. Stackhouse, "From the Old Silk Road to Contemporary Globalization"
http://www.isanet.org/archive/stackhouse.htm
WRITING ASSIGNMENT: prepare a one page response paper on Last Secrets of the Silk Road.
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WEEK 15
Present in class a brief overview of your final paper. Papers due in class.
Final exam: date and location to be announced.
Mary E. Frederickson
Department of History
Miami University, Oxford, Ohio
Date: November 15, 2005
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