(BA) (4-year-programme) - The University of Hong Kong

135transformational element. As our point of departure, we begin with Fernand Braudel’s vision of theMediterranean as a coherent region unified by its internal sea. We shall then navigate the new historyof the Atlantic, with its emerging stories of transatlantic slavery, radicalism, changing ecologies, anddiasporas. We conclude on the latest frontiers of Pacific history, and in humanity’s first ocean, theIndian Ocean.Assessment: 100% courseworkHIST2118.Chinese and Americans: A cultural and international history (6 credits)China and the United States are two very important nations in the world today. Their interactions andrelations have had deep impact on both Chinese and American lives and the rest of the world. Thiscourse will explore Sino-American relations in the last several hundred years with special focus ontheir shared values and experiences and emphasize both diplomatic and people-people relations fromcultural and international history perspectives.Assessment: 100% courseworkHIST2119. Changing lives: Women's history from Fin-de-Siècle to the interwar years (6credits)The decades of late 19th and early 20th centuries had witnessed the emergence of new identities forwomen variously described as “Eve nouvelle,” “the New Woman,” “xin nuxing,” or “la garçonne.” Inthis course students will be introduced to the historical formation of these new images of womenthrough a critical reading of a diverse range of primary sources such as advice literature, women’sself-writings, fiction, visual arts, and periodicals. A comparative cross-cultural perspective whichdraws on case studies from different national and cultural contexts will be adopted in this course.Assessment: 100% courseworkHIST2123.Meiji Japan, challenges and transformations, 1853-1912 (6 credits)This course examines the transformation of Japan from a decentralized semi-feudal society to that of ahighly centralized nation state and burgeoning regional power from 1853 to 1912. In essence, thisseminar course explores the challenges, successes, and failures of nation building in Japan at a time ofheightened international imperialism in East Asia and the Pacific and upheaval at home. It exploreshow Japan’s governing elites attempted to create a stable state and society that balanced oligarchicrule with participatory democracy, economic authoritarianism with international capitalism,cosmopolitanism and internationalism with traditional cultural values, beliefs, and practices, and localand regional identities with those of the emerging Japanese nation state. Moreover, this course focuseson the writings, ideas, hopes and fears of people, elites and non-elite actors, who helped forge andmaintain the institutions that helped make Japan a modern state and society.Assessment: 100% courseworkNon-permissible combination: HIST2008HIST2124. Taishō and Shōwa Japan: Perfecting state, society and nation, 1912 to 1989 (6credits)This course examines efforts undertaken by elites, institutions and citizen groups to overcomeproblems—perceived and real—that many believed modern Japan faced in both the domestic sphereas well as internationally. At home, these problems included: urbanization and poverty, exploitativeindustrialization, pollution, and labor unrest, socialism and ideological threats, moral degeneracy,crime and juvenile delinquency, agrarian decline and economic depression. Abroad, these threats