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2024年4月28日发(作者:)
EAST ASIAN HISTORICAL RESEARCH
Doing research on East Asian history requires an understanding of the kind of sources
available and how to use them. This handout is designed to introduce the main types of
sources that are available. It also suggests the path of development that you will follow if
you pursue the study of East Asian history beyond the undergraduate level. With this
background, you will have a general idea of the kind of sources available for research.
Before we get to the sources, we need to understand some basic characteristics of the
discipline of History as it is applied to East Asia.
Do you know the lingo?
History as an academic discipline is a little unusual in that it encompasses a great deal of
variety. The only thing that all its practitioners agree on is that history is the analytical
study of the human past. Historians therefore happily adopt whatever tools are available
to help them make sense of the past. Economic historians use the tools of economic
analysis; intellectual historians (who study ideas and values) use the tools of philosophy;
and social historians often draw on anthropology and sociology. As you research a topic
in East Asian history, you should pay attention to the jargon that authors use. If they seem
to be using unfamiliar terminology, USE RELEVANT DICTIONARIES to learn the
terms. Not only will this make the work more comprehensible, you may actually find
yourself enjoying the intellectual puzzle (yes, I know, but allow a professor to dream a
little!).
Besides the technical jargon of the various historical subdisciplines, there are terms
frequently encountered in reading Chinese, Japanese, or Korean history that you will
need to become familiar with. For example, when historians of China use the word
“memorial,” they usually mean a report by an official to the Emperor. A cloistered
emperor in medieval Japanese history has a particular meaning, as does yangban in
Korean history.
Go East Young Person
Well, we usually fly west to end up in East Asia, but you get the idea. Here I want to
make some observations concerning where you go from here (undergraduate history
writing). American students tend to be spoiled by the fact that English has become a
global language and that most Americans live a significant distance from non-English
speaking countries. As a result, Americans are almost willfully monolingual. By the fact
that you are in this course, we know that you do not fit that category, but there is still a
temptation to rely excessively on English. This will have to change if you pursue East
Asian history in graduate school.
The first place that English will fall away is in your use of primary sources. At the
moment, you are largely restricted to using English language translations of primary
sources. This is a perfectly acceptable entry way if you are using quality translations. You
will, however, eventually have to convert to using primary sources in the original
languages. I will indicate some of the most important primary sources for Chinese
historical research below.
However, primary sources are not the only place that East Asian languages come into
play. Believe it or not, native Chinese, Japanese, and Koreans have been studying their
own history for millennia. Scholars from these cultures produce a large amount of
secondary scholarship in their own languages on their own history. As your language
skills improve, you will have to begin consulting this scholarship as well. That means if
you want to study Japanese history, you must be able to read modern Japanese well
enough to know what is going on in Japanese language scholarship. It will also help your
career immensely if you can speak the language well enough to converse with scholars
(though that will come later).
It turns out also that not just American scholars are interested in the history of other
countries. When you really progress in your studies, you will want to be able to consult
scholarship from other countries. For example, you should not even think about doing
premodern Chinese history without at least a reading knowledge of Japanese. Japanese
scholars do amazingly high quality research in many fields. I think Irish historians should
learn Japanese!
A QUICK PRE-GAME PEP TALK!
I know that the nascent historians are now close to tears because of all the language
requirements, but they need not despair! The burden is only a burden if you look at it as
one. There is really nothing like the excitement of learning and using a new language.
Sure there’s tedium and terror, but imagine being in a dead-end job for fifty years! Each
new language you learn opens a window on a new world. Those of you who hang around
the Department office enough will know what a kick we get out of this stuff. All that fun
can be yours too!
METHODS IN HISTORICAL RESEARCH
Choosing the sources
Having decided on a historical problem to research, you will first have to decide on the
proper sources. If you are able to use primary sources in Chinese, you can search widely
for relevant sources. If you cannot yet (and I emphasize YET) use Chinese, you still must
think about what sources are relevant. For example, if you are examining the philosophy
of a famous intellectual, you will want to look for translations of that individual’s writing.
At the same time that you are looking for such primary sources, you will also have to
look for relevant secondary sources. You should see the section on the annotated
bibliography for some guidelines on this.
Evaluating the sources
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