中国历史大辞典

admin管理员组

文章数量:1531661

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

本文标签： 大辞典历史中国