Readings

Please complete all readings before class.

S01: Introduction

Primary Sources

Secondary Sources

• Lexicon of Lies (Jack, 2017)

S02: History and Truth

Primary Sources

• Chapter 1 and 16 of Brave New World (Huxley, 2013, Chapters 1, 16)

Secondary Sources

• Truth and Politics (section 1 only) (Arendt, 1967)

S03: Journey to the East

Primary Sources

• Marco Polo: Excerpt from The Book of Marco Polo: The Venetian Concerning Kingdoms and Marvels of the East, Vol. 2, Part III, Chapter LXXV: “Of the Noble City of Suju” and Chapter LXXVI: “Description of the Great City of Kinsay, Which Is the Capital of the Whole Country of Manzi” (Polo, 2010, pp. 142–145)

Secondary Sources

• “The Bare Details”; “Omissions and Inclusions”; “Conclusion” (Wood, 1996, Chapters 1, 8, Conclusion)
• Igor de Rachewiltz, F. Wood’s Did Marco Polo Go to China?: A Critical Appraisal

S04: Junk History

Primary Sources

• Zheng He’s Biography in Mingshi (Dreyer, 2007, pp. 187–191)

Secondary Sources

• The Zheng He Voyages: A Reassessment (Wade, 2005)
• “Junk History” (watch 30:06–44:32) (“Junk History,” 2006)

S05: Skills Session — Reading, Writing, Revising

Primary Sources

• —

Secondary Sources

• Sources: An Introduction (Schrag, 2021, pp. 103–118)

S06: Sorcery Scare

Primary Sources

• Shunzhi’s Head-Shaving Decree (1645) (Atwill & Atwill, 2021, pp. 5–6)

Secondary Sources

• “The Roots of Sorcery Fear”; “Political Crime and Bureaucratic Monarchy” (Kuhn, 1990, Chapters 5, 9)

S07: Foreign Devils

Note

No class on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. This session meets in the following class meeting.

Primary Sources

• Malan Boxer Proclamations (1890) and Spirit Boxer Possession (1900) (Atwill & Atwill, 2021, pp. 118–120)

Secondary Sources

• Preface and Chapter 5: “Rumor and Rumor Panic” (Cohen, 1997, pp. 1–13, 146–172)

S08: Yellow Peril

Primary Sources

• Memorial of Chinese Laborers at Rock Springs, Wyoming (1885) (Yung et al., 2006, pp. 48–54)
• Choose one image:
  • “The only one barred out—Enlightened American statesman”
  • Chinese immigrants at the San Francisco custom-house
  • Or one of your choice

Secondary Sources

• The Chinese Are No More (Lee, 2019, Chapter 3)

S09: New Publics

Primary Sources

• Cai Chusheng, New Women (1935, 104 mins) (Cai, 1935)

Secondary Sources

• Media Sensation: Public Justice and the Sympathy of an Urban Audience (Lean, 2007, Chapter 2)

S10: Skills Session — Research Proposal

Primary Sources

• —

Secondary Sources

• “Questions”; “What Is Your Problem?” (Mullaney & Rea, 2022, Chapters 1–2, p. 19–66)

S11: Propaganda War

Primary Sources

• Frank Capra, The Battle of China (1944, 64 mins) (Capra & Litvak, 1944)

Secondary Sources

• Introduction: War, Memory, and Nationalism in China (Mitter, 2020, pp. 1–26)

S12: Germ Warfare

Primary Sources

• Ciphered Telegram No. 16715 from Beijing, Mao Zedong to Filippov
• Resolution of the Presidium of the USSR Council of Ministers
• Introduction and May 16, 2019 entry from Baseless (Baker, 2020)

Secondary Sources

• Germ Warfare and Patriotic Weisheng (Rogaski, 2004, Chapter 10, p. 285–299)

S13: Skills Session — How to Research

Primary Sources

• —

Secondary Sources

• Designing a Project That Works (Mullaney & Rea, 2022, pp. 67–116)

S14: Red Scare

Primary Sources

• Ordeal by Slander, Chapter 9 (Lattimore, 1950, pp. 221–236)

Secondary Sources

• Preface and Chapter 15, “Top Soviet Spy” (Newman, 1992, pp. ix–xii, 207–226)

S15: Hungry Ghosts

Primary Sources

• Chairman Mao’s Words at the Shanghai Conference (Zhou, 2012, pp. 23–25)
• Documents 110 and 111 (Zhou, 2012, pp. 154–157)

Secondary Sources

• Hard Facts and Half-Truths (Garnaut, 2013)

S16: Only Children

Primary Sources

• Deng Xiaoping, Emancipate the Mind, Seek Truth from Facts
• One Couple, One Child (1980) (Atwill & Atwill, 2021, pp. 352–353)

Secondary Sources

• Preface and Chapter 4, “A Sinified Cybernetics of Population” (Greenhalgh, 2008, pp. xi–xvii, 125–168)

S17: Skills Session — Writing It Up

Primary Sources

• —

Secondary Sources

• How to Navigate Your Field; How to Begin (Mullaney & Rea, 2022, pp. 152–192)

S18: Nailing Jelly

Primary Sources

• Total Trust (Zhang, 2023)

Secondary Sources

• Introduction (Roberts, 2018, pp. 1–20)

S19: Contentious Water

Primary Sources

• Nongfu Spring: Water Nutrients Experts Germany

Secondary Sources

• China’s Richest Person Made Billions Bottling Pristine Water (C. Liu et al., 2023)
• Why Are China’s Nationalists Attacking the Country’s Heroes? (Dong & Wang, 2024)
• Chinese water bottling company subsidiary appears to be new owner of NH building (Briand, 05-31-2025 9:00 AM)

S20: TikTok — Victim or Villain?

Primary Sources

• The Truth About TikTok: Separating Fact from Fiction (ByteDance, 2019)

Secondary Sources

• ByteDance: TikTok and the Trials of Going Viral (Kirby & McHugh, 2021)
• Breaking the Social Media Prism, Chapters 1 and 9 (Bail, 2021, pp. 1–10, 116–132)

S21: Information Warfare

Primary Sources

• Working Together to Realize Rejuvenation of the Chinese Nation (Xi, 2019)

Secondary Sources

• How We Would Know When China Is Preparing to Invade Taiwan (Culver, 2022)
• Don’t Panic about Taiwan (Weiss, 2023)

S22: Pandemic Origins

Primary Sources

• Li Wenliang’s Letter of Admonition (2020) (Atwill & Atwill, 2021, pp. 405–407)
• Updated Assessment on COVID-19 Origins (Office of the Director of National Intelligence & National Intelligence Council, 2023)

Secondary Sources

• Thinking about China’s Response to COVID-19 (Yang, 2024, pp. 1–21)

S23: Presentation Session I

• Berry, Jacob
  
• Lim, Kiern
  
• Olsson, Walker
  
• Wright, Timothy

S24: Presentation Session II

• Chou, Kathryn
  
• Frank, William
  
• Nijjar, Sukhmani
  
• Tortorella, Charles

S25: Presentation Session III

• Crawford, Charlotte
  
• Glick, William
  
• Larson, Theo
  
• Yang, Vincent

S26: Presentation Session IV

• Davis, Norwood
  
• Miller, Fletcher
  
• Sullivan, George
  
• Verny, Nathan

S27: Conclusion — Living in Truth

Primary Sources

• Liu Xiaobo, “Using Truth to Undermine a System Built on Lies” (X. Liu, 2012, pp. 292–299)

Secondary Sources

• AI Is Supercharging Disinformation Warfare (Rubin & Vujica, 2025)

Bibliography

Arendt, H. (1967). Truth and Politics. The New Yorker.

Atwill, D. G., & Atwill, Y. Y. (2021). Sources in Chinese history : Diverse perspectives from 1644 to the present (Second edition.). Routledge.

Bail, C. (2021). Breaking the Social Media Prism: How to Make Our Platforms Less Polarizing (1st ed.). Princeton University Press. https://doi.org/10.1515/9780691216508

Baker, N. (2020). Baseless: My search for secrets in the ruins of the Freedom of Information Act. Penguin Press.

Briand, P. (05-31-2025 9:00 AM). Chinese water bottling company subsidiary appears to be new owner of NH building. In Valley News. https://www.vnews.com/Chinese-water-bottling-company-subsidiary-appears-to-be-new-owner-of-Nashua-building-61457862.

ByteDance. (2019). The Truth About TikTok: Separating Fact from Fiction. In TikTok Newsroom. https://newsroom.tiktok.com/en-au/the-truth-about-tiktok.

Cai, C. (1935). Xin nü xing [Drama]. Lianhua Film Company.

Capra, F., & Litvak, A. (1944). The Battle of China [Documentary, {{History}}, {{War}}]. Army Service Forces, Morale Services Division, U.S. Army Signal Corps.

Cohen, P. A. (1997). History in three keys: The boxers as event, experience, and myth. Columbia University Press.

Culver, J. (2022). How We Would Know When China Is Preparing to Invade Taiwan. In Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. https://carnegieendowment.org/2022/10/03/how-we-would-know-when-china-is-preparing-to-invade-taiwan-pub-88053.

Dong, J., & Wang, V. (2024). Why Are China’s Nationalists Attacking the Country’s Heroes? The New York Times.

Dreyer, E. L. (2007). Zheng He: China and the oceans in the early Ming dynasty, 1405-1433. Pearson Longman.

Garnaut, A. (2013). Hard facts and half-truths: The new archival history of China’s Great Famine. China Information, 27, 223–246. https://doi.org/10.1177/0920203x13485390

Greenhalgh, S. (2008). Just One Child : Science and Policy in Deng’s China. University of California Press.

Huxley, A. (2013). Brave new world. Alfred AKnopf.

Jack, C. (2017). Lexicon of Lies: Terms for Problematic Information. Data & Society.

Junk History. (2006). In Four Corners. Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

Kirby, W. C., & McHugh, J. P. (2021). ByteDance: TikTok and the Trials of Going Viral. Harvard Business Publishing.

Kuhn, P. A. (1990). Soulstealers : The Chinese sorcery scare of 1768. Harvard University Press.

Lattimore, O. (1950). Ordeal by Slander (First Edition). Little, Brown.

Lean, E. (2007). Public passions : The trial of Shi Jianqiao and the rise of popular sympathy in Republican China. University of California Press.

Lee, C. K. (2019). The Social Question as the Struggle over Precarity: The Case of China. University of California Press. https://doi.org/10.1525/luminos.74.e

Liu, C., Ding, L., & Ritchie, M. (2023). China’s Richest Person Made Billions Bottling Pristine Water. Bloomberg.com.

Liu, X. (2012). No enemies, no hatred: Selected essays and poems. Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.

Mitter, R. (2020). In Hong Kong’s national security law era, echoes of Ireland’s Troubles. In South China Morning Post. https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3092731/hong-kongs-national-security-law-era-echoes-northern-irelands.

Mullaney, T. S., & Rea, C. (2022). Where Research Begins: Choosing a Research Project That Matters to You.

Newman, J. H. C. (1992). The Idea of a University. University of Notre Dame Pess.

Office of the Director of National Intelligence, & National Intelligence Council. (2023). Updated Assessment on COVID-19 Origins.

Polo, M. (2010). The Book of Ser Marco Polo, the Venetian: Concerning the Kingdoms and Marvels of the East (H. Yule, Ed. & Trans.; Vol. 1). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511703812

Roberts, M. E. (2018). Censored: Distraction and diversion inside China’s great firewall. Princeton University Press.

Rogaski, R. (2004). Hygienic modernity : Meanings of health and disease in treaty-port China. University of California Press.

Rubin, J. P., & Vujica, D. (2025). AI Is Supercharging Disinformation Warfare. Foreign Affairs.

Schrag, Z. (2021). The Princeton Guide to Historical Research.

Wade, G. (2005). The Zheng He Voyages: A Reassessment. Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 78(1), 37–58.

Weiss, J. C. (2023). Even China Isn’t Convinced It Can Replace the U.S. The New York Times.

Wood, Frances. (1996). Did Marco Polo go to China? Westview Press.

Xi, J. (2019). Working Together to Realize Rejuvenation of the Chinese Nation and Advance China’s Peaceful Reunification. In Taiwan Work Office of the CPC Central Committee. http://www.gwytb.gov.cn/wyly/201904/t20190412_12155687.htm.

Yang, D. L. (2024). Wuhan: How the COVID-19 Outbreak in China Spiraled Out of Control. Oxford University Press.

Yung, J., Chang, G. H., & Lai, H. M. (2006). Chinese American voices: From the gold rush to the present. University of California Press.

Zhang, M. (2023). Narratives and Voices of Cultural Revolution “Perpetrators.” In D. Leese & A. Shuman (Eds.), Justice After Mao (1st ed., pp. 193–215). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009261265.013

Zhou, X. (2012). The great famine in China, 1958-1962 : A documentary history. Yale University Press.