DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS, as a Chinese, l won’t lie to Chinese.

别选

If you want an easy GE class, or are somewhat interested in Chinese history, maybe steer clear of this class and look for something else. It’s fine, but what’s hard is that the professor gives very well structured lectures and aren’t extremely difficult to understand, however, the assignments and readings are extremely practical in grading and understanding the topics overall. (Ex: if the sky is blue, “it’s actually it’s about a lighter cyan color” and then you get a C for your assignment) overall, interesting class. But lots of work and not much payoff since the professor seems to assume his students have background in this topic. Very nice guy though;)

It feels more like a religion study than a history class. The course ends up discussing mostly abstract concepts like Confucianism and Buddhism instead of historical events and their causes and consequences. Do not take this class if you are looking for a history class in the conventional sense (like I did).

Lecturing reading based of slides and reads them through , there isn't a lot of assingments so you just watch lectures until the writing assignemnts and the papers which are due back to back as in a writing assignment due one week at 5 pm and the next week the paper at 5pm as well. Would not take as a GE maybe for your major yes.

If you want an easy GE class than this is not your best choice. The class is not easy, the readings are lengthy and essays long and graded somewhat harshly. However, if you are interested in the topics of Chinese history or want get a different perspective on history of China, than I would recommend this class to you. Professor Von Glahn gives you the essence of Chinese history and the core thinking behind it through insightful lectures and which ,at least for me, created a new depth to my understanding of Chinese history.

I feel like the classes are interesting, at least in the beginning. But as the quarter goes on, I found it is hard to keep myself awake at 9 in the morning. I am quite interested in philosophical stuff like Confucius, Mencius, etc., so I did not feel very bored but still I am always sleepy as well...

A reading response every week regarding the readings, and the TA will cover some questions related to the weekly assigned readings in sections. 2 papers, which basically use the designated books as source of reference (which are available is Powell). There is one midterm as well, which did not involve a lot of memorization but instead focus on how one understands the events logically. Overall, a good class for me. Not every time-consuming.

Overall a pretty nice guy, but not super engaging. I sat in the first row on the days I did come to class, and most of the time I would end up asleep (it was 9am mwf, which on Fridays is especially hard). I came into OH once and he helpfully explained the entire lecture in much better detail to me, but I never really came in again after that. The essays are really easy to do and the exams are also easy so long as you learn his lecture outlines. The exams are matching and free response, and if you can just kind of remember a general idea of what happened then you'll be fine.

Lectures: Professor Von Glahn explains philosophy and religion decently, and is less detailed about other portions of the history. What put me off, though, was that he spends a substantial portion of lecture time analyzing artwork/artifacts in a historical context -- none of which is on the tests. DESPITE THIS, I'd still recommend sticking it out, because the tests follow the lectures way more than the textbook. Von Glahn posts his lecture outlines with important terms underlined, and those terms are tested on the midterm/final. So just take the outlines, flesh them out with your own notes, and you'll be good to go.
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Textbook: The textbook honestly didn't help me much. It doesn't closely follow the lecture order, and although it provides way more historical context which might be helpful/interesting, that stuff is also not on the tests. So I'd say reading the book is optional.
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Other readings: The weekly primary source documents are pretty much only helpful for essay citations and section participation. You don't need to read them super thoroughly, just enough to answer some questions during discussion. The tests ask you to analyze or compare/contrast some passages from the documents, but the passages chosen are really straightforward to analyze. You really just need to know the context that each doc was written in, and/or the person who wrote it.
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Essays: Probably the easiest part of the class to do well on, besides participation. Just ask your TA for essay tips. You're graded on historical analysis more than your writing style, so don't worry about fluffing up your essay too much.

Can’t believe this Professor would bring forward the deadline of a paper and only makes this appointment two days before. He also blame all the fault to the syllabus.