FYS 1233 - Water, Food & Environment in China

Credits: 4
Water and food have been a crucial but often overlooked part of Chinese history. How have changing patterns of consumption shaped the environment and daily life in different times and regions? What has shaped the Chinese peoples’ relations with water, food, and the environment? Despite lakes and rivers, why have people in China repeatedly suffered in history from lack of water? Why has China faced repeated famines? How have solutions to these problems been wrapped in economic shifts, cultural integration and disintegration, and the expansion/diminishing of state power? Employing a range of disciplinary perspectives-historical, literary, philosophical, agrarian, economic, technological, and environmental -this course examines the changing images of food, water, and environment in Chinese history. Students will consider issues of water and food in peoples’ daily lives, in relation to the environment, within the agrarian economy, and in state projects over time.

McDaniel Plan: First Year Seminar; Social, Cultural, and Historical Understanding; Experiential