MOOC alert: EdX 'China’s Political and Intellectual Foundations'

[mungouk 272]

For those who might be interested, Harvard's course on EdX, "China’s Political and Intellectual Foundations: From Sage Kings to Confucius" has just opened for enrolment.

 

https://www.edx.org/course/china-part-1-political-and-intellectual-foundations-from-the-sage-kings-to-confucius-and-the-legalists-2

 

The instructors are Peter Bol and William Kirby from Harvard.

 

Lasts 15 weeks, 1-3 hours per week.  Free unless you want to pay GBP 69 for a certificate of completion.

 

 

[Luxi 571]

It's ChinaX relaunched, good! I hope it will be as inspiring as the first time it ran (2013). It was an excellent introduction to China's history and culture,  I think most people enjoyed it. It reignited my enthusiasm for learning Chinese and made a mooc-addict out of me.

I think the 15 weeks duration in the announcement is for the first 3 parts of the series, Part 1 should only be about 5 weeks.

[mungouk 272]

Now also live:

 

"ChinaX part 2" aka China’s First Empires and the Rise of Buddhism

 

and

 

"ChinaX part 3" aka Cosmopolitan Tang: Aristocratic Culture in China

 

both of these also 15 weeks, 1-3 hours per week.

 

 

[Luxi 571]

I finally made time to look into Part 1. It's indeed based on ChinaX, but it seems to be a more grown up ChinaX. What I've seen so far adds a lot to the original syllabus - where Part 1 was quite fragmentary and maybe historically not very clear. This new course appears to be  better structured, for instance the 1st section in Part 1 adds more on geography and on climate as a basis for the history that will follow. The new maps are impressive too. 

 

I haven't yet found a Chinese history series comparable to China X in the Chinese mooc platforms, where there are so far very few history courses (more will probably appear after the holiday), most of which seem to follow ancient texts almost religiously.  I think a combination of the Chinese-style formality and Harvard ChinaX-style teaching strategies could be very exciting.

[Alex_Hart 331]

On 2/6/2019 at 8:52 AM, mungouk said:

The instructors are Peter Bol and William Kirby from Harvard.

 

I've read some of Kirby's work on Republican/PRC foreign policy and have always enjoyed his insights - lots of aha moments. Have you watched the first lectures? How were they?  I'll try to catch up this week, hope they're good.