These questions are for World Culture

Question 1.

• Describe the key motives involved in the increased presence of Westerners in India, China, and Japan in the 1700s and 1800s. Identify the key factors that led to Britain’s successful imposition of its presence and trade policies on China, despite communications like those from Emperor Ch’ien-lung (i.e., Qianlong) and Commissioner Lin Zexu (i.e., Lin Tse-hsu). Argue for or against the British policies regarding China in the 1800s, using analogies from our own modern times.

Intrusions in Asia

• The Opium Wars and Foreign Encroachment: http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/special/china_1750_opium.htm
• Opium Wars with visuals at http://ocw.mit.edu/ans7870/21f/21f.027/opium_wars_01/ow1_essay01.html
• Key documents from China at http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1793qianlong.asp and http://acc6.its.brooklyn.cuny.edu/~phalsall/texts/com-lin.html

Question 2

One of the great female artists during this period was Kate Chopin. She wrote some really interesting stories about the struggles of being a woman in the late nineteenth century. The clip below is a reading of one of her works, “The Story Of an Hour”. Students should listen to the recording and answer the questions below:

What relationship can you see between this writing and the work of the female painters of the period like Mary Cassatt? From the visual and literary works what can you determine about the lives of middle class and wealthy women living during the nineteenth century? How did their expectations for their life differ from general society’s expectations for the lives of women during this period?