Week 9 (Oct. 25 – Oct. 31)

Table of contents

To-do and Weekly Schedule

Reminder

Remember to send in your rewritten essay for feedback! How did it go? Do you like having more time for your writing? Does this experience encourage you to start working on other essays or papers earlier, so you get more time to reflect and rewrite?

By Tuesday, 12:30PM

The focus for today is on the journal of William Almack. I’m pretty sure we are the only class in the US using this text: I photographed most of the journal in 2018 during a visit to the Manuscript collection at Cambridge University Library, where the journal is kept. (Check out the Catalog Record!)

Mr. Almack was a tea trader in Canton from 1837 until the First Opium War. The journal is a real old-fashioned journal, handwritten and with a lock! In the extracted passage, scenes of intense action and periods of waiting alternate, and there is the odd humorous comment, but also be warned that this was 1837-1841, and there are plenty of racist comments, too.

If you want, you can compare my transcription skills against the original’s photographs: Google folder I am always looking for volunteers to help me with transcribing the remaining part of the journal – maybe we can even make this a summer research project?

Prepare for Tuesday’s class: Almack, William. Journal (July 1837- July 1841), MS Add.9529. Cambridge University Library, Department of Manuscripts and University Archives.

  • Google Doc (transcription)
    • I already picked my two sections for closer reading. Jump in with comments, questions (what is not clear? what bewilders you?) on the Google Doc to share with everyone. If you prefer to work on paper, that’s ok!
    • Which other passages would you like to discuss more in detail in class, or get more information about? Indicate in the Google Doc with comments which ones you want to spend time with. There is a lot of interesting material in this journal.
      • Your suggested selection can be much shorter than mine.
      • FYI: Make sure to go through the entire document: I do notice it when there are a ton of comments at the start and nothing at the end, and I know how to interpret that.
    • Compare the second section in bold with the account between red brackets from this source: Collis, Maurice. Foreign Mud: Being an Account of the Opium Imbroglio at Canton in the 1830s and the Anglo-Chinese War That Followed. London: Faber and Faber Limited, 1946. (PDF)

Background: Useful to bring you up to speed on the history of the First Opium War – you can leave questions/comments in our Hypothes.is group.

  • Baumler, Alan. “Opium War, First.” In Berkshire Encyclopedia of China: Modern and Historic Views of the World’s Newest and Oldest Global Power, edited by Linsun Cheng. Berkshire Publishing Group, 2009.  https://muhlenberg.idm.oclc.org/login?url=https://search.credoreference.com/content/entry/berkchina/opium_war_first/0?institutionId=4200
    • A brief encyclopedia overview of the events leading up to the Opium War, and the trade imbalance that caused the tensions between the Qing government and the British merchants.
  • Lovell, Julia. The Opium War: Drugs, Dreams and the Making of China. New York, NY: Overlook Press, 2015.
    • PDF
    • An extract from the book documenting the history of opium in China, and its nefarious effects on Qing society and government.

Thursday, 12:30PM

Continue working on the short writing writing exercise we started on Tuesday. Details coming on Tuesday in class.

Sunday, 11:59PM

  • Submit your short writing exercise as a Google doc shared with Brianna and Dr. D for commenting.
  • Submit the Google Form with feedback on your experience

Slides

Tuesday: Almack Journal

Where to get help