Dear Colleague:

Dear Colleague:

Thank you for your interest in China Institute’s 2009 National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institute, From Chang’an to Xi’an: Ancient Capital to Modern Metropolis. The program will take place in Xi’an, China, and will extend over five weeks from Monday, July 6 through Friday, August 7, 2009. The program, open to twenty-five participants, has been designed and will be operated by China Institute’s Teach China program, China Institute’s award-winning professional development program for K-12 teachers.

Since its founding in 1926, China Institute has been dedicated to educating the American public about Chinese culture, history and contemporary life. The Institute’s mission is to advance a deeper understanding of China in the belief that cross-cultural communication strengthens our global community. We are immensely excited about this landmark Summer Institute and we look forward to providing program participants with a truly exhilarating and memorable experience.

Program Overview

The Summer Institute will start on July 6, 2009 with a two-day orientation session in Newark, NJ. We will then depart for Beijing, where we will make a one-day stop on July 9 before moving on to Xi’an for four weeks.

From Chang’an to Xi’an: Ancient Capital to Modern Metropolis will provide a unique opportunity to study the multi-layered history of one of the world’s oldest and magnificent urban centers in situ, focusing on the critical geopolitical importance of what is the present-day Xi’an metropolitan area in the formation of Chinese civilization. The program is structured on a series of lectures and site visits, which in combination will help the participants develop group curriculum projects that they can use to introduce the history of this dynamic city to their students.

The Summer Institute will be held at the International College of Chinese Studies at Shaanxi Normal University (SNU) in Xi’an, one of six premier universities specifically charged with educating teachers by the Chinese Ministry of Education. We will reside in the “old” campus, conveniently located in proximity to the historical Old Xi’an and along Chang’an Road, which runs directly through the old city center. Xi’an and its environs boast some of the most historically and culturally significant resources for understanding Chinese civilization and we invite all K-12 educators to submit an application for this groundbreaking opportunity.

Daily Structure and Program Content

The Summer Institute will meet every weekday for five weeks. We have designed a comprehensive, multi-disciplinary curriculum that will be taught by a dynamic team. The principal faculty member will be Professor Annette Juliano, a renowned Asian art historian at Rutgers University. Her lectures will provide a thread of continuity throughout the Institute and we have invited external experts to speak on a variety of topics. We also added a language learning component to supplement the content courses.

The daily structure of the program is as follows:

During the week, we will begin every morning with a Chinese language lesson, followed by a lecture on the history and culture of Chang’an/Xi’an. In the afternoon, we will continue the “theme of the day” with a site visit to supplement the morning lecture or in a workshop for group discussions with the faculty to develop effective curriculum. In the evening, we will show films occasionally. On the weekends, we have scheduled excursions to sites near Xi’an that will further supplement weekday lectures and activities.

The Institute will begin with a two-day orientation session in Newark, NJ, which will prepare the participants for the extended study experience in China. Practical information about health, safety and communications will be covered, as well as important thematic issues. Once the group arrives in Beijing, the orientation week will continue with an exploration of Beijing, the modern capital of the People’s Republic of China but also an embodiment of China’s recent dynastic past. We will walk the Forbidden City to study the cosmic and political precepts that informed the imperial architecture and spatial layout of the capital. These precepts will be revisited throughout our subsequent exploration of Xi’an and help us discern important contrasts between Xi’an and Beijing. We will also visit the Beijing Urban Planning Museum. We will examine and assess urban changes in the past two centuries, and more importantly, the challenge that they pose to preserving traditional Chinese urban structures — another recurring theme in the Summer Institute. Finally, we will visit the Great Wall at Mutianyu to witness the vestigial monument of the often contentious relationship between the sedentary Chinese and the nomadic peoples. An examination of the history of this relationship will also help us understand and explain the important geographical factors that motivated the establishment of the many less-studied capital cities in North China.

After a brief stay in Beijing, we will take a train to reach Xi’an. Once we’ve arrived at our host institution, Shaanxi Normal University (SNU), we will continue the orientation and allot time to settle and acclimate. During our first week in Xi’an we will make an excursion to Baoji, a region known to be the birthplace of the Zhou civilization (c. 1121 BCE to 249 BCE). Baoji flourished during the Chinese Bronze Age and artifacts from the time have been excavated in large numbers. We will study some of the finest examples at the Baoji Bronze Ware Museum.

During the second week, participants will visit and explore Banpo, a seminal archeological site located east of Xi’an that contains the remnants of a Neolithic village. During this on-site session, participants will be instructed on strategies of interpreting archeological evidence in situ. Subsequent lectures and curriculum workshops will further help the participants understand the evolution of the greater Xi’an region as the site of the capital of the first unified Chinese empire, Xianyang of the Qin Dynasty (221 – 207 BCE). Most of the ancient Xianyang city was destroyed in antiquity, but the First Emperor of Qin’s subterranean necropolis, discovery in the 1970s, testifies to the monumentality of imperial power, a system of government that would endure for the next two millennia in Chinese history. Lastly, we will explore the topographical features of Xi’an and the geopolitical factors that contributed to a succession of subsequent dynastic capitals in this region.

In the third week we will study two great dynasties in Chinese history, the Han (206 BCE – 220 CE) and the Tang (618 – 907 CE). We will begin with an exploration of the Yangling Mausoleum Museum, built on the site of Han Emperor Jing’s necropolis. This funerary monument was built according to a combination of Confucian and Taoist principles to reflect the contemporary worldview and epitomizes the evolution of statecraft and religion from the Qin to the Han. After the reign of Emperor Jing, his son and successor, Emperor Wu, initiated a series of diplomatic and military maneuvers that would lead to the opening of what became known as the Silk Roads. Along this collective international highway that began in Xi’an and terminated in Rome, a multitude of cultures and religions flourished as the result of robust commerce. A key focus of our study on the Silk Roads will be Buddhism, which was first transmitted to China during the Han dynasty. We will examine the evolving relationship of this foreign religion, which reached an historical pinnacle during the Tang dynasty, with the native belief systems, Confucianism and Taoism. Visits to Buddhist sites and Tang imperial tombs will further supplement the lectures and workshops on the multifaceted Tang civilization, including the construction of the magnificent imperial city known as Chang’an.

The focus of our study during the fourth week will be the history of Chang’an, a cosmopolitan city populated by a diversity of peoples of different religions and ethnicities. The legacy of Chang’an is still evident today in its large Muslim population, and we will visit the Great Mosque, built during the Ming Dynasty (1368 – 1644 CE) and still in use, to study the history of Islam in China. We will then shift our historical focus to the present day and examine the legacy of Xi’an in modern Chinese history. We will make a special trip to Yan’an, where the then-struggling Communist Army progressively gained the support of the rural mass using various modes of propaganda. Our study will include a fieldtrip to a film studio that has played an important role in the history of Chinese media.

In the final week of the Summer Institute, participants will examine and assess issues pertinent to the economic and social changes in contemporary China, using Xi’an as a case study. A visit to Huxian, a rural village, will give the participants a rare opportunity to identify traditional elements in contemporary Chinese society. We will learn about the shifts in social and economic policies in the past twenty-five years, and scrutinize the impact of these changes on family structure and gender relations. We will conclude the Institute with an assessment of the current practice of city-planning in Xi’an that synergizes sustained commercial development, ecological and environmental protection, and conservation and preservation of cultural heritage.

Readings and Writings

Living and studying in a foreign country where one does not speak the language may seem daunting, but with proper preparation, it can be an intensely rewarding and memorable experience. China Institute requires that all accepted participants complete two preparatory texts, In Search of Modern China, by Jonathan Spence, and Chinese Civilization: A Sourcebook, edited by Patricia Ebrey, prior to their participation in the Summer Institute. Copies of these books will be sent to accepted applicants in advance of the orientation in Newark; they will provide both historical and contemporary background for understanding China. In addition, relevant articles will be posted on a password- protected website during the course of the program. Participants will have access to computers available in a library specifically reserved for our Institute’s use. The bulk of the curriculum work participants will be responsible for will be based on archaeological and cultural resources in Xi’an and therefore we do not expect participants to be heavily involved in reading during the Institute. For those participants interested in pursuing particular topics in further detail, we will provide a list of supplemental readings.
Curriculum units, based on one of the topics addressed during the Institute, will be developed by small working groups consisting of five participants. Groups will be organized according to grade level. The curriculum units will include digital photographs of at least one of the archeological or cultural sites we visit to help illustrate the chosen topic. Groups will first brainstorm and then choose a grade-relevant curriculum topic and each member of the group will subsequently develop a curriculum instructional exercise consistent with the chosen topic. Completed curriculum projects, including the mandatory visual components, will be due in early Fall 2009 to be reviewed and critiqued by Professor Juliano. China Institute staff will work closely with the groups to ensure that the units are developed according to a format readily adaptable for web posting, as they will eventually be available on China Institute’s website.

Faculty and Staff

Dr. Annette Juliano, Professor of Asian Art at Rutgers University will be the principal faculty member for the entire duration of the Summer Institute. Dr. Juliano is a prominent scholar of Asian art history and a founding member of China Institute’s Gallery Committee. Her approach to the study of art history is object-based and her area of specialization is sculpture of pre-Tang and Tang Dynasty China. Professor Juliano has curated two major exhibitions and is the author and editor of three critical works on the subject of cultural exchanges in western China. Her most recent exhibition catalogue, Buddhist Sculpture in China: Selections from the Xi’an Beilin Museum, concerns objects from the famed museum known as the Forest of Steles (Beilin), which we will visit during the Summer Institute. Professor Juliano holds a Ph.D. in Asian Art from New York University’s Institute of Fine Art, where she specialized in Chinese art. Her career spans twenty-five years in both teaching and university administration, most recently as Associate Dean for Academic Affiars at Rutgers University-Newark. She has worked extensively in Xi’an and will be an exceptionally valuable resource to the participants in developing their curriculum units.

Dr. Hsin-Mei Agnes Hsu, Director of Education and Dean of the Confucius Institute at China Institute, is Program Director of the Summer Institute. Dr. Hsu is an International Expert to UNESCO World Heritage Centre and has served on two serial-nomination committees, the Quapag Ñan (the Main Andean Road) and the Silk Roads, for which she authored “The Exceptional Universal Value of the Road Systems in Ancient Empires: A Comparative Study of the Chinese Oasis Route of the Early Silk Road and the Qhapag Ñan.” Dr. Hsu taught Chinese archaeology at Brown University and was a Mellon Foundation research scholar at Stanford University and the Needham Research Institute at Cambridge University, UK. Dr. Hsu is a scholar of Han archaeology, with training in Classical archaeology. She has published on ancient Chinese cartography and comparative issues of early empires, respectively in “An Emic Perspective of the Mapmaker’s Art in Western Han China” (Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 3, 17, 4, 2007) and “Structured Perceptions of Real and Imagined Landscapes in Early Imperial China” in Geography, Ethnography, and Perceptions of the World from Antiquity to the Renaissance. Dr. Hsu received her graduate degrees from the University of Pennsylvania.

Mr. Kevin Lawrence, Associate Director of China Institute’s professional development program for educators, Teach China, is Project Coordinator for the Summer Institute. Mr. Lawrence earned his undergraduate and Master’s degrees in the Department of Comparative Literature at the University of Iowa, and conducted doctoral research in the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations at the University of Chicago. Mr. Lawrence speaks fluent Chinese; he has led many study tours throughout China and has worked closely with staff and personnel at Shaanxi Normal University. As Project Coordinator, Mr. Lawrence will manage all logistics including transportation and accommodations, and will be available to assist participants with day-to-day arrangements.

Applicants, Applications and Stipends

K-12 educators from all disciplines and all parts of the country are invited to apply. The Institute’s contents will likely be most relevant for social studies and history teachers. However, educators in other fields, especially those who can make the case that their curriculum goals would be strengthened and enriched by the Institute experience, are encouraged to apply as well. Preference will be given to educators who will utilize the institute’s contents in their professional lives. One expectation is that all participants will introduce the China-related knowledge they gain at the institute to their classrooms, regardless of the discipline. A total of twenty-five participants will be selected.

Complete application information and instructions are available on our website at www.chinainstitute.org/educators/NEH2009. Three copies of the completed application must be sent to China Institute using a package-tracking service, available via U.S. Mail or private carriers, and must be postmarked no later than March 2, 2009. Please address your application package to:

Mr. Kevin Lawrence
From Chang’an to Xi’an
China Institute
125 East 65th Street
New York, NY 10065

We will not accept faxed or emailed applications; they will be discarded without notification. If you have specific questions that are not answered either in this letter or on our website, please contact Kevin Lawrence at 212-744-8181, ext. 129; or by email at klawrence@chinainstitute.org.

The most important part of the application is the essay that must be submitted as part of the completed application. This essay should include the following components: any relevant personal and academic information, reasons for applying to this particular NEH project, intellectual and personal interests in the topic, qualifications to complete the work of the project successfully, expected contribution to the intellectual community that will form during and after the Institute, expectations to accomplish by participation, and connection of the contents of the Summer Institute and your teaching.

Participants will receive a total stipend of $3,800 to be used for housing, transportation, and living costs for this five-week institute.

Accommodations, Costs, and Meals

Housing will be provided at Shaanxi Normal University’s compound designated for foreign visitors. Participants will have single rooms with bath facilities. The rooms are modest but clean and comfortable, and air conditioning is available. Accommodations are roughly equivalent to a three-star hotel in China and costs $37 per day; breakfast is included. Laundry, internet, phone cards and other facilities to meet daily necessities are all available on and/or near campus, and staff will be available to assist in arranging to meet any reasonable needs that the participants might have. Participants considering seeking more up-scale accommodations in Xi’an must do so on their own, and must make the arrangements far in advance of the departure date. China Institute will require all participants seeking alternative housing options to submit evidence of advance reservations. There is no housing availability on campus to accommodate spouses, significant others, children, or other types of family members. Anyone who wishes to join a participant is wholly responsible for his or her own travel arrangements to and from China, as well as all lodging and others arrangements once in China. Staff members are dedicated to help our participants and will not be available to provide any assistance to non-participants. Please note that the NEH strictly forbids any visitors to the seminar sessions and visitors will not be able to join in group excursions to historical or cultural sites.

The institute stipend is $3,800 for the five-week program and all participants must be active members of the Institute for the entire duration. China Institute will arrange for a round-trip group flight ticket (Newark, New Jersey-Beijing), which will cost approximately $1,400. We will also arrange for lodging in Beijing at around $150 for a shared room, and a round-trip train ticket between Beijing and Xi’an, which will cost approximately $300. We require that all participants purchase traveler’s insurance in case of emergency, which is priced at $3.75 per day. An itemized list of anticipated costs that China Institute will deduct from the allotted stipend to pay for these group arrangements is as follows:

$1,400 round-trip international flight
$ 150 double occupancy in Beijing
$ 300 round-trip domestic train ticket
$1,147 accommodations at SNU for 31 days
$123.75 traveler’s insurance for 33 days
_______
$3,120.75

Participants are responsible for transportation to and from Newark, and participants must arrive in Newark no later than 9:00 AM on Monday, July 6; there will be no exceptions. The orientation session will take place at a hotel near the Newark International Airport (to be negotiated soon) and participants can share a double for approximately $60 a night (we fly out on Tuesday afternoon, July 7th). Participants are responsible for obtaining their own visas and will need to cover all meals and living expenses. As you can see, the stipend will cover a good portion of the cost of traveling and living in China for five weeks but not all of it. Participants should anticipate spending at least $500 out-of-pocket and possibly more, depending on one’s daily habits. ATMs are readily available, but participants should check with their banks and credit card companies in advance to ensure that they can reliably use them in China.
Participants will have a wide range of dining options in and around SNU’s campus, but please keep in mind that we will be in a foreign country with a tasty but different cuisine from that found at home. Participants with strict dietary restrictions may be hard-pressed to find convenient dining options especially given the language barrier. There are area restaurants that feature “Western” cuisine, but the Chinese version of “Western” food may strike you as unexpected as American versions of “Chinese” food are unfamiliar to Chinese people. There are many places to buy groceries in the neighborhood and fast food joints (McDonald’s and KFC) are as plentiful in Xi’an as they are in Anywhere, USA. We encourage you to view your dining experiences as one more opportunity to learn about China. Our experience with educators from other study tour programs has been that they quickly adapt to Chinese cuisine, learn to savor tea instead of coffee, and often miss the sumptuous distinctiveness of Chinese cuisine once they return to the United States.

* * *

We hope we have answered most of the questions you may have as you consider applying for this NEH Summer Institute. If you know of any colleagues or fellow educators who might be interested in the From Chang’an to Xi’an: Ancient Capital to Modern Metropolis Summer Institute, we invite you to share this program information with them.

The application form will be available for downloading on the China Institute website at www.chinainstitute.org/educators/NEH2009 starting November 25, 2008. If you prefer to receive the application by post, please send a request by email or by phone to my colleague Kevin Lawrence at klawrence@chinainstitute.org.

We look forward to receiving and reading your application. Thank you for your interest in joining our team in Xi’an.

Hsin-Mei Agnes Hsu, Ph.D.

Director of Education
Dean of the Confucius Institute at China Institute
China Institute

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