A student of Chinese, no matter for how long she or he has been studying the language, is often intimidated by a library of Chinese materials. Locating a source in a congshu 叢書 or looking up an entry in a reference tool may turn out to be a very difficult task to perform if one is lacking confidence, and confidence can be acquired only through practice. For this reason, this is a highly practical course, not recommended for those students who may not attend class regularly. 

A sound knowledge of Chinese, or Japanese, or Korean is mandatory in order to successfully complete this course.

This course is a fundamental introduction to the use of Chinese source materials and it is devided into three parts. Part 1 delves into the sources and reference tools for philological and bibliographical research and textual criticism; part 2 explores the sources and reference tools for research in ancient history and special subjects and part 3 deals with the sources and reference tools for biography, geography and government in ancient China.

This course runs March 7- May 30 (Spring semester 2022). Graduate students who meet the language requirements are welcome to enroll in the E-learning Moodle platform for this course.