Nature and Environment in China

Focuses on the late imperial period with forays into the modern area. Explores how Chinese states and people related to and shaped their environments, which, in turn, shaped China. Considers the degree to which China’s long environmental history has integrated with global trends and ponders the historical experiences and precedents we bring to today’s environmental challenges. Explores the diverse ways in which scholars study China’s environmental history and conceptions of nature, including the use of digital humanities tools for visualizing data and analyzing geography.

Related Subjects

Offered Spring 2025

Catalog Subject Faculty Level HASS Category
21H.154

Inventing the Samurai

TR 9:30-11, 26-168
Hiromu Nagahara Introductory HASS-H
21H.352 21G.042

Three Kingdoms: From History to Fiction, Comic, Film, and Game

TR 1-2:30, 14E-310
Emma Teng Seminar HASS-H
21H.354

World War II in Asia

T 1-4, 1-136
Hiromu Nagahara Seminar HASS-H

Not Offered This Term

Catalog Subject Faculty Level HASS Category
21H.107 21G.043

From Yellow Peril to Model Minority: Asian American History to 1968

Emma Teng
Introductory HASS-H
21H.151

Dynastic China

Tristan Brown Introductory HASS-H
21H.152

Modern China

Tristan Brown
Introductory HASS-H
21H.155

Modern Japan: 1600 to Present

Hiromu Nagahara Introductory HASS-H
21H.156 21G.045

Global Chinese Food: A Historical Overview

Not offered regularly; consult department
Staff Introductory HASS-H
21H.157

Modern South Asia

Sana Aiyar Introductory HASS-S
21H.185 12.386 STS.031

Environment and History

Not offered regularly; consult department
Staff Introductory HASS-S CI-H
21H.187

US Environmental Governance: from National Parks to the Green New Deal

Megan A. Black Introductory HASS-H
21H.247

Looking East/Looking West

Catherine Clark
Hiromu Nagahara
Intermediate HASS-H
21H.253 21G.075

Global Chinese Migration, 1567- Present

Not offered regularly; consult department
Emma Teng Intermediate HASS-H
21H.350

Business in China Since 1800

Not offered regularly; consult department
Staff Seminar HASS-H
21H.351 11.153

Shanghai and China’s Modernization

Not offered regularly; consult department
Staff Seminar HASS-H
21H.357

South Asian Migrations

Sana Aiyar Seminar HASS-H
21H.380 U 21A.411 U 21H.980 G 21A.419 G

People and Other Animals

Not offered regularly; consult department
Staff Graduate
Seminar
HASS-S
21H.981

Seminar in Nature, Environment, and Empire

Not offered regularly; consult department
Staff Graduate
21H.989 G

Histories of Extraction and Mining

Megan A. Black Graduate
21H.990 STS.432

Narrating the Anthropocene: Understanding a Multi-Species Universe

Megan A. Black
Kate Brown
Graduate