After lots of searching around and trying to figure out 1) what I was interested in about the far east and 2) what actually had enough information for me to knock out 4 pages, I've come to this conclusion:
Although the printing press is largely thought of as a
Western convention, it was Eastern Asia that pioneered the first breakthroughs
and early triumphs in print because of a large and diverse system of religions
that was focused on preserving and making accessible and standard copies of
important literary and artistic works.
I think this is what thrilled me the most about the non-european subject matter - granted, the Gutenberg Bible was one of the first books printed through a printing press in the West - is that all of the religions in Asia (Buddhism, Confucians, and Taoists) all provided a great deal of backing behind the printing movement. Did I state that clearly and concisely in a way that Dr. Burton's helper guide makes sense with? Help is always welcome!
EDIT:
So after staying up to finish a lab for CS235 yesterday/today, I fell asleep about 3/4 of the way through the lab on the couch in my kitchen. Not a good spot to have my alarms get me up to get to class for peer editing... so I'm just going to post my rough draft here and hopefully I can get some feedback! Rough drafts make more sense to me if I do them in a kind of outline form, so writing the paper is just as easy as filling in the "Therefores" and stuff like that. 355 words in an outline should easily pop up to 800.
EDIT:
So after staying up to finish a lab for CS235 yesterday/today, I fell asleep about 3/4 of the way through the lab on the couch in my kitchen. Not a good spot to have my alarms get me up to get to class for peer editing... so I'm just going to post my rough draft here and hopefully I can get some feedback! Rough drafts make more sense to me if I do them in a kind of outline form, so writing the paper is just as easy as filling in the "Therefores" and stuff like that. 355 words in an outline should easily pop up to 800.
Learning Outcome: History - Students can characterize historical
periods from antiquity through the
Renaissance and identify and discuss representative texts,
cultures, events, and figures.
Sources:
· Pak, Pyong-son. Korean Printing from Its Origins to 1910. Seoul: Jimoondang, 2003. Print.
Intro:
o
“Hook”:
o
Thesis: Although the printing press is largely
thought of as a Western convention, it was Eastern Asia that pioneered the
first breakthroughs and early triumphs in print because of a large and diverse
system of religions that was focused on preserving and making standard and
accessible copies of important literary and artistic works.
·
Body:
o
Points
§
Early woodblock printing
·
Sutra in Korea, 750 CE
o
First known printed object
·
Buddhist prayer in Japan by empress wu
o
Presumably printed almost 1 million times
·
Diamond Sutra in China – first book
o
Buddha picture at front
o
Mixture of Buddhist and Confucian ideals
·
Effect on culture, especially in Korea (book source) (common theme)
·
10th – 11th century, used
for scholar officials
o
Includes a huge amount of the Chinese canon
§
All Confucian standard works
§
Tons of Buddhist and Daoist works
§
Standard Histories (Sima Qian)
·
China
o
Mostly religious works for the priestly class
§
Moveable type
·
China pioneers with ceramics, but too fragile
o
Also way too many characters for practical use
·
Korea creates brass moveable type
o
A couple decades before Gutenburg
o
Currently using Chinese alphabet
o
Develop new alphabet to fix the problem
o
^ right about time Gutenburg press comes out
§
Color illustrations
·
Japan
o
1740
o
Mostly printed Buddhist drawings with woodblock
before
o
Secular demand for pics of actors and such
o
Made multiple blocks, one for each color
o
Develops into commercialized color printing
·
Europe adopts art styles in 19th
century
o
Counter argument and rebuttal
§
When European printing gets the credit:
·
Gutenburg created the “press” pressure
·
Might say that Europeans perfected the art
§
But…
·
Europeans took the basis of the other prints
(woodblock)
o
Early 1400s
·
Had 2000 years of alphabet to work with
·
Conclusion
o
(thesis with new evidence)
o
Reach conclusion that it was East Asia that
formed the basis of print
This should be a cool paper when it is done. Here are a few of my thoughts on it.
ReplyDeleteComments on the thesis: I'm not exactly sure what you're arguing. The first half makes it seem like you are arguing that "East Asia invented the printing press first," but the second half makes it seem like you are arguing that "East Asia invented the printing press because of their religion." In your conclusion part you say "East Asia formed the basis of print," which sounds more like the first one. The thing about the first argument is that it is simply a fact. Asia invented the printing press first--there isn't any argument about that. Are you trying to argue that the Asian printing press was the influence for the European one? The second argument sounded quite interesting to me, but I couldn't tell if that was what you were going for.
Comments on the Body: You actually look like you might have a little bit too much evidence for this length of paper. This is an argument, so for all of your evidence you are going to have to explain to your reader why the evidence supports your argument. Remember that your reader will not necessarily see connections that you see unless you explain them.
Thanks Diane. I tried to take some of what you said and put it into this:
ReplyDeleteAlthough the printing press is largely thought of as a Western cultural convention, it was the unique culture of Eastern Asia that pioneered the first breakthroughs in print because of a diverse system of religions that was focused on preserving and providing accessible copies of important literary and artistic works.
I guess I'm trying to persuade people that the culture of Eastern Asia allowed it to be the first place that print developed. I tried to make that a bit more clear in this new thesis.
Yes, I do think this is a little clearer. I suppose you've already turned it in, but I hope writing it went well.
ReplyDelete