China: Culture and Society

China: Culture and Society is a collection of pamphlets digitized from the Charles W. Wason Collection on East Asia at the Carl A. Kroch Library at Cornell University. It is an essential resource for scholars, educators, and students interested in the rich cultural history of China. This online resource includes 1,200 pamphlets bound in 220 volumes, dating from 1750 to 1929, which is written mostly in English by academics, diplomats, merchants, missionaries, and travelers. Therefore, the materials in this collection depict Chinese history and culture from a primarily Western perspective. Material types include speeches, annual reports, catalogues, essays, guides and manuals, journals, lecture notes, letters, magazine articles, meeting minutes, notes, and records, etc.   

The website is easily navigated, with the menu at the top divided between “Introduction,” “View Documents,” “Searching Guide,” "Visual Resources," and “Research Tools.” The "View Documents" section displays all 1,248 digital documents of The Wason Pamphlet Collection, the pamphlets in each original volume have no logical relationship with one another and thus it was previously difficult for students and scholars to use them to conduct research. China: Culture and Society solves this problem as users can view the entire collection in alphabetical order, filtered by date or sorted into 21 themes (such as arts and artefacts, education, faith and philosophy, trade, industry and commerce, and more) using the advanced search feature. Users can also examine the metadata on individual pamphlets by clicking the images of documents. By looking at those pamphlets, students not only can understand different aspects of history and culture of the people of China and foreign involvement there, but they can also see how westerners described China in the past, and how foreigners understood China historically. Most importantly, students can learn about how offensive language, othering stereotypes and terminology included in these pamphlets reflected westerners' racism. 

Of particular appeal is the "Visual Resources" section, which allows users to view particular image type by selecting the "Image Type" filter on the sidebar. The tab not only displays a significant proportion of the illustrations, artwork, photographs, maps, and cover designs, but also allows downloading of images and creating personalized collections and slide shows. Under the section "Research Tools," the tab of "content guides" and "essays" provides brief introductions to the Wason Pamphlet Collection and some of the key topics and events covered in the collection, reflecting the thematic diversity of the pamphlets, including education, emigration, foreign presence, missionaries, wars, rebellion, reform, opium, healthcare and language. The tab "Popular Searches" provides a site that lists the authors, places and keywords occurring frequently in the documents to guide users quickly finding resources. 

In summary, China: Culture and Society is an important project that aims to help scholars and students of China and East Asia access the Wason Pamphlet Collection and also will facilitate interdisciplinary research in the humanities and social sciences.  These rare pamphlets form part of one of the deepest and most extensive collections of literature on China and the Chinese in the Western world, it covers a broad range of themes concerning Chinese culture, history, religion, everyday life and foreign involvement in the country, and constitute a rich resource for students and teachers in numerous disciplines, from undergraduate level research and beyond.