Studying Manchu

Over the summer, an e-mail went around to the linguistics grad students and undergrads advertising a course entitled Qing History Through Manchu Sources. It was essentially a Manchu language course, being taught by a visiting scholar in the history department. The phrases “re-creating the pedagogical experience of a Qing Manchu class” and “the final examination will be modeled on the Qing translation examinations” were very enticing. I tried to persuade some of my colleagues to give in to tem...