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Academic Year 2000/2001

Representing China
EAST 311 FA

This course will introduce perspectives that anthropologists, ethnographers, writers, film makers, artists and photographers have taken to understand contemporary social life in China. Students will learn to differentiate the strengths and weaknesses of each perspective and at the same time develop their own nuanced appreciation for Chinese culture and recent Chinese history. Beginning with basic concepts of family and family relationships, we will survey gift-giving and banqueting, changes in the role and status of women, education, organization of the workplace, rituals, festivals and changes since the beginning of the "reform and opening up" in the early 1980s. Anthropological essays and ethnographies will be supplemented by short stories, first-person narratives and class presentations of films, photographs and art works to illuminate the different ways that natives and foreigners represent Chinese culture. Lectures will provide cultural and historical context for these materials. No pre vious knowledge of China or Chinese is required for this class.

MAJOR READINGS

Margery Wolf, THE HOUSE OF LIM: A STUDY OF A CHINESE FARM FAMILY, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1968; Jun Jing, THE TEMPLE OF MEMORIES: HISTORY, POWER AND MORALITY IN A CHINESE VILLAGE, Stanford: Stanford Univ. 1996; Yan Yunxiang, THE FLOW OF GIFTS: RECIPROCITY AND SOCIAL NETWORKS IN A CHINESE VILLAGE, Stanford: Stanford, 1996.

We will also be reading selections from the following:
Bruun, Ole, BUSINESS AND BUREAUCRACY IN A CHINESE CITY: AN ETHNOGRAPHY OF PRIVATE BUSINESS HOUSEHOLDS IN CONTEMPORARY CHINA,(China Research Monograph, 43), New York: Institute of East Asian Studies, 1993; Fei Xiaotong, FROM THE SOIL: THE FOUNDATIONS OF CHINESE SOCIETY, Berkeley:California, 1992 [1947], "The Morality of Personal Relationships", "Patrilineages," "Consanguineity and Regionalism"; Flower, John and Pamela Leonard, "Defining Cultural Life in the Chinese Countryside: The Case of The Chuan Zhu temple," in E. B. Vesmeer, Frank Pieke and Woei-lian Chang, eds., COOPERATIVE AND COLLECTIV E IN CHINA'S RURAL DEVELOPMENT : BETWEEN STATE AND PRIVATE INTERESTS, Armonk, N.Y. :M.E. Sharpe, c1998, pp. 273-290; Freedman, Maurice, THE STUDY OF CHINESE SOCIETY, Stanford: Stanford, 1979; Frolic, B. Michael, MAO'S PEOPLE: SIXTEEN PORTRAITS OF LIFE IN REVOLUTIONARY CHINA, Cambridge: Harvard, 1980; Harrel, Stevan, "Introduction: Civilizing Projects and the Reaction to Them," in Stevan Harrel, ed., CULTURAL ENCOUNTERS ON CHINA'S ETHNIC FRONTIERS, Seattle: Univ. of Washington, 1994; Honig, Emily and Hersh atter, Gail, PERSONAL VOICES: CHINESE WOMEN IN THE 1980'S, Stanford: Stanford, 1988; Liu Xinwu, "The Bell and the Drum Tower," in Chen Jianing, ed., THEMES IN CONTEMPORARY CHINESE LITERATURE, Beijing: New World Press, 1993. pp. 93-204; Parish, William L. and Martin K. Whyte, "Interfamily Relations," in VILLAGE
AND CONTEMPORARY CHINA, Chicago, 1978: 200-34; Watson, Rubie S., "Afterword," in Rubie Watson and Patricia Buckley Ebrey,eds., MARRIAGE AND INEQUALITY IN CHINESE SOCIETY, Berkeley: California, 19 91, pp. 347-368; Wolf, Margery, "Sharing a Stove: Rural Domestic Relations," in Margery Wolf, REVOLUTION POSTPONED, WOMEN AND SOCIETY IN CONTEMPORARY CHINA, Stanford, 1984, pp. 203-37.

EXAMINATIONS AND ASSIGNMENTS

Three papers.

ADDITIONAL REQUIREMENTS and/or COMMENTS

Participation in web-based discussion board.

COURSE FORMAT: Lecture/Discussion

REGISTRATION INFORMATION

Level: UGRD    Credit: 1    Gen Ed Area Dept: NONE    Grading Mode: Student Option   

Prerequisites: NONE Links to Web Resources For This Course.

Last Updated on MAR-26-2001

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