A Cultural History of Late 20th c. China
(HIST471)
Professor Susan Fernsebner
Office: Monroe 208-C
Phone: 654-1473
Email: sfernseb@umw.edu
Office Hours: Mon 3-5 pm.
Introduction. Welcome to a course that embraces a dual intent: to examine the method of cultural history while engaging in a study of the People’s Republic of China in the decades leading up to the current millennium. Rather than focus upon a cordoned realm of political history, social history, or economic history, this class investigates all of these realms (and more) through the lens of cultural production – through fiction, cinema, photographic images and pop posters, as well as street fashion and the vast debris of day-to-day television and internet noise.
By examining the cultural history of the PRC in the late 20th century, we’ll pursue a view of modern China that standard textbooks often fail to offer. We will also explore the possibilities and complexities of the realm of “cultural history” itself as a category of analysis. As cultural history is a category that professional historians are constantly debating, discussing and revising, you’ll be an active participant in the course of creating (and testing) your own approach. Run with it: investigate, experiment, raise questions, test hypotheses and play.
Policies. This course is a workshop in which students should be talking to each other about the material they have encountered or discovered. All students should come to class ready to help lead discussion.
- Be prepared to take notes on your readings, to discuss your ideas in class and to suggest new perspectives on our material.
- Be prepared to raise questions and ask them of classmates – questions that we will consider, discuss, debate, and explore…
Required Texts
Linda Benson. China Since 1949. Longman and Pearson, 2002.
Michael Dutton. Streetlife China. Cambridge UP, 1998.
Harriet Evans and Stephanie Donald. Picturing Power in the People’s Republic of China. Rowman and Littlefield, 1999.
Mo Yan. Red Sorghum. Penguin Books, 1994.
All additional readings (essays and articles) will be available at our course Blackboard page or at online websites noted below.
Grading
20% Participation / Blogs
25% Paper 1
25% Paper 2
30% Research Project:
- Presentation 5%
- Written Paper 25% (10-12 pages)
Participation. All students are expected to be active and vocal participants in class discussion. Students who seldom speak or who miss classes are likely to receive a failing grade for participation. Ungraded assignments also are considered part of your participation performance. Remember that class is a workshop – thinking aloud, experimenting with ideas, and developing analytical skills in a friendly environment is the aim.
Blogs. This course is a workshop, and good research and analysis is always a process of dialogue, creative experimentation, collaboration and exchange. All students in the course will be required to compose entries for their own web-logs at least once a week, and as otherwise assigned, and are encouraged to contribute comments for classmates’ blogs. Entries should begin with the second week of classes.
The blog is at heart a log of the thinking, conjectures and analysis you are building over the course of the semester. It also should function as a diary of your own research topic as you explore it, of the primary and secondary sources you encounter, practical problems and particularly your own exploration of ideas as you develop your project to its conclusion. For more on this assignment, see this link.
Papers 1 and 2. 4-6 pages, based upon a topic assignment provided one week in advance.
Research Project and Presentation. The research paper allows students to explore an issue in greater detail, and to share these issues and related material with the workshop. Classmates will contribute their own creativity and analytical skills in the course of the project and presentation, helping to raise good questions, provide feedback and strengthen analysis…
The presentation must include either a brief reading sample distributed in advance, an image, or a video clip for discussion. Students in class will be expected to ask questions and offer analytical suggestions, not simply to passively listen…
See our assignments page for more detail.
Late Policy: All papers are due at the start of class or by the deadline noted in the syllabus. Late papers will be graded a full grade off (10 points) for each day late, including the day on which they are due, and must be submitted electronically, by email.
Honor Code
The Honor Code is an integral part of one’s collegiate education at Mary Washington. Those who do cheat or plagiarize will be subject to disciplinary action and will have their cases brought before the Honor Council. It is important, however, to recognize the difference between such compromises of academic integrity and the very constructive experience of sharing and commenting upon one’s academic work with classmates, friends, and family. If you have any questions about these matters, feel free to contact me at anytime.
Disability Services
The Office of Disability Services has been designated by the University as the primary office to guide, counsel, and assist students with disabilities. If you already receive services through the Office of Disability Services and require accommodations for this class, make an appointment with me as soon as possible to discuss your approved accommodation needs. Please bring your accommodation letter with you to the appointment. I will hold any information you share with me in the strictest confidence unless you give me permission to do otherwise.
If you have not contacted the Office of Disability Services and need accommodations, (note taking assistance, extended time for tests, etc.), I will be happy to refer you. The office will require appropriate documentation of disability. Their phone number is 540-654-1266.
Final note: this syllabus is an open document, subject to change and open to input as the semester progresses – stay tuned!
Week 1 – 1/14: Course Intro: The Art of the Workshop
Workshop Focus: Introduction to Key Themes and Tools
Reading Assignment: Explore the following website for both a look at the People’s Republic today, and for a global perspective -
http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/-/world/east-asia/china/
Note: if you have a portable computer, and are comfortable traveling with it, do bring it to class today. We’ll be setting up online links and blogs.
Week 2 - 1/21 – Narratives (and Counter-Narratives) of the People’s Republic
Workshop Focus: Categories of historical perspective, constructing our own narrative of the People’s Republic of China.
Reading: Benson (all)
Assignment: Compose a 2-page (max.) outline of the history of the People’s Republic of China. Use this outline to explore the following:
- key issues and moments in this historical narrative presented
- the categories of perspective or lines of focus offered in the narrative provided (e.g., politics, society, gender…) What categories are covered? what categories are not?
- what are the key questions this text answers? What questions remain to be asked?
Week 3 – 1/28 – Introduction to the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution
PROJECT PROPOSALS DUE (see below)
Workshop Focus: Documentary: “Morning Sun” (d. Carma Hinton, 2003; 117 min.)
Background: http://www.morningsun.org
(film intro: http://www.morningsun.org/film/index.html)
Assignment(s):
a. Viewing Prep: Review Benson’s narrative of the Cultural Revolution. Review our viewing guide handout (distributed in class in week 2) before class.
b. PROJECT PROPOSALS. Two topic ideas to be submitted by email as word processing file attachments to Prof. Fernsebner and shared with classmates by blog, both due by Monday, 1/28, at noon. See assignment page for full details.
Week 4 – 2/4 – Images as History
Workshop Focus: Visual culture as historical evidence, methods of analysis. 2-part session.
a. Discussion of Approach
Readings: Evans and Donald, Picturing Power in the Cultural Revolution (pp.1-61, 101-122; namely the essays by Evans and Donald; Gittings; Clunas; and Chen Xiaomei)
b. Working Session: Visual Analysis
Assignment: Preview images from website(s) below and prepare analysis of one to present online and at our class meeting. (You should post your image and analysis to your blog by noon on Monday, 2/4.)
http://www.iisg.nl/~landsberger/
http://kaladarshan.arts.ohio-state.edu/exhib/poster/exhibintro.html
Week 5 – 2/11 – Memory and History, part 1: A Post-script on the Cultural Revolution
PROJECT SUMMARY AND BIBLIOGRAPHY DUE
Film and Discussion: “In the Heat of the Sun” (d. Jiang Wen, 1994)
Readings:
Braester, Yomi. “Memory at a Standstill: From Maohistory to Hooligan History.” In Braester, Witness Against History: Literature, Film, and Public Discourse in Twentieth-Century China. (Stanford UP, 2003): 192-205.
Assignment: Project summary and annotated bibliography of sources (min. number of required sources: 20.) See assignment page for more details. To be emailed to professor by noon.
Week 6 – 2/18 – Memory and History, part 2: Revisiting Chinese Nationalism
Reading and Discussion: Red Sorghum (full)
Week 7 – 2/25 – On the Ground at Tiananmen, 1989
PAPER ONE DUE (hardcopy, at start of class)
In-class Documentary: “The Gate of Heavenly Peace” (d. Carma Hinton, 1995.)
Background: documentary website available at http://www.tsquare.tv/
Week 8:
SPRING BREAK (3/3-3/7)
Week 9 – 3/10 – Popular Culture in the 1980s and 1990s
Workshop focus: discussion of research projects and an exploration of sonic evidence and musical culture as a focus of historical investigation. 2-part session.
a. Project Reports
To Prepare: All classmates will offer a 2 min. update in class and at their blogs, updating workshop colleagues on the development of one’s project and continued concerns for pursuit.
Focus for your discussion should be both analytical concerns – an opportunity to share an ‘under-construction’ thesis – and also practical concerns for advice re: the research and writing process.
Final Presentation schedule to be determined by lottery at today’s meeting.
b. Discussion: Music as History
Assignment: 1-2 page written analysis. Find sample, and bring to class for listening, of a piece of music that is worthy of historical attention. (See assignment page for more details.)
Note: be prepared to share your analysis and the sonic sample with the class (music samples required, either though open online access or as a compact disc to be played in class.)
Readings:
Marie Claire Huot, “Rock Music from Mao to Nirvana,” in China’s New Cultural Scene: A Handbook of Changes (Duke UP, 2000): 154-181.
Jeroen de Kloet, “Marx or Market: Chinese Rock and the Sound of Fury,” in Jenny Kwok Wah Lau, ed., Multiple Modernities: Cinemas and Popular Media in Transcultural East Asia (Temple UP, 2003): 28-52.
Listening Assignment: See write-up and samples offered by Matthew Corbin Clark at the China in the Red Website – “Birth of a Beijing Music Scene”. Link: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/red/sonic/
Week 10 – 3/17 – Globalization, Capitalism, and the People’s Republic
Workshop focus: What are the implications of a communist state’s embrace of capitalist reform? Welcome to a fin-de-siècle People’s Republic…
Readings:
David S. G. Goodman, “The People’s Republic of China: the Party-state, Capitalist Revolution and New Entrepreneurs,” in The New Rich in Asia: Mobile Phones, McDonalds and Middle-Class Revolution (Routledge, 1996): 225-242.
Geremie Barmé. “CCPTM & Adcult PRC,” in Barmé, In the Red: On Contemporary Chinese Culture (Columbia UP, 1999): 235-254.
Michael Dutton. Streetlife China, “Streetlife Subalterns,” pp.1-15, 42-53, 62-74, 130-152, 214-237, 273-284.
Background: Review Benson on the post-1978 reform period.
Reading guide:
- What are the changes that “reform” has brought to China? Tensions?
- Where do these three authors find their evidence? What perspectives or insights do their analyses offer?
- What further questions might we ask? What issues should those who study China be watching in the current day?
Week 11 – 3/24 – Underground with a Floating Population
Film and Discussion: “Blind Shaft” (d. Li Yang, 2003; 92 min.)
Reading: “Time as Money: A Shenzhen Hooker,” in Sang Ye, China Candid: People on the People’s Republic of China (Berkeley: UC Press, 2006): 195-205.
Viewing Assignment: “China in the Red” (d. Sue Williams, 2003). Available to view online at: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/red/
Week 12 – 3/31 – Workshop
PAPER 2 DUE
(Workshop Agenda to be announced.)
Week 13 – 4/ 7 – Final Presentations
Week 14 – 4/14 – Final Presentations
Week 15 – 4/21 – Final Presentations
RESEARCH PAPER DUE (all students)
